[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[rock music]
♪ ♪
- My name is Christy Whitaker. I'm from East Tennessee,
and I've been a part-time bladesmith for about two years.
I'm a mom to four girls.
They're my inspiration.
I want to win "Forged in Fire" to make my kids proud.
- How are you feeling? - Fine.
- My name is Nathan Anderson from West Valley, Utah.
I'm a maintenance worker at the Utah's Hogle Zoo.
I love animals, and there's not too many places
where I can be welding and look up
and see a giraffe right there.
♪ ♪
- My name is Don Clary.
I live in Salinas, California.
I'm a part-time bladesmith.
I make kitchen knives. I make hunting knives.
I generally don't try to make my knives pretty.
I want those knives to be used.
♪ ♪
- My name is Gunnar Wilbanks.
I'm a high school football coach
and teacher and a part-time bladesmith.
My wife loves it every time I make a knife,
I bring it in to her.
Both of my daughters and my son they all have to hold it,
and it turns out we all love blades.
♪ ♪
- Bladesmiths, welcome to The Forge.
The four of you have been chosen for a very intense
three rounds of forging competition.
At the end of each one, you're gonna present your work
to our panel of expert judges.
These guys behind me are the ones
who hold your fate in their hands,
because they will be deciding which one of you
is ultimately gonna be leaving here
with the title of "Forged by Fire" champion
and a check for $10,000.
Today's competition we are gonna be taking a look
at the darker side of history.
That's why we decided to have you guys
make your blades out of this.
♪ ♪
This here is the guillotine.
Bladesmiths, this is a replica of a deadly device
that was used during the reign of terror
that was The French Revolution.
And your first task in today's competition is to come up,
work together, and source your high-carbon steel
from the guillotine blade.
But that's not all. We also want you to come up
and grab mild steel from these braces here.
You guys are gonna be putting together San Mai billets
and making blades in your signature style
between 13 and 15 inches.
- That's my thing, is dark stuff.
So I'm thinking, "This is right down my alley."
- Moving onto the second round of the competition,
you will be adding handles to your blades
turning them into fully functioning weapons
at which point you're gonna turn them back
over to the judges, and they're gonna check
for strength and durability in a pillory chop
and then check your head retention
in a ballistics tube slice.
All right, bladesmiths, we have three hours on the clock
for the first round. Your time starts now.
♪ ♪
- Who can run a torch? I'll bring it to you.
♪ ♪
- They've gotta come up and take the guillotine apart.
- You may have to cut it right here.
- Yeah, as a football coach
it's my role to make sure that everybody has a job
and everybody works toward the greater good of the group.
We're gonna set two smith's cutting up the mild steel...
- Watch out.
- And then we'll have two guys going ahead
and cutting up the high-carbon steel
and distribute it to all smiths.
- Come on, baby.
- Fun guillotine fact: you know the last time that was used
by the French to kill somebody?
September 10, 1977.
- As an executioner's blade?
- Yep. - It's taking too long.
- It just wasn't cutting it,
'cause that's some super-hard steel.
So let then we just start to cut it with grinders.
- They've gotten the entire guillotine blade out.
It's free.
Now they need to cut it up into smaller sections.
- Once all those pieces are taken apart,
I start measuring and cutting the legs
for everybody on the team.
We are all cutting pieces of the metal for each other.
- There's one piece.
That's what's always inspirational
about this competition.
Everyone's working at the same pace in the beginning
to make things fair, and that's cool.
- That's enough, right? - That's four.
- Everybody has all their material.
This is where the race really begins.
♪ ♪
- I want to try to set a smaller board weld.
So I'm gonna take an 8-inch piece of steel
and try to reduce the surface area of the weld
and hope I can go ahead
and stretch that thing out to the 13 to 15 inches.
- So, guys, for a setup for San Mai,
what's the most important step that they cannot bypass?
- Cleanliness. - Cleanliness.
- Yeah, cleaning that material.
♪ ♪
- Whoo, baby.
I worked with San Mai a couple of times
and haven't had great success with it,
but still, I know the theory and how it should be done.
About to make sparks, sparks, sparks.
- The nice part is that the guillotine blade is 1095,
which doesn't have any nickel or chromium
or any of the stuff that can really kind confound a weld.
