- Over the years, we've seen hundreds of smiths
give it their all in our Forge.
- Yes! - There you go!
- The judges have critiqued a lot of blades, given advice,
and often times made a lot of tough decisions.
- This is the closest decision I have ever had to make.
- Now for the first time ever,
the judges are taking over.
Over four weeks, every aspect of the competition
will come from the twisted mind
of one of our expert judges.
Their favorite weapons,
their most impossible challenges...
- What on earth is going on?
- And the most punishing tests.
[dramatic music]
J.,
Dave,
Doug,
and Ben
will each take center stage, calling all the shots.
- Go ahead and lift up that cloth.
- In crafting a competition like only they can.
- Oh, no. [screams]
- Which judge is up next?
- This is not gonna be easy.
- Find out as the Judges Takeover continues now.
- Good luck.
♪ ♪
- My name's Jim Morrissey.
I'm 37 years old. I'm from Deland, Florida.
My son, James, who's 11, loves to forge with me.
Having him in the forge is awesome.
He is autistic, so it actually helps him,
having something to focus on.
You give him a specific task
and that kid will follow through with it.
♪ ♪
- My name is Bob Clarke. I'm 51 years old.
I'm the chief operating officer for the Office of Technology,
which is the central IT organization
for the state of Indiana.
It is a stressful job, so whenever I get off work,
I like to go down and pound hot steel.
♪ ♪
- My name is Wade Plumlee. I'm from Pasco, Washington.
I'm a sheet metal worker and a part-time bladesmit.
I'm pretty competitive.
I don't like people to be better than me.
I like to be the best one in the room.
[chuckles]
♪ ♪
- My name is Tyler Reinhardt. I'm 19 years old.
I'm a full-time college student,
but one thing I really like to do is
recreating historical blades
because I think it's a very cool window into the past,
you can say.
♪ ♪
- Bladesmiths, welcome to the Forge.
The four of you came here to test yourselves
against each other and against our clock
in three extremely intense rounds
of bladesmithing competition.
Now guys, at the end of each one of these rounds,
I'm going to ask you to present your work
to our panel of expert judges.
Our judges today are:
two-time "Forged in Fire" champion, Ben Abbott.
Next, historic weapons recreation specialist,
Dave Baker.
And edge weapons specialist and kali martial artists,
Doug Marcaida.
♪ ♪
They're going to decide which one of you
is going to leave here on top,
joining the ranks of the "Forged in Fire" champions
and taking home a check for 10 grand.
Today, guys, this is a continuation
of a series of competitions
We are calling the Judges Takeover,
where everything from the blades,
the challenges, and the tests
all come from within the minds of one of our esteemed judges.
♪ ♪
And today, bladesmiths, you guys are in for a treat.
You're going to be jumping into the mind of a man
who over the past few years has probably built more swords
than any smith you've ever met.
I'm talking about none other than the weapons maker himself,
David Baker.
♪ ♪
- [chuckles]
I know he's made some really intricate weaponry,
so I'm anxious.
I'm worried that Dave is gonna pull out
this intricate... whatever.
- All right, bladesmiths.
I hope you're ready to go back in time.
Now, for those of you who don't know my background,
I moved to Hollywood in 1980 to start a career
in the entertainment industry.
And 41 years almost to the date,
you can see I'm an overnight success.
Now, the 80s were decade that gave us
some of the most iconic weapons of all time
for movies.
Gentlemen, for these first two round,
I don't want you to build an iconic blade from history.
I want you to build something like this.
♪ ♪
That is the bone daddy, a fantasy-inspired seax.
♪ ♪
Now, in Hollywood, when a director comes to you
and he says, "I want a blade that's got a fantasy spin,
but inspired by a real blade"
Now, that was the cool thing about the 80s.
Most of the blades from those movies,
they were built for functionality.
♪ ♪
Now, the blade itself needs to be 12 to 14 inches,
swelling to a clip point.
- The upswept blade on the spine
and the sharp drop to the clip point
is something that I don't normally make.
That is going to be a challenge,
but I'm up for it.
- Now, I bet you're wondering
how we're going to build these weapons.
I'm going to give you a choice.
You can use a canister, or you can make a 50-layer Damascus.
Now, that 50-layer Damascus,
I'd really like to see some kind of a pattern in it
because I want to see your spin,
your take on this weapon.
Have fun.
♪ ♪
- The bone daddy.
