[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- my name is clay wolf.
I build houses for a living, and I'm a part-time bladesmith.
I got into smithing by watching the competition.
So I bought a forge, and then I started
doing my own at-home competitions with myself.
I set a three-hour alarm,
and I make random parameters for myself,
and I go at it.
♪ ♪
- my name's chad morton.
I'm a registered nurse and a baptist minister.
Nursing can be very mentally taxing sometime.
So that's what I love about forging--
I can let the brain go,
get out there, and get a little hammer therapy.
I started watching "forged in fire" with the kids,
and they loved it, and they kept asking,
"dad, when are you gonna go on?"
♪ ♪
- my name is andrew cole glaser.
I'm a part-time bladesmith,
and I'm also a volunteer fireman for the community.
If I win, that'd be awesome.
I can use $10,000...
After I get an okay from my wife about how I use I.
I'm a kept man.
What I do is what my wife tells me to do.
If she says, "build a fence," I build a fence.
If she says, "build a house," I build a house.
And if she says, "go on 'forged in fire,'"
I go on "forged in fire."
♪ ♪
- I'm devon chatterley. I'm 29 years old.
I am an active national guardsman
and I'm a part-time bladesmith.
I need to come in here gung ho, full focus.
I'm ready to become the next "forged in fire" champion
and join the other winners before me.
♪ ♪
- bladesmiths, welcome to the forge.
♪ ♪
the four of you are about to take part
in three very intense rounds of forging competition,
where we're gonna put your skills to the test.
At the end of each round, you're gonna present your work
to our panel of expert judges, who will be the ones decidig
which three of you will be leaving the forge empty-handed
and who's gonna be leaving here
with the title of "forged in fire" champion
and a check for $10,000.
The judges for today's competition are...
Abs master smith j. Neilson,
historic weapons re-creation specialist dave baker,
and edge weapon specialist and kali martial artist
doug marcaida.
Now, guys, you might have noticed
that it is absolutely frigid in here.
That's because today in the forge,
we are paying tribute to some cold-weather warriors
who have been fighting the ice for centuries.
This is a competition we are calling arctic forge.
In this first round of competition,
we're gonna ask you to re-create a blade
that has been used by alaskan natives for centuries.
Now, that blade is...
♪ ♪
the ulu.
♪ ♪
- the ulu is a knife used by the inuit people
of arctic regions of greenland, canada, and alaska.
This versatile blade is extremely practical
for surviving life in the frigid tundra
and can be used for anything from skinning animals
to cutting through ice.
The ulu also holds important cultural value as well.
The inuit people traditionally passed down these knives
from generation to generation, believing that the blades
contained the knowledge of their ancestors.
♪ ♪
- when you're building your ulus,
I want you to meet these parameters.
You need to have a crescent-shaped cutting ede
that measures between seven and eight inches.
And you also must have a fully enclosed full tang handle.
Now, you guys are probably thinking,
"what am I gonna make my ulu out of?"
well, that answer lies at your workstations.
♪ ♪
on top of your tables, you have a tarp.
Go ahead and remove that for me.
♪ ♪
what you guys have there is a great piece
of high-carbon steel in the form of a ball bearing,
but, unfortunately, it's frozen in a block of ice.
Well, we've got a solution for you.
Next to that block of ice,
there is a cylinder of mild steel.
We want you guys to take that mild steel,
make a tool, and break the ball bearing free.
But keep in mind, you cannot use a hammer,
you cannot throw the ice block on the ground.
You have to make a tool, and you have to use that tol
to break your ball bearing free.
Now, in round two of the competition,
you're gonna add handles to your blades,
turning them into fully functioning ulus.
At that point, you're gonna turn them into the judges,
and they'll test for strength and durability
in a moose antler punch.
Then we're gonna check the edge retention
in an alaskan salmon slice.
And you've only got three hours.
Good luck. Your time starts now.
♪ ♪
ice cold, boys!
♪ ♪
so this is kind of a dual forging competitio,
where they've got to not only build a tool
to get their steel,
then they have to make the ulu itself.
That's gonna be rough.
- I got my mild steel in the forge.
I decide to make a little hammer out of it.
Simple as that.
- Basically, just make a mace.
Make a short mace.
Leave one end of it fat,
draw a little handle onto it.
Whackity, whackity, whackity.
- It's not gonna be perfect. It just needs to be functional.
[dramatically] it's a little hammer!
♪ ♪
- easy, psycho!
- [laughs] - there you go.
- Good lord! - There we go.
- Once I see that ball slides around, I grab it
and I run back to the forge.
Whoo!
♪ ♪
- my plan with the mild steel is
to forge out a pick.