- If I win "Forged in Fire," the $10,000 is gonna go
to taking my wife on a trip to go looking for Bigfoot.
We love the cryptids, and she loves Bigfoot.
[laughs]
♪ ♪
- I take my San Mai pieces,
and I immediately start cleaning it up on the grinder.
I know it's a huge, important step,
because if you don't keep your metal clean on San Mai
you will get delams.
- If you spend an extra three minutes cleaning
it saves you 45 minutes starting over.
- Yeah.
- Dang it.
- Uh-oh, Chris has got a cut.
- Oh, man.
- I look down and notice that there's blood
coming down my arm.
So I have to stop where I'm at and call the medic over
so they could take a look and help get me cleaned up.
I don't know how I cut myself, but it's a pretty big gash.
- All right, we're gonna go out this way.
I just gotta wrap you up real quick, okay?
- Okay.
- Hey, guys, Christy's heading off the floor.
- And I hope it's not a deep cut.
- All I can think about is the minutes
that are ticking by on the clock
and how much I'm missing out.
And I'm worried I'm not gonna be able to get
my blade finished in time.
♪ ♪
- Don't going beyond with cleaning.
He's using the acetone to wipe everything down.
- Welding.
- This billet is bigger than what I normally work with.
So getting the weld set might be
the most difficult part about the knife.
♪ ♪
- Bladesmiths, you have two hours left on the clock.
- Coming through.
And I'm gonna go ahead and see
if we can get those forge welds going.
♪ ♪
- Gunnar's being very gentle with the press
slowly drawing it out.
- I use zero power tools in my shop.
It's all done by hand.
Wow.
But I'm loving using the press.
It welds together pretty well,
and it's saving me all kinds of elbow grease.
♪ ♪
- My billet is up to temperature,
so I try and set those welds.
I'm just surrounded by all these cool,
powerful pieces of equipment.
I felt just kind of like an orangutan surrounded
in a room full of celery.
That may sound a bit weird, but I mean, hear me out.
I was watching the orangutan the other day,
and the keepers had just put all sorts of food
in his enclosure, and he was making sure
he went to every corner
grabbing all that celery and stuck it in his mouth.
And I felt kind of like that, so I'm super happy,
like an orangutan with celery.
Heat, beat, repeat. Heat, beat, repeat. Whoo!
♪ ♪
- Christy's back on the floor. Great work.
- All right.
- I'm bandaged up. I'm ready to go.
I have no time to waste.
I need to start forge welding
and get back into this competition.
I really want to make my kids proud,
show them that you can do anything that you want to do.
Step out of your comfort zone and do those things.
That's your passion.
- Christy set her weld on her billet.
It's about time; we're an hour into the competition.
♪ ♪
- Yay, all right.
♪ ♪
- The entire billet is at welding temperature,
so I tap the billet up and down with the hammer
just to set the welds
before I start to actually try to draw it out.
- You guys think Don is gonna be able to get a good weld
by just tapping on like this?
- Can it set a weld?
Yes. Will it set a weld well?
- Maybe. - Not really.
♪ ♪
- [bleep].
- What happened?
- I've got a delam in the middle.
I don't think I'm gonna get it welded.
- That's a bad place for a delamination,
is right in the middle of the billet.
- Starting over.
- That's actually a good way forward.
I mean, there's really not much of a way to get back
from that huge delamination on his first billet.
It's just a smart move to starting over.
- Welding.
♪ ♪
- Bladesmiths, you have 90 minutes left.
- Well, I'm from Arkansas, so I'm gonna make
an Arkansas Pig Sticker.
♪ ♪
Arkansas Pig Sticker would be the knife
that the guys are going down in the bottom hunting
razorback hogs.
- I'm a little concerned that Gunnar
doesn't have enough material. It's looking fairly thin,
and it's not getting the length that he needs.
- Damn, 8 1/2 inches may not have been enough.
We're still sitting a little bit short.
What I'm gonna end up having to do to extend this thing
is press in a hidden tang instead of a full-tang knife.
And I'm looking to hit 14-inch mark.
That's gonna leave me an inch to play with
on the grind so I can get parameters.
♪ ♪
- I'm gonna be making a super sexy seax.
