Forged in Fire (2015–…): Season 3, Episode 7 - The Boar Spear - full transcript
Four bladesmiths must use the steel from a suit of armor to create a signature blade. After a tense round of testing, only two move on to the final round where they'll have just five days to create a weapon historically used for both combat and hunting--the boar spear.
- For have faced offerica's
in the ultimate competition...
- Getting pretty hot
in the kitchen.
- Making some of history's
deadliest weapons.
Now, with the stakes
higher than ever,
a new batch of bladesmiths
enter the Forge
to test their skills.
- Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Watch out. Watch out. Watch out.
[dramatic music]
- Only one will
take home $10,000
and be crowned
"Forged in Fire" champion.
[dramatic music]
♪
- My name's Allen Newberry.
I've been making knives
for about nine years.
I am a stay-at-home dad/
custom-knife maker.
- I'm Chase Wilder.
I'm 19 years old.
And I've been bladesmithing
for about five years.
I'm the oldest of six kids.
I have taught my brothers
how to do
a little bit of blacksmithing,
but at the same time,
I've got to tell 'em
to keep away from the fire,
and, you know,
sparks are flying.
- My name is Mike Shindel.
I'm from what used to be
Soviet Union.
I came to U.S.
as a political refugee.
I'm here to prove to myself
that I've accomplished
something.
- My name's Clayton Cowart,
and I've been bladesmithing
for seven years.
I'm very blunt.
I have very little filter.
People either like me,
or they don't.
There's not really
an in-between.
- Welcome to the Forge,
bladesmiths.
You're here for three rounds
of blade-making competition
designed to push your skills
to the limit.
At the end of each round,
you will hand your work over
to our panel of expert judges...
Master bladesmith Jason Knight,
historic-weapons re-creation
specialist David Baker,
and last, edged-weapons
specialist Doug Marcaida.
Ultimately, they decide
which of you
is the "Forged in Fire" champion
who leaves here
with a check for 10 grand.
♪
Are you ready to do battle?
- Ready.
- Well, if you're going
into battle,
you'll probably want
something like this.
♪
[heavy rock music]
♪
- [scoffs, chuckles]
♪
- Am I gonna have to wear
a suit of armor
to forge a knife?
- Your first-round challenge
is to combine steel
from that suit of armor
with the high-carbon steel
on your anvil
to forge a signature blade.
How you choose to do this
is entirely up to you.
Keep in mind
that in the second round,
you'll be putting handles
on your blades
to turn them
into fully functional weapons
that will then be tested
for strength and durability...
Piercing through steel
and slicing through apples.
The blades themselves must fall
within the following parameters.
The length of the blade,
not including the tang,
must fall between
10 and 14 inches.
The overall length
of your weapon
must not exceed 22 inches.
You will have ten minutes
to work on your design.
You'll have three hours
to forge your blades.
I remind you
that when the time runs out,
one of you will have
to surrender his weapon
and leave the Forge.
♪
Good luck, bladesmiths.
Your ten-minute design window
starts now.
♪
Well, Dave,
how thick is that steel?
- That armor's made
out of an 18-gauge steel.
- It's very, very thin.
- The hardest part is gonna be
layering up enough of that steel
and making sure
you've got a good weld.
- I'm drawing
an Americanized tanto.
The tanto tip is gonna give me
the best bet
at piercing the metal
without damaging the tip.
I'm gonna make a great blade
to stand out, I guess,
and what else do you do?
♪
- I'm going to make
a recurved clip-point blade.
Design is my strong point.
I'm a part-time bladesmith
and a part-time creator-producer
of animation, cartoons.
- It's not every day
you get to pull apart
a suit of armor.
I am definitely
a history buff myself,
so getting to work
with something like this
is extra special.
So I'm designing
a drop-point chopping knife.
I want to have that spear point
so that I could, you know,
do any sort of stabbing
that was necessary
and then still some slicing.
- Which pieces
would you go for, Dave?
- The problem
is they're so rounded,
the more you have to work
to flatten those pieces out,
the more you're putting in
to just your prep work.
I'd probably shoot for the legs.
- Probably use that codpiece,
because that's got to be
the toughest piece on there.
[laughter]
♪
- I'm drawing four
different blade designs,
and I'm hoping once I have
this chunk of metal,
that I will know which one
is the knife
that I'm gonna make.
If I was the next
"Forged in Fire" champion,
my family would go crazy.
They'd love it.
There'd probably be cake.
- Bladesmiths! Your ten-minute
design window is now closed.
Your three-hour forge time
starts...
now.
We didn't give them
enough high-carbon steel
to meet the blade requirements,
so they're gonna need
a lot of steel
off of this suit of armor
over here.
- The bar stock's, what, 2,
2 1/2 inches long?
So I know
that I need to use a lot
of knight-in-shining-armor guy
if you want to get
10 to 14 inches out of that.
♪
- I think the hardest part
of this challenge
is actually getting the armor,
you know, prepped
and having it stick.
[metal clangs]
- [laughs]
I like that technique.
♪
- So Clayton has
that one leg piece.
- Next, after I flatten
the pieces of the armor,
I take them to the band saw
and cut them down to size
and then tack-weld
the whole thing together
into a billet.
Right now I'm trying to bring
this billet up to forge temp.
I'm gonna start
to consolidate it
and see how much material I have
to see if I can meet
the requirements,
otherwise I'm gonna have to go
back to the armor
and pull some more pieces
to add to it.
♪
- Clayton seems like
he's ahead of the pack.
[machinery whirring]
- I drew, I think, four designs,
and I figured
once I had my chunk of steel
it would tell me
what it wanted to be.
- So Allen cut up
his hardenable steel.
- He's gonna forge-weld it
back together
and throw the pieces of armor
in between.
- That's okay
as long as he's got
a hardenable piece
in the center.
♪
- Ah, [bleep].
♪
My plan is to use armor
and put the high-carbon core
right in between.
I hope it sticks, man.
I'm rushing as I'm welding,
because, you know, the clock
just, you know, ticking.
Ah.
I saw the end start to pop.
It's not welding.
I say to myself...
"Stay calm.
Try to work it through."
But I'm panicking.
I got to make it stick.
- He's got a weld on the side
of that billet
that's not closing up,
and he's trying to use the flux
to clean it out.
It's not going to do it.
- If it doesn't stick
the first time,
all the extra fluxing
and fluxing
is not gonna make it stick.
- Either grind that piece off
or cut the scale
that's built up in there out
and then close it up again.
- [exhales sharply]
♪
- So I've got three pieces
of the armor,
and then I've got two pieces
that I got from my carbon stock.
Hopefully, that'll be enough.
♪
- Chase actually chiseled
his billet,
folded it over,
and he's now
forge-welding it again,
so he's doing multiple,
multiple layers.
♪
- The word for today
is "flux."
- I never realized
that I used all that much flux.
- People will do what they know,
but do they know why?
- It's just kind of how I do it.
- It is like
seasoning your steak.
- I figure, you know,
it's better to have too much
than too little.
- I understand fluxing the edge,
where you can see
all the layers.
What is the point
of fluxing the flat part
where you can't see the edges?
- I don't want
to fluxing talk about it.
- [laughing]
- Fluxing up
the whole situation.
♪
- You have just two hours
remaining to finish your work!
- Things go quick.
- You know
what's very interesting?
You see the pace
that Clayton's going,
and then you see the complete
opposite with Allen.
♪
- All right, have I mentioned
I'm a terrible welder?
I am wanting to do
a "brute de forge" -type knife
where you leave a rough finish
on the blade.
I think it's gonna set apart
the blade that I'm making.
The clock is definitely ticking,
but it's still nice
and manageable.
- I haven't seen
this ancient parable
of the tortoise and the hare
played out in this arena before.
- Let's hope it's the tortoise
that wins the race.
♪
- Our smiths are really going
through the water today.
Good thing.
It's hot on the floor.
- It's not hot in the Forge.
I'm an Arizonian.
Last week,
it hit 128 at my house,
and inside of my shed,
during forge-welding,
we hit 138.
♪
- I'm concerned for Chase.
He's running out of fluids.
- [breathes heavily]
- Drink water!
- I'm from Michigan.
It never gets
this hot there, ever.
So it's definitely starting
to take a toll on me.
- When it gets hot
in a place like this,
you lose your mind,
and your butt will follow.
♪
- I'm just running around
like one
of my cartoon characters,
like a chicken without a head.
- Mike has just ground off
the edges of his billet
to see
if his forge weld held up.