I just need it to be long enough to hold on to
and have a sharp point so I can really, really attack that ice.
- Andrew went straight for big blu.
That's a smart move.
- I don't like to spend a lot of time running around
when I do these kinds of things.
I like to take my time.
I like to think about what I'm gonna do.
When you're old, you don't have that much energy,
so you need to conserve it.
- Here we go.
- I get the ball bearing out.
It's really cold.
I'm a little worried about that,
but I don't have time to let it warm up or anythin.
I just have to get it into the forge.
- Taking that ball of steel and just throwing it
in the forge is probably not the best idea.
- What could happen?
- It could shock it, fracture it
to the point where you can't even fix it.
♪ ♪
- my plan is to make a small hammer
out of the mild steel and go right at it.
I need to get my ball bearing out of the ice quickly.
52100, it takes a long time to heat up.
- Clay is on the ice block, and it's working pretty quick.
- I broke out my ball bearing relatively fast.
I'm feeling really good right now.
♪ ♪
- coming to the forge is a little intimidating,
to, you know, come to these tools I'm not familiar with.
Getting there.
I'm gonna take this piece of mild steel,
and I'm gonna forge it into a little wedge axe head
and just start whacking at it.
♪ ♪
- well, you see on his ice block there,
how it's got those big fractures running through it?
Attack the fracture.
You attack the fracture,
and it'll spread through the entire thing.
- It's just taking forever. [sighs deeply]
and it's just beating my hand up.
- Chad's getting close to almost a half an hour
of just trying to get this ball out of the block of ice.
- There we go. - There we go!
- Finally, lo and behold, it's free.
But I'm so tired.
I'm a little bit further behind everybody els,
but think I might still be okay.
I'm gonna get this done no matter what.
♪ ♪
- whoo-whee! You look purty hot!
I pull out the ball bearing.
I think that it's hot enough.
As I do the first press,
I just hear it stalling on me.
- Look how cold devon's ball bearing is.
- It's not hot enough.
- That's the one thing you don't want to do.
- Stressing it out.
- That is a lot of steel.
I've already wasted so much time,
so I come to the quick decision.
I'm like, "you know what? I can lose some of it."
- he's gonna be there for the rest of the challenge.
- Yeah. - Those are solid.
- I severely underestimated
how cold and how big this ball bearing is.
This is not working, so I just figured,
"I'm gonna go stick it back in the forge, heat it up again,
"and just take this a little bit at a time
and just be patient."
I finally get it hot enough, and I finally cut it through.
♪ ♪
finally!
I got to heat it back up, and I got to start moving metal
faster than ever now.
Time is super against me.
♪ ♪
- right now I'm just working on flattening out the stock
so that I'll have enough area, enough space
to start working in a blade form.
- Andrew's also got a nice piece
of a nice wide billet right now.
- Now that I'm done drawing this thing out,
I know that it's way bigger than I need for this ulu,
so it's time to cut it down.
♪ ♪
at this point in the round,
I know that I've probably done things right,
but the clock is really ticking down.
I still have to draw out what I have left
into the general shape of an ulu,
which means I still have a lot of forging to do.
♪ ♪
- this ball bearing is way too much steel for this ulu,
so my plan is, draw it out,
take it over to the chop saw,
cut some of it off, and I get it thinner.
Otherwise, I'm working a lot of extra steel
that I'm not gonna use.
- Well, chad's making some progress.
Definitely lagging behind a little.
- So my plan is to draw this out
to 1/2 inch thick before I take it over to the chop saw.
Huh...
I'm trying to cut through the bearing.
It's cutting about halfway through it.
- Come on.
- I finally get the good sense to turn it upright.
It cuts through it like a dream, slow and steady.
I am relieved to be done with the stupid chop saw.
- Bladesmiths, you guys are halfway through round one!
You've got an hour and 30 minutes remaining!
♪ ♪
what is it about the ulu
that makes this such a difficult blade to make?
- Having to actually wrap this all the way around and make it
one solid homogenous piece of steel is tricky,
and not a lot of smiths do it.
- This blade is very unique
because the handle is on top of the blade
instead of off to the side.
It's gonna be difficult putting a handle on.
It's gonna be difficult getting the shape there.
Come on.
I'm going to draw a handle out the side,
and then fold it back around onto itself
and weld it in place.
- They don't actually need to make, per se,
a blade starting out.
Just take that ball bearing, draw it out into a sheet,
and then cut it out, torch it out, grind it ou,
however you want to do it.
♪ ♪
- I'm struggling with how I want to fold it over
to make it look like the ulu.
[sighs] shoot, shoot, shoot.