♪ ♪
There's a little bit of a curve in there,
so it's super sexy.
I'm feeling really good about where I am right now.
- Looking good.
- Thank you. - Making a seax?
- Yeah, super sexy seax.
♪ ♪
- I have to hurry up and try to get my blade shaped,
and I need to do it quickly.
I'm gonna do the traditional camp-style knife
that I'm used to doing.
It's one of the first ones that I learned to do.
And it's just something I feel comfortable with,
so I've kind of stuck to it.
What the hell is happening to my blade?
What is going on?
As I'm hammering on be Big Blu,
my blade starts to curve.
Dang it.
- When Christy was on Big Blu she was smashing one section
preferentially to the other, and that just grew in length.
-- How did I end upme for with a rainbow? ife,
The judges asked me for my signature knife,
not my signature rainbow.
I think this right here is what's gonna send me home,
and then I'll look over at the picture of my kids,
and I realize they're the reason that I'm here,
and I can't give up. I have to keep going,
and I start trying to hammer it down on the anvil
to straighten it out as best as I can.
There we go. Come on now.
I finally feel like I'm at his fault
where I can do the rest of it on the grinder.
Starting to feel good about it.
♪ ♪
- Bladesmiths, you've got one hour remaining.
♪ ♪
- As I'm drawing this out, I don't see any delaminations.
It looks like it's going well.
- Oh, looks good, brother.
- Hey, you made quick work out of that.
- Yeah.
- So my plan for this knife is
a camp knife with a little bit of a belly on it.
That'll do really good in a chop,
and a belly will help it in a slice.
So I'm comfortable that I'll be able to finish.
♪ ♪
- Quenching.
- Gunnar's first in the oil.
- That was pretty hot, man. - That looked pretty hot.
- Yeah, it looked pretty hot to me.
- Ah, [bleep].
My blades banana-ing on me a little bit.
I know this is probably gonna send me home.
So at this point in time I look at the clock.
I've still got enough time to go quench again.
I know I can go ahead and pick up a crack,
but I need a straight blade.
- Oh, my goodness. That was warm.
- A crack could shoot up the middle of that.
- Yeah.
- I looked down the blade, and I see a straight blade.
All right.
- Quenching.
- Nathan is in the oil.
- That tip for that blade still looked like
it was pretty, pretty red.
- Whoo!
Seams hard. I'm very pleased.
And I started getting it cleaned up.
Oh, come on.
All of a sudden, I see a crack.
Flip the blade over, and the crack is over there too.
It's alive, and it's not going away.
It's just growing.
- What sometimes happens is, the San Mai blade,
where you've got mild steel on the outside
and a hardenable steel in the center
and you overheat that hardenable steel.
For the quench, it splits in the middle.
- So at this point, I'm just, like, really defeated,
but I'm like, "I'm not stopping."
Maybe one of the other competitors has a worse blade
or it doesn't meet parameters or something like that.
So I'm just gonna keep going with it.
- Bladesmiths, you have 15 minutes.
♪ ♪
Christy's quenched, guys.
- Hot is the color of the day.
- Fireball.
I knew right then that my blade was too hot.
I probably just cracked my blade.
Oh, God.
I'm crushed.
It looks like it's starting to split in two
from the cracks, and I hope it doesn't get worse.
♪ ♪
- Quenching.
- All right, Don's in the oil.
The blade is still hot.
So maybe I can get the blade to bend just a little bit
to take that warp out.
- Ugh. - Oh, no.
- Oh, what was that? What was that?
- That was the tip of--that was the tip of Don's blade.
- I'm thinking, "I'm done."
- Get to the welder, go, go, go.
- Oh, man.
- That's all he can do, right? - Yep.
- Stupid move.
I get the tip welded on.
It looks ugly as sin,
but I can at least turn in a knife.
- This has turned into an absolute nail-biter.
♪ ♪
Five, four, three, two, one.
The first route of this competition is over.
♪ ♪
- I want to move on so bad,
but still can't get around the cracks
on the top of the bottom.
- I'm looking at my competitor's blades.
I've got this welded tip on.
I'm thinking, "I'm going home."
♪ ♪
- All right, bladesmiths, in the first
three hours of this competition
you guys dismantled our guillotine
and made San Mai blades.