- I think it stuck together,
but I hope I have enough length.
I'm right on the cusp
of not having enough material.
I don't know, man.
Good enough?
- It's good
to see Mike measuring,
but he's shaking his head.
- It looks like
his blade's the right length,
but there's no handle on it.
- I'm worried,
you know, big-time.
[exhales sharply]
- Leading up to the quench,
I'm feeling really, really good.
I had
a real even spine thickness,
which is rather important
to keeping your blade straight.
- Clayton has quenched.
Let's see if he's happy with it.
♪
- Nope, not happy.
- It's like a Kentucky road...
Not a straight line in sight.
[laughs]
- My blade came out rather warped from the
quench. As long as that blade doesn't drop below
As long as that blade doesn't
drop below 400 degrees,
I have a pretty good chance
of getting it straight.
Oh, come on.
- He's gonna break it.
- Clayton is really, really
pushing his luck with his blade.
- It's all a complete guess.
I'm not a thermometer.
But I'm extremely confident
that I can still pull
a little bit of that warp out.
- Just makes my skin crawl.
♪
- I get the majority
of the warp out,
but I'm really hoping
that somebody's blade cracks
or there's a far more
detrimental failure
than my warped blade.
♪
- Bladesmiths! You have
only 60 minutes remaining!
- Oh, [bleep].
- That's cruel
when you say "only."
You know that.
- It looks like Mike's got
a good shape to his blade.
I'm not sure
how long his handle is.
- Now my secret weapon.
- Mike has brought
the most interesting tool.
It looks like a billy club.
- They'll call it a schwacker.
You can beat on the steel
without deforming it too much,
so you don't even lose
your shape.
- And Mike's in the quench.
♪
- I think I've got most
of the rough shaping out.
- Chase's blade
is very, very thin.
- So now I'm able to go
and heat-treat it.
I get that edge cherry-red
where I want it.
- And he's in.
- Oh, that was nowhere
near hot enough.
- I don't see any cracks,
so that makes me very happy.
- I have a feeling
at least three quarters
of that blade is still soft.
- And Allen...
The clock's right above him.
- Running out of time.
- I'm gonna make a dang knife...
via magic.
Time is just escaping from me,
and I'm getting down
to just a fraction
of the amount of time
that I would like to have.
- Quench that blade, boy.
♪
- Allen's coming out of the oil.
If he's got any problems,
it could be all over for him.
- Bad weld!
I see a bad weld
kind of at the base
of the blade.
If I'm lucky,
I can grind through that weld.
You know, I've got,
like, two, three minutes.
I hate to hope
that the other guys
maybe are having a worse day,
but it's tight.
♪
- Ten, nine,
eight, seven,
six, five,
four, three,
two, one!
Shut down your machines!
Stop your work!
♪
- To me,
bladesmithing is actually
about reducing stress,
but this challenge,
it's like running marathon
with a sprint pace...
♪
- Bladesmiths,
it's time for the judges
to evaluate your work.
Clayton, you're up first.
Please present your weapon
to the judges.
♪
- Clayton, I like your design.
You know, tantos are known
for thrusting nicely.
You got a nice spine
to back it up.
- Grind lines look really good.
That warp...
You can probably grind that out,
which is good to see.
Very, very nice.
- Thank you.
- Mike.
♪
- The welds are clean.
I don't see any delaminations
in this piece.
- It looks good.
- Thanks.
- Well, Mike, when you were
working your piece,
from here,
it looked like you were not
gonna have enough handle
to match the blade length.
- Yeah, I came close.
- Well done, sir.
- Thank you.
- Chase, you're up.
♪
- You have some issues
in the spine here.
It looks like you got
a little bit of a cold shut
running through here,
and you're really in danger
of running out of material.
- Sure.
- But it's long and lean.
And that's a shape
that will puncture.
- Allen.
♪
- The shape looks good.
It's kind of like
an Argentinean...
Kind of a gaucho knife.
- Yeah.
- I like the way
that little river
looks like
it's running through there,
but I see
your delamination on this.
- Yeah.
- This part right here.
♪
- Now I'm gonna ask you
to step away
while the judges discuss
which of you will go on
and who's going home.
Please leave your blades
on the table.
Thank you.
♪
- How do you feel?
- Didn't end up
quite like I wanted it to.
- Yeah, I know, man.
- All right, judges.
We'll start with Clayton's blade
on the end there.
♪
- My favorite thing
about this blade is,
this is exactly what he drew.
He's got a couple little spots,
but they're not delams,
and it should do everything
we've asked him to do
in the knife.
- All right, let's take a look
at Mike's blade.
♪
- Well, Mike's got a nice shape
with this recurve.
Up here at the tip,
you've got that delamination
that's traveling down
that way a little bit there.
I think he'll be able
to grind through these,
but all in all,
I think the shape,
once he puts a tip on that,
is gonna be nice.
- Okay. So let's move on
to Chase's blade.
- He ran out of material,
and he made
this very skinny knife.
He does have a lot
of delamination back here.
He's got a lot of issues
in the spine.
♪
- All right, let's move on
to the next blade.
♪
- I really like
the profile of this blade.
The delam
is in a noncritical area.
I don't see it coming apart
if I'm poking stuff
or cutting stuff.
♪
- Judges, have you made
your final decision?
- Yep.
- Let's go tell our smiths.
♪
Bladesmiths, the judges
have deliberated your work,
and they've made
a final decision.
It's time for one of you
to leave the Forge.
♪
Chase, your weapon did not
make the cut.
- Chase, you put up
a good fight out there,
but in the end, you had
some really deep cold shuts
all the length of the spine,
so I think of that more
like a cancer deep in the blade,
and that's why
we're sending you home.
- Chase,
please surrender your weapon.
♪
- I'm feeling
a little disappointed,
but at the same time,
there's one thing
that I would like my siblings
and my family to know...
One of the most important
things you can do in life
is try really hard,
and if you fail the first time,
that's okay...
You just got to keep trying.
The key is to not give up.
♪
- Congratulations, bladesmiths.
You've made it through
the first round.
In this round, you'll be
attaching handles your blades
to turn them
into fully functional weapons.
Everybody ready to go?
- Yes, sir.
- Absolutely.
- And one more thing...
in this round,
you will also need
to use another piece of armor
in your handle's construction
and design.
♪
Good luck, bladesmiths.
Your time starts now.
♪
- And away they go.
- So, besides having a lot
to do in this round,
now I have another problem
to tackle...
Incorporating armor
into the handle.
I would love, you know,
to have, like, a shot
of Don Julio, you know?
I like tequila.
- Mike, he's on the drill press.
- That's gonna be hard.
- He obviously wants
to drill holes in his tang,
but he's already hardened
his blade.
- The tang is hard as hell,
so I have to anneal it.
♪
- Is he getting it too hot?
- Yeah, it's about 2,000 degrees
right now.
You don't need that much heat
to get it soft enough to drill.
- Is that wet rag to keep
the heat from traveling?
- Yeah, but what he's doing
right now worries me
because he basically quenched
in water.
A lot of high-carbon steels will
crack when quenched in water.
- Sorry I'm making a mess.
♪
- Right now
I'm getting this guard prepped.
Get it out of the way.
Then I can start working
on my handle
and stacking some leather
and armor together
in alternating order.
I'm butting up the wood
against that
for a nice little scagel design.
♪
- It's the burl wood.
- Not a good choice.
It's not durable wood.
- Yeah,
we've seen that bust a lot.
- We've got Allen
who's been working
on the profile of his blade.
♪
- The problems with the blade
I think could be something
that could send me home,
so I'm trying to make sure
that these key
performance issues are fixed
so that I can move on
and start making something
really cool.
- Two hours, gentlemen.
You have two hours remaining
to finish your work.
[machinery clicking]
♪
Mike is on the drill press
putting holes in his tang.
[machinery clicking]
- Hear it?
- It's hard as glass.
[dramatic music]
♪
- Holy [bleep].
Mike's blade just snapped.
- [bleep].
- He overheated it.
♪
- I just stood, you know,
in shock.
It's... it's don... I'm done.
♪
- Oh, God.
- I'm just ready to surrender.
I'm just ready to give it up.
♪
But then it just,
you know, hits me...
Don't give up.
You know, try.
My only solution is to weld it.
Yeah.
[bleep].
- Mike's handle snapped off,
and now he's trying
to weld it back on.
- This is it.
If that's not working, I'm gone.
