[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- my name is eric himker.
I'm 29 years old, and I'm a design engineer.
I design seat structures for cars,
and it's very important
because if the person is not comfortable,
they're not gonna buy that car.
Same thing goes for a knife.
If that is not comfortable,
they're not gonna wield that knife.
♪ ♪
- my name is dave armor, and I am from auburn, illinois.
I got into bladesmithing when I was 15.
I went to a theme park where they had a gun and knife shop,
and a man was demonstrating how to make a knife.
Being 15 and just being fascinated,
I followed him into his shop and asked so many questions,
he literally took a book on knifemaking
that was for sale, threw it at me
and said get the hell out of his shop.
- Hi, I'm martin sack. I'm 52 years old.
I started training in martial arts in 1975.
I'm a senior professor in the art of american kempo karat,
and that's what kind of led me
to the bladesmithing portion of it.
I want to recreate ancient martial arts weaponry.
It just goes hand-in-hand.
♪ ♪
- my name is jimmy riley.
I'm 33, and I am a full-time welding teacher
at my local high school.
I love my welding instructor job.
The opportunity to teach the next generation
and inspire them into making things
is the greatest thing that I've ever done.
♪ ♪
- bladesmiths, welcome to the forge.
We've got three very intense rounds
of bladesmithing competition for you.
At the end of each round, you're gonna present your work
to our panel of expert judges.
The men behind me are the ones who will decide
which one of you is gonna be leaving here
carrying the title of "forged in fire" champion
and pockets full of $10,000.
Today, they are abs master smith j. Neilson,
historic weapons re-creation specialist dave baker,
and edged weapon specialist doug marcaida.
Bladesmiths, throughout history,
there have been cultures that have truly immersed themselves
in the artistry that is bladesmithing.
Today, in the forge, we are gonna be highlighting
the korean heritage.
Every aspect of this competition,
we are gonna be honoring their culture,
whether it's the tests, the techniques,
or the weapons we're having you build.
As you see next to me, we have a yin-yang on the floor.
The yin-yang represents the delicate balance
between two opposing forces.
When it comes to bladesmithing,
there are no two opposing forces
that hold more importance than fire and water.
Behind each of you, there is a water tank.
The koreans have mastered the art of the water quench,
an extremely delicate process that, when done properly,
ends with an extremely strong and durable blade.
If you make a mistake, you'll end up with cracks,
with fissures or a blade that could just shatter.
In this competition, we have gotten rid of the oil buckets.
We're gonna ask for a water quench.
- Ah, crap.
It's very dangerous to quench in water.
You can get a crack. You can get a warp.
You can get a crack and a warp.
Many, many things can go wrong.
- You're probably wondering what am I going
to be quenching in water.
We want you to build this.
♪ ♪
the hwando sword.
- The hwando is a single-edged battle-worthy sword
of the korean military during the joseon dynasty
between the 12th and 19th centuries.
During the imjin war, the sword was modified
and forged to sharper and longer
to battle the invading japanese.
The hwando's lightweight and compact size
provided the korean warriors
with a fast and effective weapon
capable of delivering cuts with precision
and ease of recovery.
Although the size and form differed in diverse period,
the single-edged, slightly curved blade is constant.
It is prominently used in the recent netflix
hit series "kingdom."
- now, gentlemen, here to tell you about it
is a bladesmith who made this blade,
an extremely talented korean-american bladesmith
who just so happens to also be a "forged in fire" champion:
Boyd ritter.
- I really wanted to build a hwando
because there's a lot of versatility in this sword.
It is designed as a secondary weapon
for close-quarter combat.
It's a very sleek weapon, but the action is incredible.
It's been enriching to dig into
my own heritage a little bit,
learning all of this history and realize
that you're a part of it.
It's just been really cool.
Whew!
- Guys, we want you to recreate this blade
down to the finest of details.
In order for you to be set up for round two,
we're going to be supplying you with the habakis.
On your workstations, we have supplied you with w1 steel,
which you must use to make your hwando swords.
Moving into round two,
you're going to add handles to your blades,
turning them into fully functioning weapons,
at which point the judges are going to be testing
for strength and durability in a wax wood staff attack
and for edge or tension in a rubber tube slice.