The time has come for your first critique.
Gunnar, you're up first. Are you ready?
- Yes, sir.
♪ ♪
- All right, Gunnar, first off,
this a cool-looking design.
I like the recurve. The biggest thing, though,
is that there is a crack along the spine of this blade,
and then it's visible almost all the way
back to the tang here. If you move forward from here,
that's gonna have to be addressed.
- All right, Don, you're up next.
You ready? - Ready as I'm gonna get.
♪ ♪
- All right, Don. Let's talk about this crack you have here.
You did weld it on, but it's not a complete weld.
It's just tacked on in there. So should you move forward,
I would think about rewelding this and finding a way
to really make this a solid piece.
Good job for sticking in there, though.
- Thank you.
- All right, Nathan, please present your work.
♪ ♪
- All right, well, Nathan, right off the bat,
that's a really cool shape for a chopper,
but there's a bit of an issue.
You got the--the Grand Canyon
running along the spine of this blade.
♪ ♪
I can't see through that, which is a good thing.
- Right. - But if you move forward
into the second round there's enough mass here
to work with that you can make this
a functioning blade if you move forward,
but you are gonna have to get creative.
- I can do that.
- Christy, how are we doing? You ready?
- Yes, sir.
♪ ♪
- Well, Christy, all of these blades
have had a crack in the spine.
But this is a completely different animal altogether.
Unfortunately, after it left your anvil and in the temper,
it blew apart.
And there's really not much coming back
from something like this. I'm looking at what
I would consider a catastrophic failure.
♪ ♪
- All right, Christie, you fought hard,
but as Ben said, what happened to your blade
is considered a catastrophic failure.
Unfortunately, for that reason I have to ask you,
please step off The Forge floor.
- Yes, sir. Thank you.
When I saw that my blade split in half,
my heart just completely dropped.
I knew right then and there I was finished.
So I'm excited to get back home,
and the girls will see me one day on TV.
So that'll be cool.
♪ ♪
- All right, bladesmiths, congratulations.
You all are moving into the second round
of this competition, but don't celebrate too long,
because all three of you have a ton of work to do,
and to make matters worse, in this round,
the pantry is off-limits.
♪ ♪
You're probably wondering,
"What are we going to use to make those handles?
You're gonna be using the remnants of the guillotine.
♪ ♪
Now, at the end of this round,
you're gonna hand over your finished blades to our judges,
who are gonna check for strength and durability
in a pillory chop,
then check your edge retention in a ballistics tube slice.
You guys have two hours to complete these blades.
Good luck; that time starts now.
♪ ♪
- Four blades from round one, all had cracks.
That's the first, and bad cracks too.
- Round two starts.
I want to grab my handle material as fast as I can.
So I'm looking at the guillotine,
and I see the part where, you know,
you stick your head in, and I figure
that's the easiest and the fastest way
of getting my handle material.
♪ ♪
- [laughs] - That'll work.
- Okay. - Nathan has to crack
on his spine but also on that edge,
and that was a thin edge.
- At this point I can't think of any other possible way
to fix this blade.
So I'm just going to have to weld it in place
and make sure I don't overheat it
so I can get the welds secured up on the spine
and on the cutting edge.
In round one, I set out to make a super sexy seax,
and with the cracks and all the welding on there,
she's not such a super sexy seas anymore.
She's kind of a plain-old super seax.
The sexiness has kind of left the building.
- That'll work.
- If I was home and I had to crack down my blade like this,
the way I fix it is throw it in the garbage.
I wanted to try to put a weld all the way
pretty deep into the blade,
and I wanted to build it up a little bit,
but as you can see, I'm not a great welder.
- Guys, are you seeing Gunnar's spine?
It's like popcorn.
- Well, that's not good then, because that's in
the surface weld. That's not going deep inside.
- I go ahead and even everything up down the spine
to make it look more like a knife.
I'm just hoping it's going to hold up for the pillory chop.
- I know I need to address the tip.
One side is not welded at all.
So I get over to the welder...
♪ ♪
Oh, [bleep].
Now I burned through it.
I've got about a pencil-sized hole that I put in the edge.
- You know, that edge on the tip, that was pretty thin.
- He bent it at MIG weld for that one spot
about three times now?