- Oh, no.
- What are you doing?
- A burn-through.
- It's always a bad idea.
- I know you guys hate it.
- [laughs]
- But it's all I got.
♪
- I'm burning the tang in
'cause it's the quickest way
to get a decent fit
on that block of wood.
- Well, see, what's happening
inside that handle
is he's created
a nice little ash pocket.
So, if he doesn't pull all
of that out of there,
the glue will stick to the ash
and not to the handle.
- I have never seen it
successful.
♪
- The handle material
that I choose
is a nice dark wood
and black fiber spacer
and then sandwiched between
those two layers...
A layer of the armor,
So it'll go black, shiny,
black, shiny, black.
- I'm worried
about Allen not finishing.
- Remember what he did
in the first challenge
with prep work,
and that prep work paid off.
♪
- After everything was stacked,
I had about two or three inches
extra on my handle
that I needed to get off.
- I hope he knows where
that tang is.
- I might end up
exposing the tang,
but, if anything,
it's a good thing
that the tang goes all the way
through the handle.
♪
- Less than 16 minutes,
and the handle shaping
has just begun.
[laughs]
- Mike seems to be back on track,
but how is that weld
gonna hold up?
- There is no way for us to tell
unless we test it.
- I'm just in a scramble mode.
I'm just gonna make do.
Just put a handle together.
It's not what I planned,
but, you know,
I got to get it done.
- Looks like Allen has pulled
a finishing belt
off of the wall.
- He hasn't shaped
his handle yet.
- It took a little longer
than I would like
to try and correct
some of these blade issues.
- You have just five minutes
remaining to finish your work.
- There's barely
even enough time
for it to come together
if everything goes right.
Let's see what we can do
with less than five minutes
for handle shaping.
- Don't give us a wooden block.
- This just seems crazy to me.
♪
I have never shaped a handle
at this speed before in my life.
- Ten, nine,
eight, seven,
six, five,
four, three,
two, one!
Shut down your machines!
Return to your anvil!
Your work is done!
- For a 4-minute handle,
I'm impressed.
I just wish I had
a 4-minute-and-30-second handle.
- [scoffs]
I've never done anything
so fast.
Never.
I forgot to breathe.
You know, it's like, [bleep].
♪
- Bladesmiths.
I will be testing the strength
and durability
of your blade's tip
by attempting to drive it
through this steel-plate armor.
Are you guys nervous?
- Very.
- Allen, you're up first.
♪
Allen,
you still have a tip there.
That's good news.
- That is good news.
- I'm impressed
with how thin this tip is,
and you don't have
any issues there, so...
Well done.
- Thank you.
- Mike, ready?
- Yes, sir.
♪
I'm thinking, please, please,
you know, don't break.
Don't break.
Just go through it, you know?
[laughs]
♪
[exhales sharply]
♪
- Mike, my biggest concern
was the blade coming apart
where you had to reweld it.
- Yeah.
- But it held up.
- Good deal.
- Clayton, ready?
- I am.
♪
Clayton,
it's like I didn't even hit it.
My concern was that you used
burl material for your handle
and you burned it through.
- Yep.
- I've never seen that
stay together, except for today.
- All right.
- Yeah.
Well done.
- Thank you.
- Bladesmiths, to see how sharp
the edge of your blade is,
I will attempt to cut through
all these apples with one slice.
Allen, you're up first.
♪
Well, Allen, because of your
edge geometry being uneven,
it did want
to lift up on the cut.
But it's a sharp blade.
- All right.
- Mike, you're up next.
♪
- [exhales sharply]
♪
- Mike, there's
a slight delamination
that sticks out
a little bit right there.
Being uneven, it did want
to lift through the cuts.
But nonetheless,
the test is about the sharpness
of your blade, and it cuts, sir.
♪
Clayton, you're up next.
You ready?
- I am.
♪
- Whoa.
- All right.
- Whoa.
- [laughing]
- Clayton,
the edge geometry you have
definitely made it easy
to wield the blade,
complemented by the handle.
It's a good fit.
This blade definitely cuts.
- Thank you.
♪
- Bladesmiths, the judges
have made their final decision.
It's time for one of you
to leave the Forge.
♪
Have made their final decision.
It's time for one of you
to leave the Forge.
♪
Mike...
your weapon
did not make the cut.
- Mike, first off,
I want to thank you for showing
that even when you have
a catastrophic blade failure...
♪
You can find ways to fix it.
But the time it took for you
to take care of those problems
wasn't applied to taking care
of those first-round issues...
That delamination,
and that's why
we've got to let you go.
- Thanks for the kind words.
- Mike, please surrender
your weapon.
♪
- I tried my best,
but it wasn't good enough.
♪
But that teaches you,
you know, how to survive.
There is a Russian saying...
[speaking in Russian]
Which means
"survive against all odds,"
which I did.
♪
- Allen, Clayton,
congratulations.
You both made it through
to the final round.
When you showed up
at this Forge,
you used our tools and equipment
to forge signature blades
in your own style.
Now we're sending you back
to your home forge,
where you will have five days
to forge an iconic weapon
from history...
♪
The boar spear.
- [chuckles]
- Developed as early as 700 A.D. in Europe,
the boar spear was forged
for both combat and hunting.
Known at the time
as a bar-spere,
the weapon was about
5 to 6 feet long
and featured a pair of lugs
below the leaf-shaped blade.
When hunting, the lugs
would stop a speared boar
from running
up the length of the weapon
and attacking the user.
In combat,
the lugs could be used to hook
and pull away enemy shields.
The blade of the spear
could be decorated,
with some featuring finely
engraved scenes of hunts.
On the first season
of "Game of Thrones,"
King Robert Baratheon
carried a boar spear
on his final boar hunt.
At the end of five days,
you will return to this Forge
and present
your completed boar spears
to our panel of expert judges.
Only after they have vigorously
tested those weapons
will they declare one of you
the "Forged in Fire" champion,
who also walks away
with a check for $10,000.
Good luck, bladesmiths.
We'll see you in five days.
Both:
Good luck.
♪
- It's day one.
Feels pretty good
to be back at the home forge.
This is gonna be the start
of my Damascus layers.
We're just alternating
two different types of steel
together here.
Cover.
The plan for today
is to get a billet welded up,
get it drawn out.
I usually don't do billets
this big.
It's sagging a lot in the forge.
♪
It's real exhausting being out
here in the Arizona heat.
It's upwards
of 100 degrees today,
and it's gonna stay at least
that hot the rest of the week,
so we just got to keep
moving slow,
paying attention
to what we're doing,
and hopefully get the job done.
- It's day one.
I'm excited
to have just made it this far
and get to actually do
the entire challenge.
The socket
is the part of the spear
that you insert the shaft into.
I haven't ever made
a socket before,
so it's a little nerve-racking,
but I'm excited to try it.
I'm gonna start forming
a nice, thin triangular shape,
and then
I'm going to hammer it around
into a circular cone shape.
Now I have to be super careful,
because the metal in
the socket is very thin.
If this metal gets too hot,
it's gonna just kind of melt
and crumble away.
All right,
it looks like a socket.
Hopefully, it'll stay looking
like a socket.
♪
- Day two... I really need
to figure out
the design of the lugs.
Boars are pretty strong animals,
so if they don't have
a wide enough cross-section,
they could just end up
running that through
their body themselves.
One of the ways I could do it
is cutting a section
of the pipe out
and bending it out.
It's gonna take a lot of work,
but it's something
that needs to be done.
I'm battling the clock
on this one.
[machinery whirring]
I've decided to put my lugs
perpendicular to my blade.
It just made more sense
to have them perpendicular
to stop the spear
from over-penetrating.
It should work.
♪
- It's day three.
Time's really crunched.
I'm just really behind
the eight ball...
Getting the lugs
on the spear shaft.
[motor sputtering]
Oh, man.
I believe
my blower has just died.
My forge burnt out.
The engine died.
Now I'm gonna have to find
a replacement.
There's still a lot to do.
I am literally running
to the store
to buy another blower.
[tires squealing]
Things just really
are not going my way today.
♪ - My forge bur.
The engine died.
[tires screech]
Had to run out and lose time.
I had to get a new motor.
With all these setbacks,
I'm starting to be
a bit worried.
[machinery humming]
With the way things
have been going today,
we're coming down
to the wire on time here.
It could come back to bite me.
♪
- It's the last day.
There's still a lot
of work to be done.
So I'm getting ready
to quench the blade.