- It looks like clay is trying to get that tang up
to one side or the other, and it's having trouble.
It's kind of stuck in the middle.
- I eventually get the uprights in the place I wanted them to
so I can bend the top down right where I needed it,
and got them forge welded.
I'm feeling really good right now.
♪ ♪
- I'm looking at my steel.
I'm getting the basic shape I need.
Now I just got to figure out,
how am I going to attack getting a hole in this thing
for a hand to sit comfortably in?
I decide I'm gonna have to cut it on the angle grinde.
- I'd still prefer to use the hot wrench
and just blow the hole out.
- It seems like it'd be the fastest.
- I've been wasting so much time
just trying to get this hole out.
I know the time's counting down.
I've been trying to avoid
cutting through the bridge of this handle,
but it comes to the point where
I need to cut through this handle.
It will completely just ruin
the integrity of the blade, in my opinion.
I finally get the piece I need off.
[sighs] finally.
- Devon's back at the welder.
He's putting that chunk
of handle material that he cut off--
he's welding that back on now.
- The one thing about putting holes into this piece
is that it's got to have enough space
from the knuckles.
Not tiny.
A lot of space.
- It looks good to me. I'm happy with it.
- Bladesmiths, you have one hour remaining!
♪ ♪
- to get the shape that I want,
my plan right now is to draw out this tang,
curl it over, and weld it.
- I think what chad's trying to do is what clay did
and loop it around and make a continuous circle.
- I'm hammering this, and I'm not able to draw it out enough
because it's such tough stuff to work
and my hand's already shot from the ice.
[exhales weakly]
I'm pouring sweat. I'm exhausted.
- Does chad look really pale to you guys?
- Yeah, he does.
- When I finally got the ball bearing out,
I've already used all my energy.
- Now we got the medic moving in.
- How you feeling?
- I'm--I'm a little winded, man.
Physically, I'm exhausted.
I don't know if I can keep going.
Oh, man.
I'm pouring sweat. I'm exhausted.
Uh, I'm exhausted, but I'm all right.
- Okay. All right.
- There's no way I'm giving up,
because my kids are counting on me to do my best.
So what do I think?
What does any redneck think?
Angle grinder.
- He's cutting an angle down this way,
and then he's gonna cut across it.
If he heats that whole tang up,
he can squash it down to be something to hold on to.
- But he's still got a triangular point
that's gonna to be hitting your palm,
so he's gonna have to flatten that out.
- I know it's uglier than si, but I'm still
gonna turn in something that meets parameters.
[rock music]
- I notice that my handle tang got too thin
for what I wanted,
but I don't have time to fix that right now.
- If you notice, he's got a lot of blade
and a long, spindly little handle.
Now, that's gonna roll on your hand
if he doesn't build that up with a lot of handle material.
- I feel my blade, and I notice,
right where the handle connects to the blade,
that there is some sharp corners,
and you don't want sharp corners
because that could cause a stress fracture.
So I got to fill it with some weld.
- That's definitely a smart move.
♪ ♪
- I'm really liking the overall shape of this blade.
And now it's time to move on to punching the hole through it
for the user's hand.
- Looking at andrew's blade,
I think his shape is really nice.
It's just very, very tall.
- Yeah, and having that hole being that size,
if you're going to hit something,
it can flop one way or the other,
depending on the handle construction,
and really mess your hand up.
- The problem with having corners the way I cut them
is that when you quench the blade,
those are stress risers, and it could create a crack
that just completely ruins the edge.
I make the decision to go ahead and weld up the corners,
because I know that if the blade cracks,
welding that will just not work at all.
- All right, guys, we're coming down to the wire!
You have 30 minutes left on the clock!
Devon's actually turned out all right.
- Yeah.
- As I'm getting ready to quench,
I want to make sure I'm only focusing on the edge
that gets hot and not the rest of the material.
If any of the rest of material gets hot,
I don't know what way it can warp,
and I am not prepared for that or have the time to fix tha.
I need this thing to go perfect.
♪ ♪
whoo! - And only quenching the edge.
Smart move. - Nice!
- Good for him. - Smart.
- Lo and behold, no warps. Straight as an arrow.
Now I just need to make sure this sits comfortably
and looks better than it does right now.
♪ ♪
- I'm getting ready to quench, and I realize
that I really have forged the blade pretty thin.
And that could create warping.
♪ ♪
- andrew's in the quench.
- After the quench, I clamp the thing into the vise.
When you do that, it helps to straighten everything ou.
I pull it out of the vise.
The blade is straight.
I'm pretty happy about how that came out.
- Gentlemen, 15 minutes!