And how many times can you keep on trying to reweld
one spot before you've actually just taken
all the temper or just made it very brittle?
- I'm trying to grind out the divot that I made in it.
It's not fixed as well as I would like,
but I've got to move on and address
the rest of the things I have to do.
- All right, guys, you have one hour left.
- But I have to leave enough time
to be able to put the handle on there and make a decent.
Eh, all right.
The trick to doing handles that I learned
from an old knife-making buddy is,
cut it in half, and then instead of making a sandwich
where I put that blade in the middle
and try and find the holes and drill it,
I'm using the two scales
and setting the knife blade on top of it.
So when I drill the holes, it's already lined up,
and they can't go anywhere.
And the holes will line up perfectly.
Okay, now...
- Gunnar's setting up the drill press
with his handle material,
'cause he's got that hidden tang.
- After I've drilled a hole for my tang,
I found out that I don't have a bit long enough
to get it as deep as I want to.
I'm gonna have to figure out a way to get it deeper.
I do have a small block of wood,
so I'm just gonna go ahead and drill it all the way out,
slap it on, and that adds me
an extra inch on my handle right there.
- That will work to stabilize the back of the handle
a little bit, but having
a small piece of softwood with a hole drilled in it,
you might just be creating another place to break things.
- All right, let's hope she'll do.
- Now that I've got the tip reattached,
I've blown the temper and blown the hardening.
So I know I need to get the edge re-quenched.
- Now we got Don with a torch.
- He's heating up the entire edge.
- I decided I'm gonna do an edge quench.
That'll leave the spine soft, but I have to get a hard edge.
- I'm already seeing parts of that glowing...
- Oh, yeah. - A bright orange.
- Now would be the time to get in that quench.
- Exactly.
- The knife's cooled off.
I had already shut off the torch.
It--it's just a dull orange. I have no time.
I need to quench.
- That's not hot enough to get a blade hard.
- I will not be surprised if it's in two pieces.
- I didn't like the color when I quenched again,
but I've got to move on and hopefully
the blade will be fine.
♪ ♪
- Bladesmiths, you're down to the last 30 minutes.
- So at this point I'm grinding in my bevels
wanting to make sure they're good and straight
and got a good cutting edge on there.
And I can't make it super beautiful,
'cause I still need those welds to hold.
So I'm just kinda rounding edges making sure
that nothing is gonna expose something that's broken
and that be a catastrophic failure.
- Now that I've got my handle together, I'm gonna go ahead
and work on my edge geometry.
It's gonna call for a pretty fine edge.
I'm just hoping my edge is gonna hold up
for the pillory chop.
All my kids and my wife told me, they said,
"If Doug gets to test your blade,
he better say, 'It will cut.'"
So I'm gonna make sure.
- Gunnar is over here testing his blade,
his edge on the guillotine.
- Yeah, man.
- All right, there we go.
♪ ♪
I like to have a handle that's more or less flat on the back
so that it fits against the palm
and a little finger swell in the middle
and have some hourglass shape to the profile
so that when you wrap your hand around it your index finger
and your pinky finger kind of lock you onto the handle.
I really want to make the handle comfortable,
but I don't want it to be so round
that it'll twist in the judge's hands when they're testing it.
♪ ♪
- Five, four, three, two, one.
Bladesmiths, shut it down. This round is over.
- Looking at my blade, I like the shape.
The one concern I have is the tip.
I can only wait at this point.
♪ ♪
- Bladesmiths, welcome to the strength test,
the pillory chop.
I'll be chopping into the wooden part of this pillory
and maybe other parts of the pillory.
We'll see.
Gunnar, you're up first. You ready for this?
- Get after it, brother.
♪ ♪
My biggest concern coming in for testing would be
that the welds in the back of my blade blow apart.
My heart's beating out of my chest.
♪ ♪
- [laughs] Jeez.
♪ ♪
- All right, Gunnar, I mean, you're knife's
still in one piece,
always good after a strength test.
You did lose a chip right here from the--hitting the chain,
but the fix that you did on your crack
seems to have held up great.
So in all, I think you did a good job.
- Thank you, sir.
- All right, Don. You ready?
- Ready as I'm gonna get, sir and if it survives you,
it'll survive anything.