♪ ♪
Now, bladesmiths, in round two of the competition,
you're gonna add handles to your fantasy seaxes,
making them fully functioning weapons,
at which point, you're gonna hand them over to the judge,
who are going to check for strength and durability
in a film light chop.
And they're gonna check your edge retention
in a movie screen slice.
Now, guys, we have three hours on the clock
for this first round of competition.
Good luck, work hard.
Your time starts now.
♪ ♪
- Who's your bone daddy? [laughter]
- That's my bone daddy. [laughter]
♪ ♪
All four of these smiths
have gone right to the stacked Damascus.
- Yep.
- So Dave, why'd you choose the fantasy seax?
- Viking movies have a lot of fantasy background to the.
And seax is one of those blades that it's just a great chopper,
but it's also a large canvas for these guys to work with.
♪ ♪
- First thing I'm doing is
cleaning off my individual pieces for the billet.
If I don't clean my steel, there's an increased chance
that it'll have an inclusion or a delamination.
- They're all bellied up to their grinders,
but do they have to be doing this right now?
- I would. Forge scale is essentially rust,
so it just sits like plates of dirt
in-between your glue joint. - Oh, dang.
- Well, the thing that initially attracted me
to bladesmithing was the "Forged in Fire" competition.
And, first thing I ever did actually was go out
to our fire pit and chuck a piece of steel in there,
but that did not work out.
So my first knife was not very good, to say the least,
but I just got progressively better.
♪ ♪
- I'm not into fantasy blades,
but hey, if that's what Dave wants,
I'm going to give it to him.
I get everything cleaned up
and get it all welded together.
Failure to prepare is preparing to fail,
so I start preparing small little things
that can help me as I'm going along in the build.
I'ma go give him a little kiss.
Now that I have the steel hot enough,
I don't want to squeeze it too hard,
'cause I don't want to stress the steel.
- What you don't want to do is be really aggressive
on those first passes
and either shear or weld or have your stack start to lean.
- I want one homogeneous piece of steel when I'm done.
♪ ♪
- I make Damascus for my blades 'cause people love it,
so I'm hoping that gives me an advantage.
♪ ♪
As my billet is heating up,
I'm going to go do my drawing.
- Historically, there are a number of different seax.
We gave them some basic parameters
with sort of that broke-back seax look,
but other than that, the sky's the limit.
- Dave called his a bone daddy.
I think I'm going to call my blade the Bob Daddy Blade.
Now I'm gonna set my welds.
♪ ♪
- What makes this a fantasy seax?
- Right, well, scale-wise, it's a little larger.
The fact that it's got a canister to Damascus to it.
It's called the bone daddy because the pattern
reminded me of fossils.
♪ ♪
- I really like Dave's work
and I look up to him as a bladesmith.
- With everybody doing stacked Damascus,
we're expecting at least three different stacks to make 50.
- Yeah. They'll need to draw that 20 out,
cut it at at least three, and restack it.
- So I get my billet drawn out to the size I want.
- Wade's already drawing his billet out.
- Measured out my equal lengths,
start cutting them off, and that way,
I can just put them back and weld them together.
If I don't clean the steel again,
it's gonna create problems like delams and other problems
that I don't want to mess with later on.
So I got my 60 layers of Damascus now.
♪ ♪
- Bladesmiths, you have two hours left.
- Right now is the time
for me to cut these pieces.
They are not matching sizes,
which is completely not optimal.
Welding!
But I'm not doing this at home.
I don't have time to sit there and measure and everything.
I know that I have to get these back in the forge quickly,
draw this billet out.
- It's kind of like the Tower of Babel.
- What could happen is, as you're pressing them dow,
the part that's longer might not forge weld.
- Jim's got an issue with his weld right now.
It looks like the top front portion
is kind of peeling away.
- I need to prepare that
that's just gonna be sacrificial steel.
- When we talk about the things that can go wrong with a weld,
we kind of overlooked the fact that how you stack everything
can lead to success or failure.
- I really hope that I have enough steel
to be able to chop this off and meet parameters.
♪ ♪
- My billet seems to be holding together very well.
I need to cut it and restack it.
Three pieces.
Kind of just long.
♪ ♪
Normally at home, I take a lot of time to clean off my billet
on the second welding pass,
but here, I am under a time limit.
- Tyler stacked his billet
and he didn't clean it.
- That's a dangerous bet right there.
I think we're going to see things come apart.
- Trouble.