You have three hours on the clock, so good luck.
Your time starts now.
♪ ♪
- this is going to be fun.
- So we asked these guys to make boyd ritter's hwand.
- That's a gorgeous piece. It must have been fun for boyd
doing something from his own cultural history.
♪ ♪
- you could probably get at least three of these hwandos
out of that chunk of steel,
so I'm going to start out with half of it.
I have zero experience with any sort of eastern asian
blades of any kind, but as an engineer,
one of the strengths that we have to do
is develop strategies to overcome a problem.
- Is this a ceremonial blade, or is this a fighting weapo?
- No, it's a fighting weapon
during the joseon period of korea.
The koreans were more militaristic,
where they saw the sword as a tool.
♪ ♪
- jimmy has got his steel cut in half and in the forge,
and he just cut a sliver off what's left of the w1 he ha.
- I have never attempted a water quench,
but I know that it's going to introduce tons of crack.
I don't want any of that to happen, so I test it.
- W stands for water.
It's a more forgiving metal to be quenched in water,
but that's a very smart move on jimmy's part.
If you haven't done this before,
do your trial-and-error right now.
♪ ♪
- when I put it in the vice and cinch it down,
it breaks under the pressure of the vice.
- That snapped real easy.
- I know immediately
that the steel is very brittle out of the quench.
I'm going to have to thermocycle my blade
a couple times before I quench it.
♪ ♪
- they gave us a really large piece of steel,
but I'm not sure how much of it I need for a piece,
so I'm going to just forge out off of it as much as I need.
- After that first heat, you're going to be able
to draw that cylinder out
the length of this blade then cut it to shape.
- I've worked with w1. It's forgiving,
but it's also got a little bit of a trick.
You get it a little too cold or a little too hot,
or you get a little aggressive hitting it,
you're going to have some problems.
♪ ♪
- my game plan is to draw the steel out
almost to the full length I need it to be
and then work on the width parameters.
I have some experience in korean martial arts,
but I've never made a hwando sword before.
- This is a fairly simple shape of a knife.
If you look at the spine,
it's virtually straight until the end,
where it has a bit of an upkick at the tip.
- It's in my wheelhouse.
I understand these blades.
I own several of them,
and I feel that I'll be able to replicate that.
♪ ♪
- as an engineer, it's very important
to leave myself enough room to be able
to make the next step even that much more precise.
- It looks like eric has a piece of quarter-inch stel
as a stopper in the press.
- Well, that's a smart idea.
- The kiss block on the die of the press
makes it really easy for me
to draw out the steel to a quarter-inch thickness.
It's just going to save me that much time down the road
instead of having to forge it way thicker
and grind it all back, or forge too thin
and not be able to make the blade
as thick as I would like.
- Doug, you're always talking about forging thick,
grinding thin.
Would this be a time when they would want to forge it
to shape pretty thick,
so when they go in the water quench,
it doesn't shock the inside and then grind it down?
- Yes. - Feeling good, looking good!
- Bladesmiths, you're down to two hours remaining
in round one!
- I'm trying to only work the first half of the cylinder.
That way, if I really screw it up and I have to cut off,
I can just start pressing that down
and lengthening the piece that I've already got.
- Yeah, I'd be putting that back in a fire,
especially on a water quench.
You don't want to work the steel too cold,
because you could actually pound stress fractures
into the steel that will open up when it hits the water.
- The big challenge with this round
is everything has to be dialed in,
so I'm going to take my time, double-check things
and hopefully get it right.
♪ ♪
- now that the billet is a little bit more manageable,
I can start to work on the development of the tang.
- A large part of this challenge,
other than the water quench, is the habaki.
- Yep.
- Adding the habaki does add a level of difficulty
because you need to make sure your shoulders are correct
so that everything slides up to it and marries nice and tight.
Where's the time check, grady?
[laughter]
- bladesmiths, you guys have 90 minutes remaining!
♪ ♪
- I got to get one of those.
- Look how thin jimmy's blade is.