- All right, cool.
♪ ♪
- I'm concerned about the tip,
but I think I've done a good job on the edge,
and I want to see that edge hold up.
♪ ♪
- All right, Don. You see what happened, man.
Up until then your edge is-- So far is holding up great,
which is surprising to me
at the low temperature that you quenched that blade at.
But this repair that you did just didn't have
the weld penetration that I would have liked to see.
There's a tiny little gray spot there.
That's all that was really holding
the whole thing together. But unfortunately,
we do consider this a catastrophic failure.
- I understand.
♪ ♪
- All right, Don, your blade is now in two pieces,
so we cannot continue testing.
But you're not out of the fight yet.
Now, Gunnar, you're safe.
You've survived the entire test so congratulations.
- Thank you.
- But, Don, your blade broke on the eighth strike.
So, Nathan, that means you need to survive all eight strikes
in order to move forward in the competition.
Are you ready? - Yes, sir.
- Let's do it.
♪ ♪
- I am super concerned about my edge,
just because of all the cracking and the welding.
And I'm just hoping and praying that it doesn't explode.
♪ ♪
- Whew. - Good job, Nathan.
- Thanks, man.
♪ ♪
- Well, Nathan, it looks like your blade is in one piece
after all eight strikes on the pillory.
So congratulations.
Now, Don, unfortunately for you,
because your blade is in two pieces,
we cannot continue testing fairly.
And I have to ask you to please step off The Forge floor.
- Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity.
Good job, guys. - Thank you, bud.
- Nathan. - Good job.
- Well, I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised either.
If it wasn't for the tip flying off,
the results could have been very different.
When I get home, I'm gonna go back to my family
and keep on living.
- Well, Nathan, Gunnar, congratulations, guys.
You're moving forward in the third and final round
of this competition. You made your first blades
out of guillotines, and we're gonna continue on
with the darker side of history theme
by asking you to build this blade in four days...
♪ ♪
The executioner sword.
♪ ♪
- The executioner sword performed it's bloody work
in 16th-century central Europe.
Unlike combat swords, this lethal blade features
a straight double-edged cutting blade with a blunt tip
perfect for swiftly chopping off the heads of criminals.
This deadly weapon was used on many aristocratic felons
rather than the acts since it allowed the victim
to meet his end in a dignified kneeling position
rather than laying facedown with this head on the block.
While the executioner sword fell out of use
in the early 18th century, this gruesome sword
is still wielded in the 2019 video game "Mordhau."
- And when you're building them, you need to make sure
they fall within the following parameters.
This double-edged blade here needs to be
between 32 and 34 inches.
You guys need to have a 9-inch cruciform guard
that has finials.
You need to have a handle, including a pommel.
- Love the name. Love the theme.
I am so excited to get building on this thing.
I am one round away from taking my wife
and having her shake Bigfoot's hand.
- But, bladesmiths, good luck. We will see you in four days.
♪ ♪
- We're here working on the executioner sword.
I'm super stoked about that.
All right, let's see if we can make something
awesome and sharp.
My game plan for today is getting that blade
forged out to shape, heat-treated and quenched.
I decided to go with the high-carbon mono steel.
I didn't want to do some weird Damascus or something
and have all sorts of unexpected things happen.
So I just went with the mono steel.
Heat treat coming up. Just don't want to rush it.
And I don't want to break it, because that would be bad.
All right.
♪ ♪
I don't think that anything went wrong.
I felt pretty good about the quench.
Should be able to clean everything up
and move on forward from here.
Sounds good. Whoo!
♪ ♪
- Today we're gonna start working
on an executioner's blade,
the largest blade by far that I've ever made.
It gonna take a while.
I have a thick piece of ADC RB2
that I'm gonna try to use.
I know that Nathan is gonna turn in a beautiful blade.
He's an artist. I'm a football coach,
but hopefully, it'll get the job done.
Few hours in, and I'm almost halfway there.
Kind of forgot what it was like in a little man's world
just working with a hammer,
'cause I don't have the power tools.
So far so good.
It's been a long day already.
Can't imagine what the next three days are gonna hold.
♪ ♪
- Day three, got the shape where I want it.
Got the edge where I want it.
It's supposed to be a beefy blade.