- This next forge weld is very critical for me
because if this doesn't work,
the blade's not gonna be strong.
- Almost there.
I've always loved working with metal,
even when I was a kid,
so whenever I moved out into the country,
I didn't have great internet,
so I thought this would be a great hobby to do
that doesn't require any kind of data.
- Bob took the time to cut this second stack evenly.
He's already got what looks like
a really clean billet going.
- Yeah.
- As soon as they told us we got extra points
for putting a pattern on,
I knew I was going to go with a ladder pattern.
Almost.
The ladder pattern is probably one of the easiest patters
to put in quickly.
- Really excited to see what these smiths
bring to the challenge.
- All right, bladesmiths,
you guys are halfway through round one.
♪ ♪
Tyler, flattened his bar out,
and now he is over there just trying to even out his billet.
- So I started grinding on the edge of my billet,
and as I do that, I noticed that there's a bubble.
♪ ♪
- Ooh, that's no good. - Yeah, I see that too, Dave.
- It's not welded.
- It's not very big,
so I cut off the area that it's in
because I had a lot of steel to work with.
- Do you think it's all stemming
from not having cleaned it before stacking?
- Yep.
- I'm gonna keep moving along,
and then I find a second bubble.
- Ooh. - Oh!
- Uh-oh. - Oh, no.
- I know I can't simply cut it off
because then I wouldn't have any steel left.
- Skipping a step in the recipe could come back
and bite you when you're in the critical time.
- It's a lot deeper than I thought.
I'm panicking.
Time is running down.
There might be more delaminations that I don't se.
This isn't looking good.
That might be what sends me home.
♪ ♪
- Ooh. Oh, no. - Oh!
- As I'm forging my blade,
I find a second bubble.
- If he's got blisters now,
he's only got half the billet he needed.
Shouldn't he just scrap it?
- Yes, he should.
- I know I can't simply cut it off.
Then I wouldn't have any steel left.
So I use a chisel to open up the air pocket.
- Even if you have that blister,
you pop and you force it down,
chances are that hole you made isn't big enough
for all that forge scale to come out of.
- Oh, sure.
- I reflux it and forge weld it again.
♪ ♪
As far as I can tell, I think it has been fixed.
Hopefully this doesn't come back to bite me.
- I really hope Tyler can pull this off.
- Now that I've got this billet stretched out
and my ladder pattern cut in,
I'm gonna start putting a tip on this knife.
- Oh, Bob's working his tip in it,
and he's got a really good touch with Big Blu.
- I do it in one heat.
- That thing looks mean!
- I love it!
- Bladesmiths, y'all have 45 minutes left.
Oh, Jim's got past the point of fighting that stack
and it looks like he's got a good-looking billet now.
- At this point, I'm looking at the clock,
and I say, okay, David wanted to see a pattern.
So why would you not want to meet that request?
- Jim's over here on the drill press,
putting in a raindrop pattern.
- Doing a raindrop pattern is really difficult.
You need to drill those holes in to a depth that's enough,
drilled from the other side
and not hitting any of those holes,
and then quench everything out to an even shape.
- I go over to Big Blu to draw it out.
I'm starting to see some raindrops in there.
Not many. Maybe a light rain day.
♪ ♪
- Wade's material is pristine
on all sides. - Yeah.
- I got my wife back home. She's ridden for me big time.
And also my family, they're just a big support group.
They're really proud of what I do.
I'm trying to get the tip drawn out.
And getting it in the shape of the seax
is harder than it looks.
- Wade is struggling with this particular shap,
but, you know, having the spine come up
and then go back down is giving Wade some issues.
- My blade's starting to look similar to what it should be,
so I decided to make a ladder pattern out of it
just to give a little bit more pizazz in there.
- He's putting a ladder pattern in it now.
- Holy moly!
That seems pretty late in the game
to be working on extra patterning.
- He has to press out what he ground in.
- The only way that Wade can get those out is just,
you have to keep thinning the blade.
- So he's sacrificing a lot of thickness,
and in turn, sacrificing potential strength.
- It's possible.
- The clock is really ticking down on me now,
and I just need to make sure that I'm using my time
as wisely as possible.
♪ ♪
- So now that I'm ready for my quench,
I want to make sure the temperature's just righ.
So what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna sprinkle table salt all over this blade.
And that table salt will melt
at almost exactly the right temperature
when that blade's ready to quench.
- What a cool trick! - Nice. Yeah!