- My billet's getting pretty long,
and the thickness is a little under
what I would like it to be,
so I go ahead and take off a pretty good size
before I actually start shaping the blade.
So they give us a habaki,
which I'm immediately grateful for,
because that alone is two or three hours of work,
but the catch-22 is that we have to tailor-make this blae
around an existing piece.
- He's got a super-thin profile blade.
- Yeah, is his blade going to be too thin for that habaki,
which is going to force him to make one?
♪ ♪
- all righty.
I feel like I've got it drawn out to the size I need.
I'm going to start hammering it to shape.
[sighs]
as I'm working the steel, my arms are tired.
My hands are tired.
Time to cut it off and start forming the point
and to make this actually look like a sword.
♪ ♪
- jimmy's blade is still super narrow.
- So the blade is pretty close to the part
where I need to start thermocycling
and start thinking about the quench.
♪ ♪
both: Oh!
- Jimmy's blade got so hot,
when he's pulling it out, it fell in two.
- You know how thin that blade had to be for that to happe?
- Exactly.
- My heart falls and hits the floor.
W1 is one of those steels that if you do anything to it
at too high a temperature, it will stress that metal.
- I'm about halfway through the clock at this point,
and I'm distraught and confused
and I am definitely feeling the heat.
There's just nothing left of it.
Ah!
And my sword melts in half.
Ah! Starting over!
There is not an ounce of quit in me.
All right, all right, all right, all right.
Calm down, calm down.
Today's challenge is all about balance, yin and yang.
You know, peace and storm,
so I know that I need to center myself
and calm down a little bit.
Just a little bit of panic. - You got it, dude.
- Just a little bit of panic.
♪ ♪
- eric's blade's looking nice over there.
- I feel like time's flying by,
so at this point, I start the thermocycles.
I know that doing the thermocycling on this blade
is going to at least help
with relieving some of that stress
before it goes in for the quench.
How are you doing, dave?
- I'm going to try to get this heat halfway even
so I can normalize it.
- All right, eric and dave both doing rounds of thermocycling,
so if somebody goes and quenches today
without doing the proper thermocycling,
we're going to see cracks.
- Oh, probably, yeah. I'd put money on it.
- Gentlemen, you have one hour remaining!
♪ ♪
- so I start to do my thermocycle on the blade,
and I notice that because there's a little bit
more beef in the tip, it starts to warp.
♪ ♪
it's warping like crazy.
I know I need to correct that.
I bring it over to the post vice,
and I kind of use that very gently
just to align everything.
I wanted to thermocycle a few more times,
but I don't have the time to do that.
I need to really focus on fixing this warp.
Lord willing, I make it to round wwo.
- Guys, if I've learned one thing in this forge so far,
it's water quenches are bad.
- Water quenching is actually a technique
that's been used forever.
You can get away with it.
Add salt, and then you add the brine.
It makes it a little bit safer.
And dave took like 3 or 4 cups of salt and put it in his tank.
- Adding salt to the water
slows down the quench speed a little bit,
so I just throw a whole bunch in there,
and hopefully, I've got enough in it.
I realistically only have one chance
to get this quench right.
It's not like oil where I can go back and re-quench
if I don't get it hard enough.
It's do it now. This is the blade I've got.
All right, guys.
Hold onto your butts. Here it goes.
- Drumroll, everyone. - Oh!
- Do it, do it, do it. - Here we go.
♪ ♪
- straight! - Nice!
- Now we just got to find out if I really cracked it.
♪ ♪
- all right, well, jimmy drew that steel down pretty quickl.
That's good.
- Yeah, about three times faster
than he did the first round.
- Not bad for 40 minutes.
- Jimmy's blade is so thin he's bending it with the wire brush
as he's cleaning the scale off.
- Oh, my goodness.
Jimmy's doing the exact same thing he did last time.
- Exactly the same.
- I'm ready for the quench.
I'm hoping that it works.
I just don't have enough time to start a third billet.
- Go, go, go, there we are! - There we go, number two!
- Jimmy's quenched.
- As it's starting to cool down a little more,
the back end is starting to warp a little bit,
so I clamp it up
and give it the slightest amount of pressure.