♪ ♪
edge quench.
- My blade is straight, and it's hard.
And now I'm off to the grinder.
I need to clean up my blade.
I look down.
♪ ♪
there's a crack.
No, no, no, no. No, no, no. - Ooh.
- I don't have time to fix this in the forge,
so I run over to the welder
and I put a bead of weld along the crack.
- You know, it really makes you wonder
how the ball bearing steel
encased in ice and then thrown into fire
has affected that steel.
You gave them time to start to crack the ice open,
but nobody had the patience to warm it up.
- All right, guys, you got five minutes left!
♪ ♪
- I got a hole cut in this thing already,
but what I'm trying to do right now is widen that hole
so it's more comfortable for somebody to grip as a handle.
But it's not doing what I want it to do.
- There's an opening about yea big.
- I know.
- Like, 2 1/2-, 3-inch triangle.
- I'm shaking.
I'm just shot,
but I need to get it quenched.
♪ ♪
- chad just quenched.
- So now I'm gonna try to do a little bit of rough grinding
to make it look a little less ugly.
Even though I'm exhausted,
I need to suck it up and get it done.
♪ ♪
- five, four,
three, two, one!
Gentlemen, turn off your machines!
Put down your tools!
This round is over!
- [whistles] - well done!
♪ ♪
- at the end of the round, I feel accomplished.
Even though I know I've made a lot of mistakes,
I feel good that I put my best effort in.
I did my best. I finished.
Pretty sure I met parameters. [chuckles]
♪ ♪
- well, bladesmiths, in this first round of competitio,
we were not nice to you.
You should all be proud of your work,
but the time has come for the judges to decide
which three of you will be moving forward
in this competition.
So, clay, are you ready? - Yes, sir.
- Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- all right, clay, the thing about an ulu,
when it meets resistance,
it can move around.
If you move to the second round,
you need to address that.
Right now it's not comfortable to hold on to
'cause it's just very narrow.
Also, at the corner of your blade here,
you have a crack that needs to be addressed.
But you do have a good shape.
Good job.
♪ ♪
- all right, chad, please present your work.
♪ ♪
- all right, chad, this is that ulu-shaped blade
that I was looking to see.
But as it stands right now,
your handle is not really a functional handle.
If you were to move forward,
this would have to be addressed.
It has to be ergonomic.
You have to be able to hang on to it.
And right now that's the biggest issue.
♪ ♪
- andrew, you're up next. Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- andrew, first off, I love the weight of this thing.
That being said, though,
you've got a hole right here
with a crack going 2/3 of the way down.
And on the other side, you've got one
that's maybe about 1/8 of an inch.
If you don't take care of those cracks,
it might just snap completely.
But I like the shape.
I like the weight. Nice job.
♪ ♪
- all right, devon, your turn. Let's see your ulu.
♪ ♪
- all right, devon.
Bingo! Good job.
That's what we're looking for.
The only concerns I have are,
if I put my hand in here and squeeze hard,
it's digging into both those fingers.
So having a little bit more room in here
would really be helpful.
But other than that, I think you did a great job.
Nicely done. - Thank you.
♪ ♪
- well, gentlemen, we gave you guys a hard task in round one,
but you fought through the cold, and you battled the ice,
and you all came within parameters.
Three of you are moving forward in this competition.
The judges have made their decision.
The bladesmith leaving the forge is...
♪ ♪
chad.
Unfortunately, your ulu did not make the cut.
- Chad, you fought hard.
This was a difficult challenge.
But at the end of the day,
the ergonomics of your handle will require the most work
compared to the other blades,
and that's the reason we're sending you home.
- Thank you, sir.
- Chad, man, you fought hard, all the way to the bitter end,
but, unfortunately, the time has come.
I'm gonna have to ask you to please surrender your work
and leave the forge.
♪ ♪
- I have no regrets leaving here.
I accomplished what I try to instill in my kids--
finishing what you started, not giving up,
digging deep when you feel like you're physically exhausted.
I feel like I put in the effort.
I did my best.
And I don't feel like I'm leaving here a loser today.
♪ ♪
- well, gentlemen, congratulations.
The three of you have made it through round one,
and you're going on to round two of our competition.
In this round, you're gonna fix any issues
that the judges brought up about your blades,
as well as add handles to them,
turning them into fully functioning ulus.
Now, in this round,
the only materials you are allowed to use for your handles
have to be sourced from natural animal materials.
That is antlers, that's bones,
or that is hide or leather.
♪ ♪
now, after this round is complete,
you'll turn your blades in.
We'll check for strength and durability
in a moose antler punch.
Then we're gonna check the edge retention
in an alaskan salmon slice.