I got to move my forge
into the shed.
I need it as dark as possible
to accurately judge
the temperature of the steel.
As I'm trying to get this
blade up to an even temp,
I'm checking for the color,
I'm checking it
with the magnet...
Very close.
And making sure
I have a good, even heat
by turning it
on and off the forge
and taking it in and out of it.
♪
There's lots of things
that could go wrong
coming out of the quench.
It could have a horrible warp.
If the quench goes wrong,
I'm kind of SOL.
I don't have a lot of time
to start a new project.
It's as straight
as I could get it.
I'll go grab a file
and rub it on there
for hardness.
We have good conversion.
Yeah, I feel pretty confident
right now.
♪
Well,
we've done what we can done.
It's solid.
I'm pretty confident
the spear will stand up
to the judges' tests.
♪
- It's day five.
Well, my vision for this
is to have a nice, dark pole.
We'll heat it up with the
torch until it turns black,
and then I'm going to rub
some beeswax from my own bees.
Here in my backyard
is where I keep my bees.
I do get a little bit
of honey every year,
but I mostly keep them
for the fun of it.
The beeswax...
It'll kind of melt in there
and treat the wood
and give it a nice sheen.
Time's still rolling.
I'm gonna need
to use every minute
to get this thing looking great.
♪
I have just sharpened
the boar spear.
I'm thinking it's time
for a little test
before I put it on the pole.
My kids made this great boar.
[animal grunts]
I'm ready to see this boar spear
cut, slice, and stab.
♪
Feels good to me.
I'm ready to see what
the judges have planned.
[intense percussive music]
♪
- Bladesmiths,
welcome back to the Forge.
You've had five days at home
to work on your boar spears.
Clayton.
How did it go?
- My spear is constructed
with a 36-layer crushed
Damascus billet.
To form the socket,
I just used a piece
of 1/8-inch wall pipe
I forge-welded
onto the Damascus.
And the shaft is ash.
Just went with, like, a simple
round handle on that, so, yeah.
- Very cool.
Allen, tell us a little bit
about your blade.
- All right, well,
I forged the spear out of W-2
and forge-welded the socket
and then welded on
some kind of pretty wings
for some lugs.
I used ash that's blackened
with fire for the shaft.
- Well, gentlemen, both of your
boar spears look very deadly.
But looks are secondary
to performance.
Your weapons will now be put
through a series of three tests.
Doug?
- Bladesmiths,
this is the sharpness test.
To see how sharp
your boar spears are,
we will test
the tip and the edge
by stabbing and slashing
through these sandbags.
- All right.
- Clayton, you're up first.
You ready?
- I'm ready.
It's really exciting
to have a weapon I've made
being tested this way.
Normally,
I make 'em real pretty,
and very rarely
does somebody actually purchase
a functional piece
that they're gonna go out
and just tear to pieces
and really put it to the test.
♪
[chuckling]
♪
- Well, Clayton,
the balance of your tip
lends itself to stabbing.
Your edge lacerated cleanly
on the moving sandbag.
What surprised me
was the positioning of your lug.
Traditionally,
they have it crosswise this way,
but you have it this way.
Because of that,
it was hard to index
when you're cutting through.
But then again, it will cut.
- Thank you.
- Allen, you're next. Ready?
- Oh, yeah.
♪
- Well, Allen, your spear
feels good to hold on to.
It was easy to index
and know where the edge was.
So there was a nice slash
that I could penetrate through,
and in the thrust,
it felt good in the hand.
- All right.
- I can see a little bow
in your handle.
But when we're talking
about the sharpness test,
this, sir, will cut.
- All right.
- Next up is the kill test.
To see what kind of lethal
damage your weapon can do,
I will deliver lethal blows
to this wild-boar carcass.
Clayton, you're up first.
Are you ready?
- Absolutely.
The first thing
that went through my mind
is, "Oh, man, it still has
all its hair on it,
"and that really can impede
the cutting ability
of an edged tool."
And after that, I was like,
"Wow, they got a real boar.
This is gonna be pretty cool."
♪
[chuckles]
- Well, Clayton,
your boar spear right here
did very well on the thrust,
penetrating all the way through
on the low line
and on the high line.
On the edge,
it lacerated cleanly,
and testing the other side,
it cut all the way
through the spine.
♪
This, sir, will kill.
Good job.
- Thank you.
- Allen, you're next.
You ready?
- Oh, yeah.
- Let's do this.
♪
- Well, Allen,
let's talk about your blade.
On the thrust, it penetrated
all the way through.
On the laceration
on one side of your edge,
boy, wow, it almost sliced
all the way through.
On your other edge,
it lacerated through the spine.
This spear, sir, will kill.
- All right.
- Next up is
the strength test. Dave?
- Gentlemen,
it's been said that the sword
is the prince of all weapons,
but the spear is the king.
To test the strength of your boar spears,
I'm gonna load them
into our air cannon here
and fire them into this wooden target.
- Oh, my.
- [laughs]
- This is a crazy test.
It's a fun test.
Thrilled to see it go down.
I just can't wait.
- We'll see
how deep it penetrates,
how well it holds up,
and if it holds up
while I remove the spear
from the target.
- Awesome.
- Clayton, you're up first.
You ready?
- I am.
- All right, let's do this.
- Oh, man.
I'm just hoping
that my handle stays together.
I'm hoping that after it impacts the wood,
that it doesn't break
the blade off
or something like that.
♪
- In...
three...
two...
one.
[loud hissing]
♪
[exhales sharply]
♪
- [exhales deeply]
- Well, Clayton,
your spear really dug in deep.
It went in about 4 inches.
Came out fine.
Everything's still tight
and dialed in.
This is interesting,
being offset.
- Being that it's a boar spear,
I wanted to make sure
that whatever laceration
the blade produced on the animal
wasn't wide enough to allow
the wings to come through,
and the best way to do that was
just make them perpendicular.
- All right, nicely done.
- Thank you.
- Allen, you're up.
♪
Got a little warp in your shaft.
I'm picking it up
in the tube there,
so hopefully it'll all fly well.
- I'm not horribly concerned,
but it's certainly
not making me thrilled.
- All right, in three, two, one.
- All right, in three...
two...
one.
[loud hissing]
♪
All right, Allen.
That buried itself quite nicely.
It went into about... there,
again, about 4 inches deep.
Like the leaf shape on this.
I like the fact that
you hand-hammered the socket.
I was kind of worried
when I put this in our machine
that slight warp in your shaft
there would bind up,
but not a problem.
Good job.
- Thank you.
♪
- Bladesmiths, the judges have
completed their deliberation,
and they've made
a final decision.
♪
However, before I tell you
what that decision is,
they have some comments
for both of you. Jason?
- Allen, I appreciated how your
spear performed on the boar.
It was very impressive,
the cut that it made.
It cut really deep.
It went through the spine.
So, well designed as a weapon.
- Thank you.
- Dave?
- Clayton,
I like the look on the Damascus,
in the point of your spear.
It makes for a very dramatic
look on that.
It certainly got
amazing penetration
in the tests against the boar.
The thing that concerns me
is the shape of your blade.
It doesn't get wider at the base
or leaf out the way
a boar spear typically does,
but nicely done.
- Thank you.
- Bladesmiths,
both of you have turned in
fantastic boar spears.
However,
in this arena of competition,
there can only be one
"Forged in Fire" champion.
♪
- Allen, congratulations.
You are
the "Forged in Fire" champion.
- Congratulations.
- You did awesome.
- Clayton, your boar spear
did not make the cut.
- Clayton, this was not
an easy decision to make.
Because of your
perpendicular lugs,
it was hard to visually index
your blade,
meaning it's hard to tell
where the cutting edge is.
That makes it
a less effective weapon.
And for that,
we had to let you go.
- I understand.
- Clayton,
please surrender your weapon.
♪
- Right now, obviously,
I'm a little bit disappointed,
but this
is the first spear I made,
and for me,
it's really important
that it was such a tight race.
I don't want it to be anything
that I handed him
or anything
that he would've handed me.
Allen is a deserving champion.
- Allen, congratulations.
You are
the "Forged in Fire" champion,
and with that comes
a check for $10,000.
Congratulations.
[applause]
- Thank you.
- You know, what I really
appreciate about that
is the fact
that you took the time
to actually hammer
that cone out.
Making that socket is
a really nice touch
on any kind
of traditional spear.
Well done.
- I am the "Forged in Fire"
champion.
I cannot believe it.