- Ah! - And he just snapped it!
It happened! - Oh man!
Damn it! - Get to the welder, man!
Get to the welder.
- I don't have enough time to start over,
but I'm going to do everything I can to make a blade.
I don't even wait for it to cool off.
I'm a welding instructor.
I figure I might as well do what I'm good at.
- Man, I feel for jimmy.
This is so brutal!
- I add a layer of clay to the spine in hopes
that it will keep the spine nice and soft
so when they're doing any chopping challenges,
it'll be more resistant to shock.
Fingers crossed, the quench should go well.
♪ ♪
- eric's giving it a good file check.
The moment of truth!
♪ ♪
- nice!
I am successful.
- So I know time is running out.
I'm going to edge quench it.
- Whoa, whoa, whoa! - Holy smokes!
- That was a hot blade.
- This is where you worry about hearing that tink!
[soft ping] - oh!
- And there it happened.
My heart drops.
I notice that there's a crack on the blade.
- It's not that surprising.
Martin quenched at a very high temperatur.
- Do you think if there's one crack,
there's going to be more? - Usually.
- I ain't got it in me to do anything else.
- I think martin's tapping out.
- I feel like it's an issue
that I know I can potentially fix later.
I have something to turn into the judges at this poin,
and I don't want to press my luck any further.
- Well, he's got a quenched and hardened blade,
so as long as he's within parameters,
he's still in the running.
- Five, four, three, two, one!
Gentlemen, round one is over!
♪ ♪
- even though the blade broke in half,
the welds came out all right,
so I'm thinking I might have this.
I've seen people come back from worse.
♪ ♪
- gentlemen, in the first three hours of this competition,
we asked you to recreate boyd ritters' hwando sword
and then do something we've never
asked smiths to do before: A water quench.
And you all have blades to turn in,
so every one of you has something to be proud of,
but this is a competition,
which means there have to be eliminations.
Time has come for our first critique,
and eric, you're up first. Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- eric, right off the bat, looking at this,
the steel looks really good.
You did all the prep work that I like seeing
to get that grain structure down tight,
so you have fewer problems in the quench.
Right now, you don't have clearly-defined shoulders
on the spine of this blade,
so if you move forward, the biggest thing I see
is how you're going to set up for the habaki,
the guard, handle, and all that,
but other than that, well on your way.
Nicely done. - Thank you.
- Dave, you're up next. You ready?
- Yes, sir. - Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- dave, you do have a couple issues.
You do have a couple of cracks right on the edge,
and they kind of come up and curve back.
So if you move onto the next round,
I'd address those,
so this thing doesn't come flying apart,
but the rest of the blade looks pretty solid,
and you left yourself some good sacrificial material
to deal with, so good job on that.
- Thank you.
- Martin, how you feeling? - I'm feeling okay.
Thank you. - Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- the profile you have here isn't bad at all,
but your knife has a little bit of a warp,
as you can see, sir.
But the really big thing that I see with your weapon
right here is that you have two visible cracks.
One goes right across the edge,
but this one down here actually is open,
where I can see right through that.
You definitely have to take care of that.
♪ ♪
- jimmy, you ready? - I am.
- Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- jimmy, you did something that I really like to see,
which was testing the materil and in testing the material,
you found out it was pretty brittle.
So after coming out of that quench, all I was thinking is,
"ah, we're going to see that again,"
and we did.
There are multiple cracks along this edge
that are very small,
and any one of those can be the stress riser
that breaks these blades.
But you got a good shape going there.
You never gave up. Good job.
- Thank you, sir.
- Gentlemen, we gave you a very difficult task
in the first round of this competition.
You should all be proud of yourselves,
but only three of you can move forward.
The judges have made their decision,
and the bladesmith leaving the forge...
♪ ♪
is martin.
- Martin, you've developed a warp and an extreme curve
in that blade that actually peeled your steel apart,
and you've got wide-open cracks.
That's why we're letting you go.
- I understand.
- Martin, you fought hard, but unfortunately,
I'm going to have to ask you to please surrender your work
and leave the forge.
- The competition is very tough.
It is definitely no joke,
but I had so much fun, I can't even tell you.