You have two hours on the clock.
Good luck. Your time starts now.
♪ ♪
we've given them only natural animal materials
for the handles.
What options would you guys be going for?
- If I had the choice, I'd be going with antler
just 'cause it's durable
and it puts up with a lot of stress.
♪ ♪
- the biggest thing on my mind at the start of round two
is trying to fix my handle.
I'm going to cut a piece of angle iron,
form it to shape,
and then weld it onto my tang.
- Well, looks like clay is taking cladding
on both sides of his handle,
strengthening it up, beefing it up.
- That's definitely a smart move.
- I get all six pieces welded on.
And then
I know I have to tackle the cracks next.
The cracks on my blade are right where my tang connects
to my blade.
That's a very crucial point.
It is where all the stress from the punches is gonna go.
What I'm gonna do is wrap my blade
in a very wet towel,
try to keep it as cool as I possibly can,
and then just lightly weld the cracks.
The last thing I need to happen is ruin my heat treat.
I'm feeling pretty good about the cracks.
I got a lot of stuff to do still.
I don't think I have enough time to do it.
I'm gonna be pushing.
♪ ♪
- what I'm doing to fix the cracks is welding them,
trying to keep the blade as cool as possible,
so as not to ruin the heat treat.
[dramatic musical sting]
that is a huge problem.
- Oh.
- Andrew's blade just cracked again.
- Bad to worse.
As I weld one crack shut,
another crack forms on another part of the knif.
- Why is his thing so brittle?
- Probably because he worked it cold so much
that it's not just the edges that have cracked,
it's the entire structure.
- In real life, you chuck that thing in a barrel,
and you move on.
Here, I don't have that luxury.
I'm very hopeful that I have fixed the cracks
that I have seen in the blad,
but it's time to move on and get on to another problem.
♪ ♪
- dave mentioned that every time he squeezed down
on my handle, it created some kind of a tension.
I'm gonna widen it up a little bit
so that grip can fit more comfortably.
- The nice thing about devon's blade is that,
you know, he's got already the blade in the shape we wanted,
but getting the hand to be comfortable in there
is very important in this particular design.
- As I finish dremeling, I get it all widened up,
it feels comfortable to me.
And now I need to figure out what handle material
that I could actually use.
All right. That will do it.
- All right, gentlemen,
you guys are halfway through round two!
There's 60 minutes remaining!
- Hmm...
How do I want to do this?
My idea for my handle is,
I'm going to use leather,
and I'm gonna make a wrap that goes around my handle.
- The issue I have with what he's doing is not the process.
It's the material that he's using.
Those pieces of leather he's got
are only about 12 inches long,
so you're only gonna get maybe two wraps up out of each.
- What he's got, with small pieces in different sections,
you have peaks and valleys that can create hotspots.
- These strips are not very long.
I don't have anything flat enough
to put a scale of bone or antler on.
So this is my only option, so I have to stick to it.
Work with me here.
- Bladesmiths, you have 30 minutes left!
♪ ♪
- I've got to get holes in the tang
so that I can get a handle on this thing.
[high-pitched whirring]
- ooh.
- Aw, man. What the hell?
I got nothing.
- If that bit isn't going through that steel yet,
it's not going through at all.
- When I quenched my blade, it had flamed up so badly
that I went ahead and quenched the entire knif.
A hard knife is impossible to drill through.
Come on.
I realize that I need to soften it enouh
to get a hole in it.
I heat the tang of the knife up to a really dark blue,
which I think ought to be soft enough.
What do you know?
- There you go.
- Between fixing the cracks,
trying to get a hole through my tang, I'm almost out of time.
I've got to get the scales and the leather that I chose
on the tang
and get the pin through the hole
so that I've had met that parameter at least.
♪ ♪
- I have only, like, two experiences
making natural handles.
I've used bone before.
The problem is, bone is so brittle,
and it's mostly hollow, too,
you don't know the integrity of that handle material.
So I'm gonna be using buffalo horn.
Come on.
My plan for the rest of this round is to make sure
this handle fits comfortably on my ulu
and the edge is as sharp as I can possibly get it.
- Doug, what do you think about edge geometry on the ulu?
- Despite the fact that you have a handle
that looks like it's forward and for punching,
you're still slicing with the curvature of that material,
same thing as you would skin or working.
♪ ♪
- after I got my epoxy set on the handle,
I'm realizing that this is taking a lot more time
than I have available,
and now I need to get right to the grinder
and start shaping my blade.
[bleep].
- Oh.
- The weld that was covering up this crack,
it re-exposed itself.
[bleep] kidding me.