I had no idea
if it was gonna be me or him,
and it was me.
I'm betting being
a "Forged in Fire" champion's
gonna help this
stay-at-home dad/knife maker
convince a few people that
they should try out my blades.
It's great.
[chuckles]
♪
in the ultimate competition...
- Getting pretty hot
in the kitchen.
- Making some of history's
deadliest weapons.
Now, with the stakes
higher than ever,
a new batch of bladesmiths
enter the Forge
to test their skills.
- Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Watch out. Watch out. Watch out.
[dramatic music]
- Only one will
take home $10,000
and be crowned
"Forged in Fire" champion.
[dramatic music]
♪
- My name's Allen Newberry.
I've been making knives
for about nine years.
I am a stay-at-home dad/
custom-knife maker.
- I'm Chase Wilder.
I'm 19 years old.
And I've been bladesmithing
for about five years.
I'm the oldest of six kids.
I have taught my brothers
how to do
a little bit of blacksmithing,
but at the same time,
I've got to tell 'em
to keep away from the fire,
and, you know,
sparks are flying.
- My name is Mike Shindel.
I'm from what used to be
Soviet Union.
I came to U.S.
as a political refugee.
I'm here to prove to myself
that I've accomplished
something.
- My name's Clayton Cowart,
and I've been bladesmithing
for seven years.
I'm very blunt.
I have very little filter.
People either like me,
or they don't.
There's not really
an in-between.
- Welcome to the Forge,
bladesmiths.
You're here for three rounds
of blade-making competition
designed to push your skills
to the limit.
At the end of each round,
you will hand your work over
to our panel of expert judges...
Master bladesmith Jason Knight,
historic-weapons re-creation
specialist David Baker,
and last, edged-weapons
specialist Doug Marcaida.
Ultimately, they decide
which of you
is the "Forged in Fire" champion
who leaves here
with a check for 10 grand.
♪
Are you ready to do battle?
- Ready.
- Well, if you're going
into battle,
you'll probably want
something like this.
♪
[heavy rock music]
♪
- [scoffs, chuckles]
♪
- Am I gonna have to wear
a suit of armor
to forge a knife?
- Your first-round challenge
is to combine steel
from that suit of armor
with the high-carbon steel
on your anvil
to forge a signature blade.
How you choose to do this
is entirely up to you.
Keep in mind
that in the second round,
you'll be putting handles
on your blades
to turn them
into fully functional weapons
that will then be tested
for strength and durability...
Piercing through steel
and slicing through apples.
The blades themselves must fall
within the following parameters.
The length of the blade,
not including the tang,
must fall between
10 and 14 inches.
The overall length
of your weapon
must not exceed 22 inches.
You will have ten minutes
to work on your design.
You'll have three hours
to forge your blades.
I remind you
that when the time runs out,
one of you will have
to surrender his weapon
and leave the Forge.
♪
Good luck, bladesmiths.
Your ten-minute design window
starts now.
♪
Well, Dave,
how thick is that steel?
- That armor's made
out of an 18-gauge steel.
- It's very, very thin.
- The hardest part is gonna be
layering up enough of that steel
and making sure
you've got a good weld.
- I'm drawing
an Americanized tanto.
The tanto tip is gonna give me
the best bet
at piercing the metal
without damaging the tip.
I'm gonna make a great blade
to stand out, I guess,
and what else do you do?
♪
- I'm going to make
a recurved clip-point blade.
Design is my strong point.
I'm a part-time bladesmith
and a part-time creator-producer
of animation, cartoons.
- It's not every day
you get to pull apart
a suit of armor.
I am definitely
a history buff myself,
so getting to work
with something like this
is extra special.
So I'm designing
a drop-point chopping knife.
I want to have that spear point
so that I could, you know,
do any sort of stabbing
that was necessary
and then still some slicing.
- Which pieces
would you go for, Dave?
- The problem
is they're so rounded,
the more you have to work
to flatten those pieces out,
the more you're putting in
to just your prep work.
I'd probably shoot for the legs.
- Probably use that codpiece,
because that's got to be
the toughest piece on there.
[laughter]
♪
- I'm drawing four
different blade designs,
and I'm hoping once I have
this chunk of metal,
that I will know which one
is the knife
that I'm gonna make.
If I was the next
"Forged in Fire" champion,
my family would go crazy.
They'd love it.
There'd probably be cake.
- Bladesmiths! Your ten-minute
design window is now closed.
Your three-hour forge time
starts...
now.
We didn't give them
enough high-carbon steel
to meet the blade requirements,
so they're gonna need
a lot of steel
off of this suit of armor
over here.
- The bar stock's, what, 2,
2 1/2 inches long?
So I know
that I need to use a lot
of knight-in-shining-armor guy
if you want to get
10 to 14 inches out of that.
♪
- I think the hardest part
of this challenge
is actually getting the armor,
you know, prepped
and having it stick.
[metal clangs]
- [laughs]
I like that technique.
♪
- So Clayton has
that one leg piece.
- Next, after I flatten
the pieces of the armor,
I take them to the band saw
and cut them down to size
and then tack-weld
the whole thing together
into a billet.
Right now I'm trying to bring
this billet up to forge temp.
I'm gonna start
to consolidate it
and see how much material I have
to see if I can meet
the requirements,
otherwise I'm gonna have to go
back to the armor
and pull some more pieces
to add to it.
♪
- Clayton seems like
he's ahead of the pack.
[machinery whirring]
- I drew, I think, four designs,
and I figured
once I had my chunk of steel
it would tell me
what it wanted to be.
- So Allen cut up
his hardenable steel.
- He's gonna forge-weld it
back together
and throw the pieces of armor
in between.
- That's okay
as long as he's got
a hardenable piece
in the center.
♪
- Ah, [bleep].
♪
My plan is to use armor
and put the high-carbon core
right in between.
I hope it sticks, man.
I'm rushing as I'm welding,
because, you know, the clock
just, you know, ticking.
Ah.
I saw the end start to pop.
It's not welding.
I say to myself...
"Stay calm.
Try to work it through."
But I'm panicking.
I got to make it stick.
- He's got a weld on the side
of that billet
that's not closing up,
and he's trying to use the flux
to clean it out.
It's not going to do it.
- If it doesn't stick
the first time,
all the extra fluxing
and fluxing
is not gonna make it stick.
- Either grind that piece off
or cut the scale
that's built up in there out
and then close it up again.
- [exhales sharply]
♪
- So I've got three pieces
of the armor,
and then I've got two pieces
that I got from my carbon stock.
Hopefully, that'll be enough.
♪
- Chase actually chiseled
his billet,
folded it over,
and he's now
forge-welding it again,
so he's doing multiple,
multiple layers.
♪
- The word for today
is "flux."
- I never realized
that I used all that much flux.
- People will do what they know,
but do they know why?
- It's just kind of how I do it.
- It is like
seasoning your steak.
- I figure, you know,
it's better to have too much
than too little.
- I understand fluxing the edge,
where you can see
all the layers.
What is the point
of fluxing the flat part
where you can't see the edges?
- I don't want
to fluxing talk about it.
- [laughing]
- Fluxing up
the whole situation.
♪
- You have just two hours
remaining to finish your work!
- Things go quick.
- You know
what's very interesting?
You see the pace
that Clayton's going,
and then you see the complete
opposite with Allen.
♪
- All right, have I mentioned
I'm a terrible welder?
I am wanting to do
a "brute de forge" -type knife
where you leave a rough finish
on the blade.
I think it's gonna set apart
the blade that I'm making.
The clock is definitely ticking,
but it's still nice
and manageable.
- I haven't seen
this ancient parable
of the tortoise and the hare
played out in this arena before.
- Let's hope it's the tortoise
that wins the race.
♪
- Our smiths are really going
through the water today.
Good thing.
It's hot on the floor.
- It's not hot in the Forge.
I'm an Arizonian.
Last week,
it hit 128 at my house,
and inside of my shed,
during forge-welding,
we hit 138.
♪
- I'm concerned for Chase.
He's running out of fluids.
- [breathes heavily]
- Drink water!
- I'm from Michigan.
It never gets
this hot there, ever.
So it's definitely starting
to take a toll on me.
- When it gets hot
in a place like this,
you lose your mind,
and your butt will follow.
♪
- I'm just running around
like one
of my cartoon characters,
like a chicken without a head.
- Mike has just ground off
the edges of his billet
to see
if his forge weld held up.
- I think it stuck together,
but I hope I have enough length.