So I'm just trying to stick with that
and kept it a little bit thicker.
I'm feeling pretty good.
So now it's time to start working on the guard.
It's a cruciform guard
so it's not wavy or fancy or anything like that.
It's basically just a straight piece,
and it's supposed to symbolize the cross,
and it's got some finials on the end,
which I've got my finials right there.
Hopefully, those won't add too much weight
for what I want to go for,
but I think I'm sitting pretty good for right now.
I didn't quite get the guard done or the handle done.
So I'm just gonna have to really kick it
into gear tomorrow and get those done.
All right.
- Come on in on day three and wish me the best.
We're gonna get to the quench today.
[bleep].
I'm having trouble getting it heated evenly.
Because my forge is short.
Every time I slide my blade through, it's so long.
It wants to droop on one end.
Well, every time that I'm getting down here,
and getting the back end of it hot,
the front end of it's cooling off.
We gotta get the timing right right here.
I get it in the quench tank. I don't feel any tings.
I don't feel any cracks, anything like that.
[scraping]
That's not a sound you want to hear.
It's soft on both ends. That's not gonna work.
My plan B is to go in for a second quench,
and instead of laying the blade flat,
I'll lay it upright.
Maybe I'll be able to hold the heat
a little bit better that way.
And the blade is not gonna sag on me.
If the quench doesn't go well,
if I go all the way back and start at ground zero.
[scraping]
Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you.
I'm elated that
I'm actually gonna be able to use this blade.
We have a hard blade.
We've got to not screw it up and keep it that way now.
♪ ♪
- Day four. So today I've got to get the guard on,
do the handle in the pommel, and do some fancy engravings.
There we go. I've got the guard fitting where I want it to.
I need the handle comfortable
so that there's not a reason to be sent home.
Good as it's gonna get. And then we'll peen it.
So I started engraving skulls and some flames
and things like that to kind of make it my own.
I'm really kind of under the gun here,
but what really helps me is my snake, Toaster.
He always helps me with engravings
and helps calm me down and gives me pointers.
Pretty close. Give it a test.
So Toaster really wanted to see this thing perform.
This blade is so good, I can smell Bigfoot now.
♪ ♪
- It's day four. It is the fourth quarter.
Today should be fit and finish day.
Langet love.
Now that I have everything fit together,
I can go ahead and straight down the guard
with the handle.
This thing's been going great.
All right, so far so good.
And hopefully, God willing, and the creek don't rise,
they might say you're the "Forged in Fire" champion.
It will KEAL.
♪ ♪
- Well, Nathan, Gunnar, welcome back to The Forge.
We gave you four days in your home forges
to build your best executioner swords,
but only one of you guys is gonna be leaving here
with a title of "Forged in Fire" champion
and a check for $10,000.
So, Nathan, how did the build go for you?
♪ ♪
- It went pretty good.
The steel is 51-60, cross guard's mild steel.
The handle is ebony, and the pommel is 01.
- It looks good. Gunnar, how about you?
♪ ♪
- My blade is 80CrV2. I've got a TN80 guard,
an oak handle and weight bar pommel.
- Right on, guys. All right, so we got a strength test.
We've got a sharpness test.
And being that this is the executioner sword,
we're gonna start it off with the KEAL. Doug?
♪ ♪
- Bladesmiths, welcome to the KEAL test.
♪ ♪
The executioner sword.
That word alone just gives you visions of decapitated heads.
So to find out what kind of lethal damage
your executioner sword can do,
I'll deliver some--well, lethal blows on this ballistics dummy.
Nathan, is it time?
- It's time. Have fun. - Let's execute.
- I wanna make it through the next test.
So this ballistic dummy is standing in the way.
So he's gotta be executed.
So I want to see Doug just cut this thing right in half and,
you know, bone and blood and guts
and everything going everywhere.
♪ ♪
- Holy crap.
- Just a little off the top.
[laughter]
♪ ♪
All right, Nathan. First up, this is a heavy beast.
It is so forward-heavy that you need two hands to control that.
Now, your handle construction is smooth.
I'll give you that, but it also feels
a little bit rounded over here
where it actually gives me much more control sideways
than it does this way.
But overall, your weapon, sir, it will KEAL.
- Awesome.