If I don't fix this blade right now,
it could break in testing.
Then I'm done.
♪ ♪
- this could send me home.
I know the only way I can fix it at this point is
weld it shut.
[dramatic music]
all I can do is hope that it's gonna hold strong enough.
♪ ♪
- gentlemen, you have three minutes remaining!
- All I want to do is get a handle on this tang.
I want to get the pin in the hole.
- He's trying to drill his handle scales right now.
- Get it going. - Down to the wire.
- The clock is really ticking down.
We've got minutes left.
- If andrew can pull this off, I'm gonna be impressed.
- I get back to my table just in time
to get the pin stock cut off
and put a couple of clamps on the scales.
I really hope it's good enough.
♪ ♪
- five, four,
three, two, one.
Gentlemen, turn off your machines, put down your tools.
Round two is officially over.
♪ ♪
- I have some real issues with my knife,
but it's always possible that somebody else
is going to have bigger issues than I do,
so it's really all up to chance at this point.
♪ ♪
- all right, gentlemen, it's time for the strength test.
And to keep with our arctic theme,
we're going with the moose antler punch and chop.
Remember, this is not
about what your ulu does to the antler,
but what that antler can do to your ulu.
Clay, you're up first. Are you ready?
- I guess so. - Well, I'm gonna do it anyway.
- Dave's punched me before. It's not that bad.
- [chuckles]
- want me to punch you again?
[laughter]
- I addressed the cracks,
filled them with weld, ground them down,
but they're about to punch my blade into a moose antler.
That's one of the toughest objects out there.
And I don't know if I'll be able to watch when it happens.
♪ ♪
- [grunting]
[rock music]
♪ ♪
- holy sh...
Bleep.
- I take it back.
[scattered laughter]
[dramatic music]
- all right, clay, let's talk about your ulu.
Now, right off, it's got a good cutting edge,
and it didn't lose any of that edge, so that's good.
As far as the handle goes,
it's a rough construction.
Without a glove on,
this is really not a comfortable handle.
There are,
you know, parts that are kind of sticking up.
But it didn't hurt my hand.
Stayed where I wanted it to be.
So good job. - Thank you.
- All right, andrew, you're up. Are you ready?
- Knock it out. - Okay.
♪ ♪
- the idea of smashing the edge of that knife
into a moose antler terrifies me.
I don't know what's going to happen.
It's really all up to chance at this point.
♪ ♪
[knife clatters]
♪ ♪
- so, andrew-- - yeah.
- There are some obvious issues with this.
When you were drilling to mount the handle,
there was some overworking
and not good thermal cycling going on
to reduce that grain structure
and give it the strength that it needs.
Once I hit this face-on, it just cut loose.
♪ ♪
- you good? - Yeah.
- Yeah? - Yeah.
- Well, andrew, that is an absolutely tough break.
Unfortunately, you had a catastrophic failure
in your blade, which means we cannot test your ulu furthe.
Clay, congratulations.
That means you're moving forward
into round three of this competition.
Devon, not quite out of the woods yet.
You got to make it through a solid punch.
Ready? - Yeah, let's get weird.
- All right, let's do it. Dave.
- [chuckles] "get weird."
- careful what you ask for.
- I'm actually really confident in my blade.
I specifically styled my ulu
for these kind of tests coming up.
But anything can happen with the strength test.
[rock music]
♪ ♪
- so, devon, your design is pretty much spot-on for an ulu.
As far as holding up in this test,
you really didn't take in any damage at all.
I feel like I can work with this either skinning
or chopping.
And the blade held up beautifully.
Nicely done. - Thank you.
♪ ♪
- well, gentlemen, you guys all did a great job,
but, andrew, unfortunately, we can't continue testing.
Your time here in the forge has ended, man.
I'm gonna have to ask you to please step out.
- Let the young dogs play.
It wasn't a big shock for me when the blade failed.
There were a lot of things wrong with that blade,
and it would have taken a miracle
for me to be able to get through to the finale.
My wife's been bugging me to make her an ulu,
so when I get home, one of the first things that I'll do
is make a decent ulu that will be useful in the kitchen.
And it's not gonna be used to punch antlers
or do crazy stuff like that.
♪ ♪
- well, gentlemen, congratulations
to the two of you.
You have beat out the competition in the first
and second round of our arctic forge challenge,
which means you're both one step closer
to a check for $10,000
and the title of "forged in fire" champion.
Now, guys, in this final round of competition,
we're gonna be sending you back to your home forges
to build yet another iconic weapon from the ice-cold north.
That weapon is...
♪ ♪
the northern long seax.
♪ ♪
- the northern long seax is a single-edge blade
widely used by vikings and northern european tribes
during the middle ages.