♪ ♪
- Bob has quenched.
Let's see how Bob likes the blade.
♪ ♪
- Straight.
I'm gonna grind this thing down
so that when I put it in the etch,
you'll be able to see this pattern.
♪ ♪
- Well, amazingly enough,
Tyler's managed to draw that blade out.
- Yeah, man.
- I want to make sure to heat my blade very evenly.
I'm looking for a nice, dull red color.
♪ ♪
- Tyler quenched.
- All right, Tyler. - That's a success story.
- I have a straight blade.
And it has hardened, so I'm gonna start grinding.
- This is the moment of truth for Tyler.
- Yep. - As he grinds,
he's gonna find things trapped inside that blade
because he didn't do that cleaning step.
- I really don't want to have an inclusion or delamination.
I really want to see Dave Baker test it out.
♪ ♪
- Jim quenched.
- Whoo-hoo!
- Ooh! You can see that pattern.
I need to start grinding on this
'cause this thing is thick.
♪ ♪
- Four quenched blades. - Great to see.
- I start cleaning it up, making sure
everything's coming out the way it should.
- Ooh, that's an aggressive-looking blade there.
I like what Wade's got going on.
- Everything looks good.
I can't believe that just came together
in just the three hours.
- Five, four,
three, two, one.
Bladesmiths, turn off you machines.
Put down your tools.
The first round of this fantasy competition is over.
[applause]
[laughter]
♪ ♪
- Despite the problems with my blade,
I feel I did pretty good.
And it came out pretty well, I think.
♪ ♪
- All right, bladesmiths,
in the first three hours of this competition,
Dave asked you to make your fantasy seax,
and the time has come for the first critique and elimination.
And Jim, you're up first, please present your work.
♪ ♪
- All right, Jim, you kinda
changed up that seax shape a little bit,
gave it that kind of a recurved edge to it almost,
which is kind of cool.
There's a lot of material here.
It's still a thick blade.
But I can see that patterning
from the 60 layers you've got on this.
Your steel looks solid.
I think you're well on your way.
Nicely done. - Thank you, sir.
- Bob, you ready? - I'm ready.
- Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- All right, Bob, I really like your spin
on what a fantasy seax could look like.
Should you move forward,
just the matter of really refining some of these seams
and delaminations you have,
but definitely within grinder range.
But overall, I like where it's going.
- Thank you.
- Wade, you're up. Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- All right, Wade. This is cool.
Really nice design all the way around,
but the one thing that gives me a little concern is,
you've got two grind lines that were pretty deep.
One's right here.
It starts here and goes to the edge.
And the other one is right here and it goes to the edge.
So, this is something that will have to be dealt with,
or else that's a stress riser
that could pop that blade right in half.
Other than those lines, good job.
- Tyler, you're up. Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- All right, Tyler, you came up with a cool profile.
It's definitely got a seax look to it,
but this pockmark that showed up here,
it's a huge gap that was inside your steels
as you were welding them together.
This came from the fact that you did not clean your steels
when you stacked them back up.
And I'm not sure where else in this blade
there are structural issues,
but you managed to get it all in
and it has neat profile, so nice job.
♪ ♪
- All right, bladesmiths.
In this competition, only three of you
can join us in the second round.
And the judges have made a decision.
The bladesmith leaving The Forge is...
♪ ♪
Tyler.
- Tyler, you came up with a good design
and you never quit out there, which was great to see.
But by not cleaning those stacks,
those welds didn't take, and we're just not sure
of the structural stability of the center of that blade.
That's why we're letting you go.
- I understand. Thank you.
- Tyler, you're a talented smith,
but unfortunately, your time in the competition has ende.
I'm gonna have to ask you to please surrender your work
and step off The Forge floor.
♪ ♪
- This experience was very exciting for me
and I'm definitely going to continue making Damascs
and improving my process
so that stuff like this doesn't happen again.
♪ ♪
- Well, Jim, Bob, Wade, congratulations, gentlemen.
The three of you are moving forward
into the second round of Dave Baker's Takeover.
Now in this round, you're gonna fix any issus
you have with your blades, as well as add handles to them,
turning into fully functioning fantasy seaxes.
Now, there are some parameters, and for that,
I'm gonna give you back to Dave.
- So gentlemen, to finish your blades in this second round,
you're going to need to add a button guard,
as well as work in an antler crown to your handle.
Good luck. - All right, bladesmiths.
You've got your work cut out for you.