I feel like I have to go home
and try the water quench from the house.
♪ ♪
- well, gentlemen, congratulations.
The three of you have made it
through into the second round of our competition,
where you're going to fix any issues
you have with your blades and add handles to them,
turning them into fully functioning weapons.
Now, we asked you to recreate boyd ritters' hwando swor.
So, in this round, your handles are no different.
You need to include a habaki, a guard, a wrap-handle
and, at the end of this round, the judges are going to test
for strength and durability in a wax wood staff attac,
and we're going to check for edge retention
in a rubber tube slice.
You guys have two hours on the clock to complete all that.
Good luck. Your time starts now.
♪ ♪
- all right, so we've got cracks.
- Dave has some serious cracking issues
that he's got to clear up. - Yeah.
♪ ♪
- a crack on the edge is a death sentence to knife
because as soon as you hit it, it's gone, it's two pieces.
What I'm doing is opening up deeper surface area
so that I can fill in those welds
and then grind it off as I shape the edge.
- The key question is, are they able to fix those cracks
and really support it?
- That's ugly, but it's fixed, temporarily.
- Jimmy over here had a blade that broke in half, was welded.
- It's also got multiple cracks along the edge.
- I've got a bunch of cracks to take care of,
so I start opening the biggest ones possible
so I can weld them together.
My biggest concern in this round
is not getting all the cracks welded up.
Now that I've got the spine welded up,
I've got my edge welded up.
All I can do is hope
that my blade survives that strength test.
Man, that's ugly!
- Dave mentioned he has concerns
about how my habaki's going to fit up,
so I need to grind a shoulder on the top
and match the angle on the bottom.
The habaki, when you put it on the blade,
should be somewhat tight, so just getting it fit up
and hoping that it's a tight fit.
- Eric's fitting up his habaki,
and it looks pretty tight.
♪ ♪
- after I get my guard fitted,
I grab three pieces of green g-10.
- Dave looks like he's actually making a frame handle.
- I'm cutting the middle piee of g-10
to fit around the tang,
and then I'm going to put a piece of g-10
on either side of it, secure it with a pin,
and that's what's going to hold everything in place.
This is the quickest way
I could think of to do a handle.
Okay, cord, cord, cord, cord.
- All right, guys. You have one hour remaining.
- Thank you, sir!
I've got my scales ready to go,
and my guard and habaki are all fitted up,
and I'm starting to feel pretty good.
It's a shame to cover up this nice chunk of wood.
- All right. Jimmy is starting his wrap.
- I don't have a lot of time to spend on it,
so I'm choosing the easiest way
to wrap it as tight as I can in a spiral fashion.
- So now that I've got the handle material
wrapped and tucked in,
the last thing I have to do is get this pommel on there,
get the tang peened over.
Ideally, for a peening over a tan,
you would add some heat, but with the paracord
and the handle material 3/8ths of an inch away,
and I don't feel comfortable adding heat.
- Ooh! It didn't work.
- Getting this tang peened over
is taking me a lot longer than I would like to.
My arm's starting to get tired.
- I think what's happening is he tried to peen over t
with too much material, so you're really not moving
the material the way you want it to.
- I'm stuck using the peen of my hammer
to spread this material,
and it's just not going as quickly as I would like.
I don't think there would be any saving my handle
if I can't make this work.
Oh, my goodness.
- Well, right now, eric has to solve the problem
in his butt cap. It still looks very loose.
- Thankfully, I finally get it secured.
There's about 20 minutes left in the competition,
and I just got to make sure
that my blade is nice and sharp
and it's going to cut anything that they throw at it.
♪ ♪
- with this knife, I'm going to try to do
a pretty blunt convexed edge.
It's going to be sharp but not that sharp,
so it will have a little bit more insurance
against it breaking.
We'll see what happens.
♪ ♪
- aw!
- What?
- As I grind on it, I'm seeing more and more cracks.
- Oh, hell!
- Because of how thin the blade is,
it's a little more delicate than I would hope it to be.
There's nothing else I can do.
I'm hoping that it holds together.