I'm right on the cusp
of not having enough material.
I don't know, man.
Good enough?
- It's good
to see Mike measuring,
but he's shaking his head.
- It looks like
his blade's the right length,
but there's no handle on it.
- I'm worried,
you know, big-time.
[exhales sharply]
- Leading up to the quench,
I'm feeling really, really good.
I had
a real even spine thickness,
which is rather important
to keeping your blade straight.
- Clayton has quenched.
Let's see if he's happy with it.
♪
- Nope, not happy.
- It's like a Kentucky road...
Not a straight line in sight.
[laughs]
- My blade came out rather warped from the
quench. As long as that blade doesn't drop below
As long as that blade doesn't
drop below 400 degrees,
I have a pretty good chance
of getting it straight.
Oh, come on.
- He's gonna break it.
- Clayton is really, really
pushing his luck with his blade.
- It's all a complete guess.
I'm not a thermometer.
But I'm extremely confident
that I can still pull
a little bit of that warp out.
- Just makes my skin crawl.
♪
- I get the majority
of the warp out,
but I'm really hoping
that somebody's blade cracks
or there's a far more
detrimental failure
than my warped blade.
♪
- Bladesmiths! You have
only 60 minutes remaining!
- Oh, [bleep].
- That's cruel
when you say "only."
You know that.
- It looks like Mike's got
a good shape to his blade.
I'm not sure
how long his handle is.
- Now my secret weapon.
- Mike has brought
the most interesting tool.
It looks like a billy club.
- They'll call it a schwacker.
You can beat on the steel
without deforming it too much,
so you don't even lose
your shape.
- And Mike's in the quench.
♪
- I think I've got most
of the rough shaping out.
- Chase's blade
is very, very thin.
- So now I'm able to go
and heat-treat it.
I get that edge cherry-red
where I want it.
- And he's in.
- Oh, that was nowhere
near hot enough.
- I don't see any cracks,
so that makes me very happy.
- I have a feeling
at least three quarters
of that blade is still soft.
- And Allen...
The clock's right above him.
- Running out of time.
- I'm gonna make a dang knife...
via magic.
Time is just escaping from me,
and I'm getting down
to just a fraction
of the amount of time
that I would like to have.
- Quench that blade, boy.
♪
- Allen's coming out of the oil.
If he's got any problems,
it could be all over for him.
- Bad weld!
I see a bad weld
kind of at the base
of the blade.
If I'm lucky,
I can grind through that weld.
You know, I've got,
like, two, three minutes.
I hate to hope
that the other guys
maybe are having a worse day,
but it's tight.
♪
- Ten, nine,
eight, seven,
six, five,
four, three,
two, one!
Shut down your machines!
Stop your work!
♪
- To me,
bladesmithing is actually
about reducing stress,
but this challenge,
it's like running marathon
with a sprint pace...
♪
- Bladesmiths,
it's time for the judges
to evaluate your work.
Clayton, you're up first.
Please present your weapon
to the judges.
♪
- Clayton, I like your design.
You know, tantos are known
for thrusting nicely.
You got a nice spine
to back it up.
- Grind lines look really good.
That warp...
You can probably grind that out,
which is good to see.
Very, very nice.
- Thank you.
- Mike.
♪
- The welds are clean.
I don't see any delaminations
in this piece.
- It looks good.
- Thanks.
- Well, Mike, when you were
working your piece,
from here,
it looked like you were not
gonna have enough handle
to match the blade length.
- Yeah, I came close.
- Well done, sir.
- Thank you.
- Chase, you're up.
♪
- You have some issues
in the spine here.
It looks like you got
a little bit of a cold shut
running through here,
and you're really in danger
of running out of material.
- Sure.
- But it's long and lean.
And that's a shape
that will puncture.
- Allen.
♪
- The shape looks good.
It's kind of like
an Argentinean...
Kind of a gaucho knife.
- Yeah.
- I like the way
that little river
looks like
it's running through there,
but I see
your delamination on this.
- Yeah.
- This part right here.
♪
- Now I'm gonna ask you
to step away
while the judges discuss
which of you will go on
and who's going home.
Please leave your blades
on the table.
Thank you.
♪
- How do you feel?
- Didn't end up
quite like I wanted it to.
- Yeah, I know, man.
- All right, judges.
We'll start with Clayton's blade
on the end there.
♪
- My favorite thing
about this blade is,
this is exactly what he drew.
He's got a couple little spots,
but they're not delams,
and it should do everything
we've asked him to do
in the knife.
- All right, let's take a look
at Mike's blade.
♪
- Well, Mike's got a nice shape
with this recurve.
Up here at the tip,
you've got that delamination
that's traveling down
that way a little bit there.
I think he'll be able
to grind through these,
but all in all,
I think the shape,
once he puts a tip on that,
is gonna be nice.
- Okay. So let's move on
to Chase's blade.
- He ran out of material,
and he made
this very skinny knife.
He does have a lot
of delamination back here.
He's got a lot of issues
in the spine.
♪
- All right, let's move on
to the next blade.
♪
- I really like
the profile of this blade.
The delam
is in a noncritical area.
I don't see it coming apart
if I'm poking stuff
or cutting stuff.
♪
- Judges, have you made
your final decision?
- Yep.
- Let's go tell our smiths.
♪
Bladesmiths, the judges
have deliberated your work,
and they've made
a final decision.
It's time for one of you
to leave the Forge.
♪
Chase, your weapon did not
make the cut.
- Chase, you put up
a good fight out there,
but in the end, you had
some really deep cold shuts
all the length of the spine,
so I think of that more
like a cancer deep in the blade,
and that's why
we're sending you home.
- Chase,
please surrender your weapon.
♪
- I'm feeling
a little disappointed,
but at the same time,
there's one thing
that I would like my siblings
and my family to know...
One of the most important
things you can do in life
is try really hard,
and if you fail the first time,
that's okay...
You just got to keep trying.
The key is to not give up.
♪
- Congratulations, bladesmiths.
You've made it through
the first round.
In this round, you'll be
attaching handles your blades
to turn them
into fully functional weapons.
Everybody ready to go?
- Yes, sir.
- Absolutely.
- And one more thing...
in this round,
you will also need
to use another piece of armor
in your handle's construction
and design.
♪
Good luck, bladesmiths.
Your time starts now.
♪
- And away they go.
- So, besides having a lot
to do in this round,
now I have another problem
to tackle...
Incorporating armor
into the handle.
I would love, you know,
to have, like, a shot
of Don Julio, you know?
I like tequila.
- Mike, he's on the drill press.
- That's gonna be hard.
- He obviously wants
to drill holes in his tang,
but he's already hardened
his blade.
- The tang is hard as hell,
so I have to anneal it.
♪
- Is he getting it too hot?
- Yeah, it's about 2,000 degrees
right now.
You don't need that much heat
to get it soft enough to drill.
- Is that wet rag to keep
the heat from traveling?
- Yeah, but what he's doing
right now worries me
because he basically quenched
in water.
A lot of high-carbon steels will
crack when quenched in water.
- Sorry I'm making a mess.
♪
- Right now
I'm getting this guard prepped.
Get it out of the way.
Then I can start working
on my handle
and stacking some leather
and armor together
in alternating order.
I'm butting up the wood
against that
for a nice little scagel design.
♪
- It's the burl wood.
- Not a good choice.
It's not durable wood.
- Yeah,
we've seen that bust a lot.
- We've got Allen
who's been working
on the profile of his blade.
♪
- The problems with the blade
I think could be something
that could send me home,
so I'm trying to make sure
that these key
performance issues are fixed
so that I can move on
and start making something
really cool.
- Two hours, gentlemen.
You have two hours remaining
to finish your work.
[machinery clicking]
♪
Mike is on the drill press
putting holes in his tang.
[machinery clicking]
- Hear it?
- It's hard as glass.
[dramatic music]
♪
- Holy [bleep].
Mike's blade just snapped.
- [bleep].
- He overheated it.
♪
- I just stood, you know,
in shock.
It's... it's don... I'm done.
♪
- Oh, God.
- I'm just ready to surrender.
I'm just ready to give it up.
♪
But then it just,
you know, hits me...
Don't give up.
You know, try.
My only solution is to weld it.
Yeah.
[bleep].
- Mike's handle snapped off,
and now he's trying
to weld it back on.
- This is it.
If that's not working, I'm gone.
- Oh, no.
- What are you doing?
- A burn-through.
- It's always a bad idea.