You have two hours on the clock.
And when that time is up, the judges are gonna check
for strength and durability in a film light chop.
And then, they're gonna check your edge retention
in a movie screen slide.
All right, bladesmiths, you've got two hours.
And that time starts now.
♪ ♪
Well, Dave, you asked for a fantasy seax.
With the blades we have out here,
you seeing them turning into those?
- Yeah, all of these smiths have been really creative
in what they've got going on.
♪ ♪
- Doug identified a couple of inclusions
on the top of my blade, near the spine.
I want to fix them quickly because I know
I'm gonna need time for that handle.
It's gonna be complicated.
And that fit is really critical.
- Holy moly, Bob is going aggressive on the grinder.
♪ ♪
- As I'm grinding my blade,
I realize these inclusions aren't that bad
and they disappear, so crisis averted.
♪ ♪
- I have some deep grinder marks,
so I start working on fixing the dents
and the dings in the blades.
- Wade got those lines
when he ground in that ladder pattern.
He's got to deal with those.
And that might take away from some of that shape.
- I need to finish up on this grinder
and get my handle started.
♪ ♪
- I'm feeling pretty good after Dave's feedback,
but I need to get this thing on a diet.
♪ ♪
As I'm grinding, I'm thinking to myself,
"What's a good way to take a little bit more weight off
and still have a nice, aesthetic look to the blade?"
So I think, "Okay, let me throw a fuller in there real quick."
Nothing huge, but it will pull some more weight off.
- Well, Jim's got a lot of weight to remove.
So it's good to see that he's spending the time doing that.
- Yeah.
- Bladesmiths, you have 1 hour and 30 minutes left.
♪ ♪
- My handle's gonna have a brass button guard
followed by a piece of wood, and then a stag antler handle.
I know I got to dry-fit my pins
to make sure they'll fit in there once I get the glue up.
I'm a little concerned that
the antler is very brittle and they break apart,
but I also know that I'm running low on time.
I don't want me spending any more time than I have to
over on this antler.
♪ ♪
- Bob is completely filling his stag horn.
- You really want to see that.
I mean, you don't want any looseness.
- Now that I've got my handle material glued up,
all I have left to do is shape this handle
and sharpen this blade.
I start shaping that button guard,
but when I do that, it starts spinning.
That epoxy is not holding it.
[bleep].
If there's a void in here, that handle could come loose.
All I'm thinking is, I'm not gonna be able
to turn this knife in.
[bleep].
I need to figure out how to fix that
as fast as I possibly can.
[groans]
So I do a few tacks right up near the spine
to make sure that that button guard doesn't go anywhere.
- Bob's putting weld on the button guard.
- It's not good.
At a very critical juncture,
you're putting heat treatment,
and it can be dangerous.
It'll break right there.
- It's solid. It's not going anywhere.
♪ ♪
- It's time for me to start working on my handle.
I'm gonna get wood in the center,
and then I'll use the crown as the end cap.
My plan is to peen it over
to make a mechanical connection.
- These guys are going above and beyond.
You asked for the button guard and the crown,
and we've got multiple-piece handle construction.
- Yeah, I'm excited.
- As soon as I drill through it all,
my plan is destroyed.
I drilled a large enough hole
for a whole space shuttle to run through it.
And now, there is absolutely no way for me to peen this over.
[bleep].
I need to make a mechanical connection
because I don't want my thing to come apart.
And now, I need to drill another hole
through this tang and the antler
and throw another brass rod
to make a second mechanical connection.
- Guys, you only have 30 minutes left.
- So I drilled the second hole through the antler,
but I have to get this glued up, shaped, and sharpened.
♪ ♪
- The edge I'm looking for on this blade
is a nice, fine edge that'll be able
to go through in these light tests
but also be able to go through the sharpness test.
♪ ♪
It's not shaving the hair on my arm,
so I grab a stropping block
and I just run it over that a few times
until I can get some hair shaved on my arms,
to make sure it's sharp.
Yes.
I feel like my knife came out pretty nicely.
♪ ♪
- Bob's over there, etching.
- Good. - All right!
- I love the profile on my blade.
The etch came out really nice,
so I should go straight back to the grinder to sharpen.
♪ ♪
- Everything's glued up and together,
but I now have little gaps
in-between the wood and my guard and the antler.
- We've tested blades that had gaps
between multiple pieces of handle material.
It take a bite out of your hands.