♪ ♪
- five, four,
three, two,
one. Gentlemen, round two is over!
- I'm overall happy with how I did.
The handle is not my best work,
but it does feel comfortable in the hand, so I'm happy.
♪ ♪
- bladesmiths, welcome to our strength test.
The wax wood staff attack--
that's going to test how your heat treat worked out
and the overall construction of your weapons.
Sound like fun?
- Let's do it. - Yeah!
- Such enthusiasm.
Eric, you're first. Are you ready to go?
- Let's see what she's got. - All right. Let's do it.
- Water quench is a very vigorous
and very aggressive quench.
This could definitely snap my blade right in half.
[rock music]
♪ ♪
- all right, eric. You survived. Nice job.
You did pick up a bend,
but you have no damage to your edge whatsoever.
Proof of concept that a water quench
is a viable method, so good job.
- Thank you. - Dave, you're up next.
You ready? - No.
- Well, we're gonna do it anyway.
- Okay.
After watching eric's blade
just get beat on under those staffs,
all I can think of is jay is about to go full neilson.
This is not going to be pretty.
[rock music]
♪ ♪
damn!
- Oops. - Yeah.
- Actually, don't feel bad about this.
Your grain structure is actually not bad.
It's slightly coarse.
It's not quite that gray velvet you want,
but once I hit it,
the shock traveled into this fracture right here.
But your overall construction, everything is tight.
You turned in something viable,
just didn't make it through this test.
- Yep.
- Hate to see it, dave,
but you did suffer a catastrophic failure
during the first swing on the wax wood staff,
but you're not out of the fight yet.
Now, jimmy, you have to survive
one strike on the wax wood staff
to move forward in this competition. You ready?
- I am ready. - All right. Let's do it. Jay?
- I am feeling so much pressure.
This is literally a make-or-break moment,
and I'm just hoping and praying.
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
- [bleep]
- jimmy, we got several pieces,
and you can see on each one there's dark spots.
There were cracks in the blade.
- Damn.
- The grain structure is really, really big, but, again,
water quench--you fought hard.
You've got to be proud of that. - Thank you, sir.
- Eric, you are moving forward into the third round,
so congratulations.
Now, gentlemen, it came down to two broken blades,
but only one of you guys
is moving forward in this competition,
and the bladesmith leaving the forge is...
Jimmy.
- Jimmy, first off, I commend you for that wok
you did in the first round. You did not give up at all.
That's something to be proud of.
When it came to this break, it was one blade
broke in one spot. Your blade literally shattered,
and there's no longer a viable blade there,
and that's why we're letting you go.
- I understand. - Well, jimmy, unfortunately,
you're not going to be moving forward in this competition,
and I'm going to have to ask you
to please step off the forge floor, man.
- Thank you, all. It's been an honor.
I was hoping to survive one strike,
but unfortunately not.
Even though I didn't win,
I know that I am a damn good smith,
and I can make a blade worth wielding.
♪ ♪
- eric, dave, congratulations.
Gentlemen, you guys have solidified yourself spots
in our third and final round of this competition.
Now, in this final round, we're going to be
sending you guys back to your home forges
to build yet another iconic weapon from korean history.
We're going to have you build this.
♪ ♪
the woldo.
- The woldo is a polearm weapon that has been wielded
by korean warriors since the 6th century.
The large crescent blade
provided the user with incredible force
that delivered lethal blows and deep cuts
with one swing into an opponent.
Historically, this heavy weapon required special skils
and was only wielded in battle by elite korean warriors.
Today, korean martial artists who specialize in the woldo
perform intricate maneuvers with this intimidating weapon
at festivals and cultural events.
- Now, guys, your blades
need to measure between 22 and 24 inches.
You need to feature a peak on the spine.
You guys also need to feature a guard
and a 50 to 52-inch polearm.
The good news is the water quench is behind you,
so you guys can forget about that.
You can choose to quench however you want.
- That weapon is big.
I've never finished a blade this long.
I have made a blade this long, and it broke upon testing,
so hopefully, this one will go much better.
- All right, gentlemen, and we're giving you four days
to build your woldo swords,
and I want to see your best work,
because one of them will be worth $10,000.