- All right, Gunnar, your turn, so you ready?
- Absolutely. - Let's do this.
- I'm not going to say I'm not nervous,
because I am a little bit,
but at this point in time, the hay's in the barn,
and whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen.
♪ ♪
- Good job.
- All right, Gunnar, let's talk about your executioner
sword over here.
Your blade right here has a finer grind.
So it makes it a little bit lighter.
And the edge that you have here when he came to that skull,
it just glided into that. Overall, sir,
your executioner sword, it will KEAL.
- Thank you.
♪ ♪
- All right, gentlemen, it's time for the strength test,
the skull and bone chop.
And to test the overall construction of your blades
as well as how they feel while they're being used,
I'll be chopping into these skulls
and that nasty giraffe bone.
Nathan, you're up. Are you ready?
- Yes, sir. Have fun.
- The strength test is definitely a make-or-break.
And Dave is not gonna go easy on these things,
and so he's just gonna beat the crap out of it.
So I'm pretty darn nervous.
♪ ♪
Holy giraffe.
- [laughs]
- All right, Nathan, so right off, man, this thing is heavy.
But once you get it moving, it's going,
but controlling it's tough.
Having said that your edge held up beautifully.
It's still just as sharp as when I started,
which is pretty darn sharp. So good job on that.
- Thanks. I like sharp things.
- Gunnar, ready?
- What if I said no?
- I'd say, "You don't watch the show much, do you?"
- Exactly, exactly.
♪ ♪
- All right, so, Gunnar, right off, lighter blade,
easier to control. A lot of that has to do
with the fact that you've got more handle here.
Now, your blade, it's got some compacting on the edges,
but I wouldn't run my finger down this edge.
It's still plenty sharp. Nicely done.
- Thank you, sir.
♪ ♪
- All right, bladesmiths, this is the sharpness test,
the jack fruit and water can slice.
Nathan, you up for it? You ready?
- Yes, sir. Have fun.
- All right, let's do this.
♪ ♪
- It's still sharp.
- Yeah.
- All right, Nathan, as far as the downward chop,
it's a very clean cut, easy, no resistance whatsoever.
Now, when I was cutting, as soon as I met
the resistance of the water, it kind of rolled on my hand.
But anything that it did have contact with
it was able to cut.
Overall, sir, your weapon, it will cut.
- Thank you.
- All right, Gunnar, your turn. So you ready?
- Yes, sir. I am.
- Let's do this.
♪ ♪
- All right, Gunnar, the handle construction
you have here is wide and ovoid enough to where
when I hold onto it I can really tell where the edge is,
and it's much easier to control a blade like this.
In the slice, you can see that it cuts nicely.
Overall, sir, your weapon, it will cut.
- Thank you.
♪ ♪
- Well, bladesmiths, only one of you can leave here
with the title of "Forged in Fire" champion
and get that check for $10,000.
Now, the judges discussed your blades,
and they made a final decision.
Today's "Forged in Fire" champion is...
♪ ♪
Gunnar. Congratulations.
Now, Nathan, you fought hard, man,
but unfortunately, your blade didn't make the cut,
and Doug's gonna tell you why.
- Nathan, without a doubt, you've got the skills,
because that's a beautiful sword.
But the weight you have on your blade
and the choice of that handle construction
made it a little bit more difficult to control,
and those are the reasons why you didn't win today.
- Understandable.
- Well, Nathan, you have what it takes,
but unfortunately, your time in this competition has ended.
I'm gonna have to ask you
to please step off The Forge floor.
- Thank you very much. Congratulations.
- Thanks, bud.
- This has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
I mean, I've loved coming out here,
loved being with the other smiths.
Well, I'm gonna have to find a different way to take my wife
to go see Bigfoot, but we're still gonna go.
♪ ♪
- Well, Gunnar, that makes you the "Forged in Fire" champion.
You just got yourself a check for $10,000. Congratulations.
- Thank you. Appreciate it, guys.
I just won "Forged in Fire." - Feeling good?
- I mean, I've never thought I would make it
this far from day one.
I don't necessarily think that I'm a better smith
than any of these other guys.
It just worked out in my favor today.
As far as the money, after football season ends,
my wife and I will probably take a long weekend somewhere.
♪ ♪