- So I've watched this competition enough
to know that if I leave this unaddressed,
it's going to send me home.
So I'm gonna fill it with epoxy
and hope that that's enough to not send me home.
♪ ♪
- Five, four,
three, two, one.
Bladesmiths, round two of the competition's over.
♪ ♪
- I looked down at my blade
and I can't believe how well it came out.
I'm feeling relieved.
Like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.
- All right, gentlemen, I've really enjoyed
watching you guys build these fantasy-based seaxes,
and I can't wait to get to test 'em.
So what we're going to do is our movie light chop.
I'll be taking your fantasy-inspired seaxes
and chopping into these studio lights.
Now, this isn't about what your blades do to the light.
It's about what those lights can do to your blades.
And Jim, you are up first. You ready?
- Let's get at 'er. - Okay.
♪ ♪
- I am not confident going into this testing.
I know there's a bit of a void in my handle
that I filled with epoxy.
I don't want to hurt Dave
and I don't want my thing to come apart.
♪ ♪
- Nice. Nice.
[laughter]
That was awesome.
- All right, Jim. Your blade is still straight.
Everything's still tight.
Your edge did take some dulling
and some rolling.
All in all, I like the design of this,
that kind of forward sweep to it.
Good job. - Thank you, sir.
- Bob, your time to play. Are you ready?
- Whack it. Don't crack it.
[laughter]
- Okay.
[laughter]
- Smacking a blade into metal and glass
could actually cause the blade to roll over a chip.
I'm not sure what's gonna happen.
♪ ♪
both: Ooh! - [inhales sharply]
♪ ♪
All right, Bob.
First off, a couple of things are going on.
See the size of the tang
compared to the size of the blade?
You're less than half of what that ricasso is.
And then by putting that weld in there,
I mean, you just superheated that section of the blade.
And it literally snapped right at the base of that weld.
- Mm-hmm. - It's still got a sharp edge.
All in all, I think as far as designing a fantasy-based seax,
that's a neat-looking knife.
- Thank you.
- Bob, that's an extremely aggressive tes,
but unfortunately, your blade did break on the fourth strike.
But you are not out of the fight yet.
Now, Wade, you have to survive all four of the strikes
in order to move forward in the third round.
Are you ready? - Let's go. Lights out.
- All right. Let's get it. Dave.
♪ ♪
- My blade's on the thinner side.
Looking at Bob's blade before it broke,
it definitely has a thicker blade,
so I'm really worried about how my blade is going to perform.
♪ ♪
- All right, Wade. Good work.
You survived all four strikes.
Now, Bob, unfortunately, you suffered a catastrophic failure
during the test
and we cannot continue testing your fantasy seax.
I want to say we appreciate all your hard work,
but unfortunately, your time in Dave's competition has ended.
I'm going to you to please step off The Forge floor.
- Thanks.
- Thank you, Bob. It's a good-looking knife.
- I had a great experience.
I loved it. I loved the competitors.
I would do it again.
Dave said he liked the design on my blade,
so I'm going away happy.
♪ ♪
- All right, Jim, Wade. Congratulations, guys.
The two of you have made it through the first two rounds
of Dave's Takeover competition.
Now in this third and final round,
we are sending you back to your home forges
to build another iconic weapon from the mind of Dave Baker.
Take it away, Dave.
- All right, gentlemen, I have built
over 200 weapons so far for these competitions,
but I think this one was my favorite.
I want you to build this.
♪ ♪
The fantasy broadsword,
the sword that got me inspired to join this craft.
- Nice.
- The broadsword is an iconic weapon from history
that has inspired many fantasy weapons
throughout cinematic history
Such as the swords featured in the classic
"Conan the Barbarian"
and "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy.
The broadsword dates back to medieval Europe,
featuring a wide double-edged blade
designed to deliver devastating cuts
and slashes during battle
while the fullers on both sides
keep it light enough to reel with one hand.
These deadly weapons were so effective in combat
they were wilted by knights across Europe.
- Your blades need to be double-edged
and measure between 26 and 28 inches,
measured from tip to guard in a straight line.
And because Dave wants to see your own individual talent
and creativity in these blades,
he wants to have a fantasy-style guard
and pommel attached.
- I think making a fantasy guard
will be my biggest challenge.
But I can't wait to tell my son
that dad is in the finals, bud.
We're gonna build this badass sword.
- All right, guys, you have four days at your home forgs
to build your fantasy swords.
Good luck. We will see you then.