We'll see you in four days.
♪ ♪
- I'm back here at my home forge in detroit.
Excited to get the forge fired up
and start going on this woldo. Look at that!
This thing's going to be almost as tall as I am,
and that's pretty frightening.
So I'm to the point where I've got the blade
forged out.
I have to cut a notch and use a chisel to open it up.
There we go! The woldo is in good shape.
I got plenty of meat on there that I can grind back
and get to the shape I'm looking for.
♪ ♪
- we're back here in auburn, illinois.
My goal for the day is to hae the rough shape forged
and to have a solid piece when I'm done for the da.
This is a little outside of my comfort zone.
This has some weird curves and peaks to it
that's going to be a bit of a forging challenge.
I may have ruined this early on.
I forged the piece over so that actually the top pat
is actually folding over on itself.
It's called a cold shut.
It causes all kinds of problems later on
because the pieces aren't attached.
I go over the grinder.
If I can grind it out, I'm not too bad,
but if it's really deep or it's something I can't fix,
I'm screwed.
- Day two, rough brand is done. So here I am,
a man asking for all the bladesmiths of the univere
to send me their good juju.
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
that is a hard blade.
Overall, good quench.
♪ ♪
- day two today, my goal is to get the bevels in,
get it ground and get it heat treated.
I do see one problem. It's opened up on me.
I've got a real problem.
Apparently, when I ground that cold shut out,
I didn't get it completely ground out,
and it folded over a little bit.
Pfffttt.
If it goes deep into the seal, man, I'm probably in bad shape.
If it runs all the way through, then the blade is ruined,
and I've got to start over.
So I'm trying to figure out what I can do.
Is this something I can repair or am I just plain old screwed
and it's time to start again?
So right now it's just back to the grinder.
Good news is everything's solid.
The cold shut I was worried about is grinding out.
I have a blade ready to heat treat.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
I'm straight?
Yep! And it's hard.
That's as good as I can hope for right now.
♪ ♪
- day three. So today, I have to make the shaft
and then get everything put together.
So I decide, as a little decorative embellishment,
to add a little grip to the handle.
I'm going to flute and inlay some paracord.
I'm using imperial red and royal blue
to honor the colors of the korean flag.
Ooh, nice!
I'm looking pretty good going into day four, so I'm pleased.
- Day four. Yesterday, I got the blade finished,
and I've got the shaft shaped and roughed in,
so today it's a lot of fit, finish, assembly
and just putting the final touches on my weapon.
So I grab some pink paracord that I'm going to use
to wrap the areas between the collars,
and then I have a pink wood stain
that I'm going to stain the hickory with.
When I do a knife show, I always have one knife
on my table that has a pink handle.
It's not the typical looking thing,
but I think it looks kind of neat,
so I'm going to go with it.
I think this is a solid piece. I think it will test well,
but we're going to see what happens.
♪ ♪
- gentlemen, welcome back to the forge.
You guys had four days to work on your korean woldos,
and they look great,
but we want to hear about your builds.
Eric, how did it go for you?
- Overall it went really wel.
Made the blade out of oil-quenched w-1,
mild steel collars, paracord wrap
and wrought-iron guard and pommel.
- Fantastic. Dave, how did your build go?
- It went pretty well. The blade is 5160.
The handle is hickory
and has copper collars and a paracord wrap.
- Well, gentlemen, both your blades look deadly,
but there's only one way for us to find out
if they function as well as they look.
We've got a strength test, a sharpness test,
and up first, the keal. Doug?
♪ ♪
- bladesmiths... [speaking foreign language]
and welcome to the keal test.
To find what kind of lethal damage your weapons will do,
I will take your weapons and deliver lethal blows
on this ballistics dummy.
Eric, you're first. You ready for this?
- Yes, sir. - All right. Let's do this.
- Bones are dense, and they can do some damage to an edge,
so my heart's racing.
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
- all right, eric. Let's talk about your woldo here.
It is forward heavy.
There's a lot of metal in here, but it is wieldable.
Now, your edge is sharp.
It penetrates deeply into this ballistics dummy,
cutting the gel torso and into the bones.