- I know you guys hate it.
- [laughs]
- But it's all I got.
♪
- I'm burning the tang in
'cause it's the quickest way
to get a decent fit
on that block of wood.
- Well, see, what's happening
inside that handle
is he's created
a nice little ash pocket.
So, if he doesn't pull all
of that out of there,
the glue will stick to the ash
and not to the handle.
- I have never seen it
successful.
♪
- The handle material
that I choose
is a nice dark wood
and black fiber spacer
and then sandwiched between
those two layers...
A layer of the armor,
So it'll go black, shiny,
black, shiny, black.
- I'm worried
about Allen not finishing.
- Remember what he did
in the first challenge
with prep work,
and that prep work paid off.
♪
- After everything was stacked,
I had about two or three inches
extra on my handle
that I needed to get off.
- I hope he knows where
that tang is.
- I might end up
exposing the tang,
but, if anything,
it's a good thing
that the tang goes all the way
through the handle.
♪
- Less than 16 minutes,
and the handle shaping
has just begun.
[laughs]
- Mike seems to be back on track,
but how is that weld
gonna hold up?
- There is no way for us to tell
unless we test it.
- I'm just in a scramble mode.
I'm just gonna make do.
Just put a handle together.
It's not what I planned,
but, you know,
I got to get it done.
- Looks like Allen has pulled
a finishing belt
off of the wall.
- He hasn't shaped
his handle yet.
- It took a little longer
than I would like
to try and correct
some of these blade issues.
- You have just five minutes
remaining to finish your work.
- There's barely
even enough time
for it to come together
if everything goes right.
Let's see what we can do
with less than five minutes
for handle shaping.
- Don't give us a wooden block.
- This just seems crazy to me.
♪
I have never shaped a handle
at this speed before in my life.
- Ten, nine,
eight, seven,
six, five,
four, three,
two, one!
Shut down your machines!
Return to your anvil!
Your work is done!
- For a 4-minute handle,
I'm impressed.
I just wish I had
a 4-minute-and-30-second handle.
- [scoffs]
I've never done anything
so fast.
Never.
I forgot to breathe.
You know, it's like, [bleep].
♪
- Bladesmiths.
I will be testing the strength
and durability
of your blade's tip
by attempting to drive it
through this steel-plate armor.
Are you guys nervous?
- Very.
- Allen, you're up first.
♪
Allen,
you still have a tip there.
That's good news.
- That is good news.
- I'm impressed
with how thin this tip is,
and you don't have
any issues there, so...
Well done.
- Thank you.
- Mike, ready?
- Yes, sir.
♪
I'm thinking, please, please,
you know, don't break.
Don't break.
Just go through it, you know?
[laughs]
♪
[exhales sharply]
♪
- Mike, my biggest concern
was the blade coming apart
where you had to reweld it.
- Yeah.
- But it held up.
- Good deal.
- Clayton, ready?
- I am.
♪
Clayton,
it's like I didn't even hit it.
My concern was that you used
burl material for your handle
and you burned it through.
- Yep.
- I've never seen that
stay together, except for today.
- All right.
- Yeah.
Well done.
- Thank you.
- Bladesmiths, to see how sharp
the edge of your blade is,
I will attempt to cut through
all these apples with one slice.
Allen, you're up first.
♪
Well, Allen, because of your
edge geometry being uneven,
it did want
to lift up on the cut.
But it's a sharp blade.
- All right.
- Mike, you're up next.
♪
- [exhales sharply]
♪
- Mike, there's
a slight delamination
that sticks out
a little bit right there.
Being uneven, it did want
to lift through the cuts.
But nonetheless,
the test is about the sharpness
of your blade, and it cuts, sir.
♪
Clayton, you're up next.
You ready?
- I am.
♪
- Whoa.
- All right.
- Whoa.
- [laughing]
- Clayton,
the edge geometry you have
definitely made it easy
to wield the blade,
complemented by the handle.
It's a good fit.
This blade definitely cuts.
- Thank you.
♪
- Bladesmiths, the judges
have made their final decision.
It's time for one of you
to leave the Forge.
♪
Have made their final decision.
It's time for one of you
to leave the Forge.
♪
Mike...
your weapon
did not make the cut.
- Mike, first off,
I want to thank you for showing
that even when you have
a catastrophic blade failure...
♪
You can find ways to fix it.
But the time it took for you
to take care of those problems
wasn't applied to taking care
of those first-round issues...
That delamination,
and that's why
we've got to let you go.
- Thanks for the kind words.
- Mike, please surrender
your weapon.
♪
- I tried my best,
but it wasn't good enough.
♪
But that teaches you,
you know, how to survive.
There is a Russian saying...
[speaking in Russian]
Which means
"survive against all odds,"
which I did.
♪
- Allen, Clayton,
congratulations.
You both made it through
to the final round.
When you showed up
at this Forge,
you used our tools and equipment
to forge signature blades
in your own style.
Now we're sending you back
to your home forge,
where you will have five days
to forge an iconic weapon
from history...
♪
The boar spear.
- [chuckles]
- Developed as early as 700 A.D. in Europe,
the boar spear was forged
for both combat and hunting.
Known at the time
as a bar-spere,
the weapon was about
5 to 6 feet long
and featured a pair of lugs
below the leaf-shaped blade.
When hunting, the lugs
would stop a speared boar
from running
up the length of the weapon
and attacking the user.
In combat,
the lugs could be used to hook
and pull away enemy shields.
The blade of the spear
could be decorated,
with some featuring finely
engraved scenes of hunts.
On the first season
of "Game of Thrones,"
King Robert Baratheon
carried a boar spear
on his final boar hunt.
At the end of five days,
you will return to this Forge
and present
your completed boar spears
to our panel of expert judges.
Only after they have vigorously
tested those weapons
will they declare one of you
the "Forged in Fire" champion,
who also walks away
with a check for $10,000.
Good luck, bladesmiths.
We'll see you in five days.
Both:
Good luck.
♪
- It's day one.
Feels pretty good
to be back at the home forge.
This is gonna be the start
of my Damascus layers.
We're just alternating
two different types of steel
together here.
Cover.
The plan for today
is to get a billet welded up,
get it drawn out.
I usually don't do billets
this big.
It's sagging a lot in the forge.
♪
It's real exhausting being out
here in the Arizona heat.
It's upwards
of 100 degrees today,
and it's gonna stay at least
that hot the rest of the week,
so we just got to keep
moving slow,
paying attention
to what we're doing,
and hopefully get the job done.
- It's day one.
I'm excited
to have just made it this far
and get to actually do
the entire challenge.
The socket
is the part of the spear
that you insert the shaft into.
I haven't ever made
a socket before,
so it's a little nerve-racking,
but I'm excited to try it.
I'm gonna start forming
a nice, thin triangular shape,
and then
I'm going to hammer it around
into a circular cone shape.
Now I have to be super careful,
because the metal in
the socket is very thin.
If this metal gets too hot,
it's gonna just kind of melt
and crumble away.
All right,
it looks like a socket.
Hopefully, it'll stay looking
like a socket.
♪
- Day two... I really need
to figure out
the design of the lugs.
Boars are pretty strong animals,
so if they don't have
a wide enough cross-section,
they could just end up
running that through
their body themselves.
One of the ways I could do it
is cutting a section
of the pipe out
and bending it out.
It's gonna take a lot of work,
but it's something
that needs to be done.
I'm battling the clock
on this one.
[machinery whirring]
I've decided to put my lugs
perpendicular to my blade.
It just made more sense
to have them perpendicular
to stop the spear
from over-penetrating.
It should work.
♪
- It's day three.
Time's really crunched.
I'm just really behind
the eight ball...
Getting the lugs
on the spear shaft.
[motor sputtering]
Oh, man.
I believe
my blower has just died.
My forge burnt out.
The engine died.
Now I'm gonna have to find
a replacement.
There's still a lot to do.
I am literally running
to the store
to buy another blower.
[tires squealing]
Things just really
are not going my way today.
♪ - My forge bur.
The engine died.
[tires screech]
Had to run out and lose time.
I had to get a new motor.
With all these setbacks,
I'm starting to be
a bit worried.
[machinery humming]
With the way things
have been going today,
we're coming down
to the wire on time here.
It could come back to bite me.
♪
- It's the last day.
There's still a lot
of work to be done.
So I'm getting ready
to quench the blade.
I got to move my forge
into the shed.
I need it as dark as possible
to accurately judge
the temperature of the steel.