- Ready? Let's go.
[laughter]
♪ ♪
- Back here at my home forge in Pasco, Washington,
getting ready to build my fantasy broadsword.
Oh, yeah.
My overall game plan for the day
is getting my broadsword profiled out
and get it ready for heat treat.
So I started off working a good tip in there.
Definitely a struggle.
I've got no power tools,
so I got to do it all by hand
and that's a thick piece of metal to be moving by hand.
♪ ♪
So I didn't get as far as I was hoping today.
Almost got all my parameters met
and I just got a little bit to go in the morning.
♪ ♪
- So we're in Deland, Florida at my shop, Shamrock Knives.
In my mind, this fantasy theme,
I just kind of tried to model it
after something like a barbarian would be carrying,
you know, some badass looking.
So the first step is gonna be
getting this all tack-welded together.
I have learned advanced Damascus techniques,
which leaves me with making Damascus for this sword.
This is solid.
Making the Damascus will take up my whole first day,
but I'm not worried about that
'cause it's gonna look nice and it's gonna perform.
Finishing up day one, I've got half a sword length.
But all in all, I'm feeling
pretty confident that I can get this done.
- Starting day two.
I got my blade profile pretty good,
so I move on to my heat treat.
Okay. Here we go.
♪ ♪
I'm liking it. It's looking really good.
Everything came out beautifully.
- Morning of day two.
This is my son, James. - Hello.
- He hangs out in the forge with me a lot
and helps me out.
So what do you think of the sword so far?
- There's a lot of work to get done.
And I really got to get this sword drawn out
to its proper parameters.
This won't work.
I start noticing, there's cracks.
The layers themselves are splitting apart.
So...
[sword clatters]
That's [bleep].
Day one was pretty much a waste.
It's a lot of work, to lose an entire day.
♪ ♪
Now I got to start over again.
And I really hope I can finish on time.
I am pretty pissed off, but sitting here
and getting mad isn't gonna help me win this.
And I've got a lot to do in the next 20 hours.
I just decided to move on to some plain mono steel,
some 5160.
It's all right. We're gonna get it done.
- Start of day four.
Yesterday, I was able to get my guard pommel
and handle all put together.
Nice. All the way through.
This is a fantasy broadsword I'm building,
and so, to put my spin on it,
I'm gonna be making it look like David Baker.
I'm gonna put a handlebar mustache on the guard
and then also put a beard for the pommel.
[laughter]
And, man, it looks really good.
It's time to go to the grinder and put an edge on this blade.
[whistles]
I had to leave a thicker edge on my blade,
that way, it'd be able to handle a good strength tes.
Voilà.
Crap.
I'm stoked with how this turned out
and I'm ready for the judges to look at it.
- The last day I got to finish this sword.
Yesterday, I got my second sword forged out and quenched.
Today, I got to put this sword together
and fit up my guard, fit up my pommel.
Oh, look at that.
I put these little eyes all over it.
You know, it's kind of like the sword sees into your soul.
If you got to go battle a, you know, a troll,
take this with you.
I'm proud that I was able to make it in 35 hours.
I was raised to never give up.
And then, I want to teach that to my son.
It's [bleep] sharp. [chuckles]
♪ ♪
- Well, Jim, Wade, welcome back to The Forge, guys.
We gave you four days to work on your best fantasy blade
per the request of Dave Baker in his takeover challenge.
And only one of you guys is
gonna have your fantasy come true,
taking home the title of "Forged in Fire" champion
and a check for $10,000.
But, before we put your blades to the test,
I want to hear a bit about 'em.
Jim, how'd it go for you? - It was a little stressful.
But overall, it was pretty fun.
♪ ♪
I built it with 5160 steel.
It's got a 4140 guard.
And I inlaid some jewels and some jade
into the handle and guard for the fantasy theme.
- Yeah, it looks like it should be on a movie poster.
But good job. - Thank you, sir.
- Wade, how about you? - It went good.
I made my blade out of 5160.
And then, I used rebar for the guard
and a piece of mild steel for the pommel.
For my fantasy theme,
I went where Dave Baker was transported into a land
where he was turned into a sword
and became the David Blader.
He's got a bearded pommel and a mustache guard.
- Oh! [laughter]
- Well done, man. Well done.
I love it.
♪ ♪
- So we've got a strength test. We've got a sharpness test.
And up first, the KEAL. Doug.