Its razor-sharp edge and pointed tip
were useful in slashing, as well as for thrusting,
allowing the user to deliver heavy blows and stabs
to finish off an opponent in close-quarter combat.
Although used as a deadly weapon,
the vikings would also use the seax to hack tree branchs
and skin animals.
Today the versatile blade can be seen
in netflix's historical drama series "the last kingdom"
♪ ♪
- now, gentlemen, when you're building your seaxes,
I want you to follow these parameters.
The blade length needs to measure
between 21 and 23 inches in a straight line,
from tip to the base of the blade.
And we want you to make these blades
with a layered damascus pattern.
- I've never made anything
close to this size before.
What am I gonna do? How am I gonna do this?
♪ ♪
- now, guys, you will only have four days
to build these blades.
When you come back, we want to see two seaxes
that are worth at least $10,000 apiece
because that's what one of them will win you.
Good luck, guys. We'll see you in four days.
- Good luck. - Yeah.
♪ ♪
today I'm working on a northern long seax.
I'm really excited to get this going.
Get this thing cooking!
What I'm gonna do today
is I'm gonna start this damascus billet,
get everything forge welded and drawn out.
And I actually plan on getting the blade completed today.
Oh, my gosh.
I notice that it concaved going up to the drop point,
so I'm going to just start drawing out that metal,
wide as possible,
because I need this to make parameters.
There we go. That's what I was looking for.
Well, I'm not gonna lie.
That was more of a challenge than I thought it was gonna be,
but by the end of it, I couldn't be more proud.
♪ ♪
I think that will be it for today, though.
♪ ♪
- I just got back to my home forge,
and I'm about to start working on my northern long seax.
Now I'm gonna start cutting my damascus billets out.
I've never made
a damascus knife of such length before,
so that's gonna be a very big challenge--
trying to get something drawn out and stay together.
Those look like they're setting really well.
If I could wrap up today in two words,
it would be "surprisingly smooth."
I'm so far ahead
of where I wanted to be at the end of today,
might be able to take it a little easy tomorrow.
♪ ♪
- day two. I'm feeling excited.
Let's get started on the handle.
I'm going to cut up some aluminum bar stock
for the pommel.
It threads. Whee-hoo!
♪ ♪
it's off slightly. Noticeably slightly.
Well, there's a catastrophe for ya!
The pommel fit snug,
but it was uneven with the actual blade.
I want to make sure it's as even as possible
without taking any more material away from it.
I have to start all over with the pommel.
What I need to do is re-center it, re-hole, and then also
make sure it sets up perfectly and beautifully.
All right.
You know what? Glad it happened.
Now it's even more snug.
♪ ♪
- so today I'm going to finish grinding
on my blade, get a nice finished shape.
There we go.
So I decide to put some detail on my spine,
make it stand out a little bit,
and as I'm looking at it, my handle has a twist to it.
If my handle has a twist, then it's not gonna swing right,
it's not gonna fit right, it's not gonna cut right.
Cannot turn something in like that.
I could be looking at a $10,000 mistake.
I'm going to stick it in the forge
and try to hammer this straight.
There's a slight warp,
but that'll have to do.
Well, I got the forge lit,
so we might as well try to heat-treat this thing.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
hard.
Good quench. Good quench.
- Day four.
Yesterday I got a lot farther than I thought with my weapon,
and I'm actually very pleased with it,
so today I'm just gonna focus on the little details.
I know my handle's a bit plain and bland,
but at least it'll be shiny.
I'm a little worried that I'm almost done.
I hope I didn't skip over anything.
I just want to make sure this weapon will perform.
So at the end of this day, I will be testing it out
as much as I can.
[exhales deeply] okay, here we go.
[laughing]
sliced right through.
I got my blade done. I'm very happy with it.
It cuts, it keals.
It's pretty much perfect.
♪ ♪
- I'm way ahead of where I expected to be
going into day four.
Today I can refine my handle
and probably test my sharpness.
This wood I'm using is walnut,
and what's special about this is
this tree grew on my family farm
and was cut down in our family sawmill.
It looks amazing.
I couldn't be happier.
I have an edge on this,
but I really want to see how sharp it is,
so I need to test this blade.
I really hope that this is gonna
cut through these bottles with ease.
I hope my blade's sharp enough, but we're gonna find out.
♪ ♪
this blade just cut
right through the water bottles with ease.
They're clean cuts.
I couldn't be happier.
I feel confident sending this back to the forge.
I can't wait to see it tested.
♪ ♪
- gentlemen, welcome back to the forge.
Guys, great to have you here.