Overall, sir, your woldo, it will keal.
- Thank you. - All right, dave.
Your turn, sir. Are you ready?
- Yes, sir. - Let's do this.
♪ ♪
- I'm looking at this ballistics dummy right now,
and it's a hard test.
If I messed up on this blade, that dummy's going to show it,
and if it works well, parts go flying.
♪ ♪
- all right, dave. So about your woldo here.
It is a little bit heavier than the other weapon.
Heavier weapons require a lot of adjustments,
but your edge here is sharp.
With this forward weight,
it cuts deep into this ballistics dummy
and cuts the bones inside, but in doing so, sir,
your edge over here did take a little bit of rolling.
But the other parts are fine,
and overall, sir, your woldo will keal.
- Thank you.
- All right, gentlemen. You know what time it is.
It's time for the strength test.
We're calling this one the bamboo man attack.
To test the overall construction of your blade,
I'm going to take them and gently tap them against
our bamboo men over here. And remember, this is not about
what your weapons do to these targets.
It's about what these targets do to your weapons.
Eric, you're up first. Are you ready?
- Yes, sir. - All right.
- Bamboo's a very hard wood,
and it can definitely take some chips out of an edge.
And also, with this long of a handle on it,
it could just snap it in two.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- so, eric, right off, this is a heavy beast.
Your balance point is not bad.
I kind of like that right there,
where you can manipulate the weapon.
As far as the weapon performance goes,
you maintained an edge all the way along.
It's still sharp. Nicely done.
- Thank you. - All right, dave. You're up.
You ready? - Yes, sir.
[dynamic music]
♪ ♪
- all right, dave.
Your weapon is really, really heavy.
So you can make a devastating cut,
but recovery is really slow.
As far as the blade, the blade itself is dented sideways here
and up above here, but still solid,
so you survived quite nicely. Well done, dave.
- Thank you.
♪ ♪
- bladesmiths, this is the sharpness test,
the sugarcane slice.
To find out how sharp your weapons are,
I'm going to attempt to cut through all these sugarcanes.
Unlike the strength test,
this is all about what your weapons do
and how well they cut the sugarcanes.
Eric, are you ready to do this?
- Yes, sir.
♪ ♪
- all right, eric.
Let's talk about your edge here.
Your edge, it's sharp.
It cut through all the sugarcanes,
and overall, sir, your weapon will cut.
- Thank you. - Dave, it's your turn, sir.
You ready for this? - Yes, sir.
♪ ♪
- damn.
- All right, dave. Let's talk about your weapon here.
It's still sharp, and it cuts cleanly all the way through,
but the weight of your blade as I'm cutting dragged downward,
and I ran out of sugarcane,
but overall, sir, your weapon, it will cut.
- Thank you.
- Well, gentlemen, you both performed extremely well
in our korean-themed challenge.
Both your woldos did great during our test,
but this is a competition, and there has to be a winner.
The judges have made the decision,
and today's "forged in fire" champion is...
♪ ♪
eric. Congratulations.
Now, dave, you fought hard,
but unfortunately, you're not today's winner,
and dave's going to tell you why.
- Dave, your blade did great in the kill test,
and it did well in the sharpness test.
What this came down to were two things:
The overall weight of your blade
and the damage it took in the strength test.
Those are the reasons we're letting you go.
- I understand. Thanks for having me.
- Well, dave, it's clear
you have what it takes to fight in this forge,
and you're an extremely talented smith,
but unfortunately, your time in this competition has ended,
and for that reason, I'm going to have to ask you
to please step off the forge floor.
- Good job, man.
I got a ton out of this experience.
I met some great people.
I got to play with some techniques
and types of weapons I would normally not do,
and I had a blast doing it, so I can't complain at all.
- Well, eric, you know what that means.
You are the newest "forged in fire" champion.
You're going to be walking out of here
with a check for $10,000. Congratulations.
- I feel awesome coming out here,
winning the competition, having my skills validate.
This is a crowning achievement of mine.
- Well done. - Thank you.
If somebody wants me to make a woldo,
it's going to cost them 10 grand.
♪ ♪