♪ ♪
- Bladesmiths, welcome to the KEAL test.
To find out what kind of lethal damage your weapons will do,
I'll take your fantasy swords and deliver some lethal blos
on this wild boar carcass.
Jim, you're up first. Are you ready for this?
- Yes, sir. - Let's do this.
- There's a big, hairy beast.
That hair and that skin is thick, and it's tough.
The tang itself inside the pommel is a little bit short.
Any heavy testing may test that pommel strength.
♪ ♪
- Nice. There you go.
♪ ♪
- All right, Jim, let's talk about your fantasy sword here.
The blade is obtuse, but it's sharp
and it lends itself to a very deep cut and thrust.
What I also like is that
it's got an eye that stares back at you.
Oh! It just gave me a wink. [laughter]
Overall, sir, your sword, it'll KEAL.
- Thank you.
- All right, Wade. It's your turn.
You ready? - Let's go hog-wild.
- All right. We shall.
- The wild boar has got that thick hair on there.
And you got bones in there that you got to go through.
I'm a little worried about how this is gonna hold up.
♪ ♪
- All right, Wade, let's talk about your Dave Blader.
First up, it is a forward-weighted blade,
but that actually adds to the cutting power of this blade.
As you can see in the first cut, that was a very deep cut.
In thrusting,
the weight alone drops down and drags
and cuts even deeper on the way out.
Overall, sir,
your fantasy sword, it will KEAL.
- Thank you.
- All right, gentlemen, it's time for the strength test.
The giant helmet chop.
♪ ♪
Now, every great fantasy movie has a hero--that's me--
Who takes a sword made by the great smith--that's you guys--
To take on an evil villain-- That's them.
Now, this test isn't about what your blades do to the helmets,
but what these helmets can do to your blades.
All right, Jim, you're up first.
Are you ready? - Yeah, man.
- Okay.
- It's very intimidating to see these giant helmets
with spikes on 'em.
Something's got to give when one of these two steels
hit each other.
In a fantasy battlefield,
you would hope that the sword would just crush that helmet,
but these things look pretty uncrushable.
♪ ♪
- Oh!
♪ ♪
- [sighs]
- Get that.
♪ ♪
All right, so Jim, I love the look of this thing.
It's really got a fantasy feel to it,
which I really appreciate.
What happened--
Well, right there at the connection
between your tang and your pommel,
it's just very, very small.
I mean, the grain looks all right,
but all that shock traveling through that blade
just popped it loose.
But I do really appreciate what you put into this sword.
- Thank you. - Nicely done.
- Appreciate it.
♪ ♪
- All right, Jim, hate to see it, but unfortunately,
your fantasy sword did suffer catastrophic failure,
so we cannot continue your testing.
But you're not out of the fight yet.
Wade, you've gotta survive seven strikes
on the giant helmet in order to become
the "Forged in Fire" champion.
Are you ready?
- Let's see how David Blader performs?
- Let's go.
- I'm a little worried because I'm thinking about my pommel
and how it's attached.
I know I got a thin tang going through there too,
just like Jim did,
and I'm worried if that thing is gonna pop off.
♪ ♪
[exhales in relief]
- Which one's prettier?
[laughter]
♪ ♪
- Well, Wade, congratulations, man.
You survived all seven strikes on the helmet.
Now, Jim, I hope you had as much fun in this competition
as we had watching you,
but unfortunately, due to that catastrophic failure,
your time in Dave Baker's Takeover has ended.
I gonna have to ask you to please
step off The Forge floor.
- All right. Thanks, man.
- Good job. Get over here.
- Very well done. - Great job, Jim.
- Jim, thanks so much.
It's a great-looking piece, man.
- Overall my blade held up amazingly,
so I'm happy with my heat treat.
Being asked to build something from a guy
who makes fantasy weapons all the time,
it was pretty cool.
It was a great personal honor
to have Dave say great things about my sword.
♪ ♪
- Well, Wade, you channeled Dave Baker in your blade
and it paid off. Congratulations.
You are the newest "Forged in Fire" champion.
And you just got yourself a check for $10,000.
- Well done. - Thank you.
I'm the new "Forged in Fire" champion. Whoo!
- Do you have plans for the money?
- Uh, my wife does.
[laughter]
- Winning this competition with the various challenges
presented by Dave Baker was just awesome.
To think that it came from his mind
and then I was able to put my own little spins on those
and then come out on top
just put an extra cherry on top.
♪ ♪