We sent you back to your home forges
to work on your northern long seaxes for four days.
They both look great,
but in this forge, there's only one champion,
which means only one of those blades
is gonna end up on our wall.
Before we get into the testing, I want to hear about them.
So, clay, how did it go for you?
♪ ♪
- my blade is a low-layer damascus
with 1095 and 15n20,
an integral pommel, and my handle is walnut
that was grown on my family farm
and cut on my dad's sawmill, so it's kind of special to me.
- Great. Devon, how about you?
♪ ♪
- mine's also a low-layer damascus.
1520, 1095.
The handle I chose was african blackwood.
I'm looking forward to this.
- Well, gentlemen, they both look fantastic,
and they both look deadly,
but there's only one way for us to find out
which one of these blades is gonna end up above the rest.
We've got a strength test. We've got a sharpness tes.
And up first, I'm gonna hand you to doug marcaida
for the keal.
♪ ♪
- all right, bladesmiths, welcome to the keal test.
To find out what kind of lethal damage your weapons will do,
I will take your weapon and deliver some lethal blows
on this pig carcass.
Clay, you ready to play?
- Yes, sir. - All right, let's do this.
♪ ♪
- I've never used my blade on anything like this before,
and my heart's just thumping in my chest.
I just really want to turn this pig into some pork chops.
♪ ♪
- oh.
- All right, clay, let's talk
about your northern long seax here.
You have a forward-heavy blade.
With that forward weight,
it really allows for deeper chops.
The edges are sharp.
They cut deep.
And overall, sir, your weapon...
It will keal.
- That's all I wanted to hear.
- All right, dapper devon. - [chuckles]
- you're up next. Are you ready, sir?
- I'm pumped. Let's do this.
Hitting the spine of this pig could fracture my blade,
chip it, warp it.
My stomach has never been so far up my throat before.
♪ ♪
and I am just hoping that this goes well.
♪ ♪
- [grunting]
♪ ♪
- [exhales sharply]
♪ ♪
- nice.
- Thanks, man.
- All right, devon, let's talk about your weapon here.
The blade you have here is nicely balanced,
that, when I cut, the weapon does not do the work for me.
I do the work with every slash.
As you can see, I cut it down twice all the way through.
Overall, sir, your northern long seax...
It'll keal.
- Thank you, sir.
♪ ♪
- bladesmiths, welcome to our strength test.
Fittingly, for this arctic challenge,
we're gonna do the ice block chop.
♪ ♪
it really tests the edge holding
and overall construction of your knives.
And it's a lot of fun, too.
♪ ♪
clay, you're up first. You ready to go?
- Give her hell. - I could do that.
[laughter]
- I saw a block of ice.
I know that's a super-tough test.
This whole competition started with an ice block,
and I really hope it doesn't end because of an ice block.
- [grunting]
♪ ♪
[knife clattering]
♪ ♪
- [exhales deeply] - [groans]
♪ ♪
all right, clay, you got a little bit of an issue here.
Your grain's not that bad.
I mean, it could be finer, but it's not that bad.
But every time I hit,
that blade just vibrated like crazy,
and it just traveled down.
So it started to bend,
and then all that vibration and everything,
it just finally came loose.
I hate to see a nice damascus pattern like this
have something happen to it like that.
But, hey, it was a good fight, man.
♪ ♪
- we hate to see it, clay.
Unfortunately, your blade did succumb to this test.
But you're not out of the fight yet.
Devon, you have to survive six blows in the same test
to claim the title and the check for $10,000.
You ready? - Let's do it.
♪ ♪
- [grunting]
♪ ♪
- [exhales deeply]
♪ ♪
- well, devon, congratulations, man.
- Thank you.
- Clay, difficult test.
I want to say thank you so much for your hard work,
but, unfortunately, due to the catastrophic failure,
we couldn't continue the testing.
So, unfortunately, man,
your time here in the forge has ended.
I'm gonna have to ask you to please step out.
- Thank you.
I didn't expect that my blade was gonna break,
but ice is just a super-hard test
for any blade, no matter what.
Leaving here, I feel a lot more confident
'cause my ulu didn't break in a very tough challenge,
and my sword could keal.
♪ ♪
- well, devon, congratulations, man.
You are today's arctic forge champion.
You absolutely deserve it.
That is a brutal test, and you crushed it.
- Thank you.
I can't believe this just happened.
I am the "forged in fire" champion.
And I'm just thinking--all the support I've had from my wif.
My first plan is to take my wife to miami.
We're gonna get out of this cold weather
and go sit on the beach for at least four days
and just relax in the sunlight.
I'm very excited.
♪ ♪