As I'm trying to get this
blade up to an even temp,
I'm checking for the color,
I'm checking it
with the magnet...
Very close.
And making sure
I have a good, even heat
by turning it
on and off the forge
and taking it in and out of it.
♪
There's lots of things
that could go wrong
coming out of the quench.
It could have a horrible warp.
If the quench goes wrong,
I'm kind of SOL.
I don't have a lot of time
to start a new project.
It's as straight
as I could get it.
I'll go grab a file
and rub it on there
for hardness.
We have good conversion.
Yeah, I feel pretty confident
right now.
♪
Well,
we've done what we can done.
It's solid.
I'm pretty confident
the spear will stand up
to the judges' tests.
♪
- It's day five.
Well, my vision for this
is to have a nice, dark pole.
We'll heat it up with the
torch until it turns black,
and then I'm going to rub
some beeswax from my own bees.
Here in my backyard
is where I keep my bees.
I do get a little bit
of honey every year,
but I mostly keep them
for the fun of it.
The beeswax...
It'll kind of melt in there
and treat the wood
and give it a nice sheen.
Time's still rolling.
I'm gonna need
to use every minute
to get this thing looking great.
♪
I have just sharpened
the boar spear.
I'm thinking it's time
for a little test
before I put it on the pole.
My kids made this great boar.
[animal grunts]
I'm ready to see this boar spear
cut, slice, and stab.
♪
Feels good to me.
I'm ready to see what
the judges have planned.
[intense percussive music]
♪
- Bladesmiths,
welcome back to the Forge.
You've had five days at home
to work on your boar spears.
Clayton.
How did it go?
- My spear is constructed
with a 36-layer crushed
Damascus billet.
To form the socket,
I just used a piece
of 1/8-inch wall pipe
I forge-welded
onto the Damascus.
And the shaft is ash.
Just went with, like, a simple
round handle on that, so, yeah.
- Very cool.
Allen, tell us a little bit
about your blade.
- All right, well,
I forged the spear out of W-2
and forge-welded the socket
and then welded on
some kind of pretty wings
for some lugs.
I used ash that's blackened
with fire for the shaft.
- Well, gentlemen, both of your
boar spears look very deadly.
But looks are secondary
to performance.
Your weapons will now be put
through a series of three tests.
Doug?
- Bladesmiths,
this is the sharpness test.
To see how sharp
your boar spears are,
we will test
the tip and the edge
by stabbing and slashing
through these sandbags.
- All right.
- Clayton, you're up first.
You ready?
- I'm ready.
It's really exciting
to have a weapon I've made
being tested this way.
Normally,
I make 'em real pretty,
and very rarely
does somebody actually purchase
a functional piece
that they're gonna go out
and just tear to pieces
and really put it to the test.
♪
[chuckling]
♪
- Well, Clayton,
the balance of your tip
lends itself to stabbing.
Your edge lacerated cleanly
on the moving sandbag.
What surprised me
was the positioning of your lug.
Traditionally,
they have it crosswise this way,
but you have it this way.
Because of that,
it was hard to index
when you're cutting through.
But then again, it will cut.
- Thank you.
- Allen, you're next. Ready?
- Oh, yeah.
♪
- Well, Allen, your spear
feels good to hold on to.
It was easy to index
and know where the edge was.
So there was a nice slash
that I could penetrate through,
and in the thrust,
it felt good in the hand.
- All right.
- I can see a little bow
in your handle.
But when we're talking
about the sharpness test,
this, sir, will cut.
- All right.
- Next up is the kill test.
To see what kind of lethal
damage your weapon can do,
I will deliver lethal blows
to this wild-boar carcass.
Clayton, you're up first.
Are you ready?
- Absolutely.
The first thing
that went through my mind
is, "Oh, man, it still has
all its hair on it,
"and that really can impede
the cutting ability
of an edged tool."
And after that, I was like,
"Wow, they got a real boar.
This is gonna be pretty cool."
♪
[chuckles]
- Well, Clayton,
your boar spear right here
did very well on the thrust,
penetrating all the way through
on the low line
and on the high line.
On the edge,
it lacerated cleanly,
and testing the other side,
it cut all the way
through the spine.
♪
This, sir, will kill.
Good job.
- Thank you.
- Allen, you're next.
You ready?
- Oh, yeah.
- Let's do this.
♪
- Well, Allen,
let's talk about your blade.
On the thrust, it penetrated
all the way through.
On the laceration
on one side of your edge,
boy, wow, it almost sliced
all the way through.
On your other edge,
it lacerated through the spine.
This spear, sir, will kill.
- All right.
- Next up is
the strength test. Dave?
- Gentlemen,
it's been said that the sword
is the prince of all weapons,
but the spear is the king.
To test the strength of your boar spears,
I'm gonna load them
into our air cannon here
and fire them into this wooden target.
- Oh, my.
- [laughs]
- This is a crazy test.
It's a fun test.
Thrilled to see it go down.
I just can't wait.
- We'll see
how deep it penetrates,
how well it holds up,
and if it holds up
while I remove the spear
from the target.
- Awesome.
- Clayton, you're up first.
You ready?
- I am.
- All right, let's do this.
- Oh, man.
I'm just hoping
that my handle stays together.
I'm hoping that after it impacts the wood,
that it doesn't break
the blade off
or something like that.
♪
- In...
three...
two...
one.
[loud hissing]
♪
[exhales sharply]
♪
- [exhales deeply]
- Well, Clayton,
your spear really dug in deep.
It went in about 4 inches.
Came out fine.
Everything's still tight
and dialed in.
This is interesting,
being offset.
- Being that it's a boar spear,
I wanted to make sure
that whatever laceration
the blade produced on the animal
wasn't wide enough to allow
the wings to come through,
and the best way to do that was
just make them perpendicular.
- All right, nicely done.
- Thank you.
- Allen, you're up.
♪
Got a little warp in your shaft.
I'm picking it up
in the tube there,
so hopefully it'll all fly well.
- I'm not horribly concerned,
but it's certainly
not making me thrilled.
- All right, in three, two, one.
- All right, in three...
two...
one.
[loud hissing]
♪
All right, Allen.
That buried itself quite nicely.
It went into about... there,
again, about 4 inches deep.
Like the leaf shape on this.
I like the fact that
you hand-hammered the socket.
I was kind of worried
when I put this in our machine
that slight warp in your shaft
there would bind up,
but not a problem.
Good job.
- Thank you.
♪
- Bladesmiths, the judges have
completed their deliberation,
and they've made
a final decision.
♪
However, before I tell you
what that decision is,
they have some comments
for both of you. Jason?
- Allen, I appreciated how your
spear performed on the boar.
It was very impressive,
the cut that it made.
It cut really deep.
It went through the spine.
So, well designed as a weapon.
- Thank you.
- Dave?
- Clayton,
I like the look on the Damascus,
in the point of your spear.
It makes for a very dramatic
look on that.
It certainly got
amazing penetration
in the tests against the boar.
The thing that concerns me
is the shape of your blade.
It doesn't get wider at the base
or leaf out the way
a boar spear typically does,
but nicely done.
- Thank you.
- Bladesmiths,
both of you have turned in
fantastic boar spears.
However,
in this arena of competition,
there can only be one
"Forged in Fire" champion.
♪
- Allen, congratulations.
You are
the "Forged in Fire" champion.
- Congratulations.
- You did awesome.
- Clayton, your boar spear
did not make the cut.
- Clayton, this was not
an easy decision to make.
Because of your
perpendicular lugs,
it was hard to visually index
your blade,
meaning it's hard to tell
where the cutting edge is.
That makes it
a less effective weapon.
And for that,
we had to let you go.
- I understand.
- Clayton,
please surrender your weapon.
♪
- Right now, obviously,
I'm a little bit disappointed,
but this
is the first spear I made,
and for me,
it's really important
that it was such a tight race.
I don't want it to be anything
that I handed him
or anything
that he would've handed me.
Allen is a deserving champion.
- Allen, congratulations.
You are
the "Forged in Fire" champion,
and with that comes
a check for $10,000.
Congratulations.
[applause]
- Thank you.
- You know, what I really
appreciate about that
is the fact
that you took the time
to actually hammer
that cone out.
Making that socket is
a really nice touch
on any kind
of traditional spear.
Well done.
- I am the "Forged in Fire"
champion.
I cannot believe it.
I had no idea
if it was gonna be me or him,
and it was me.
I'm betting being
a "Forged in Fire" champion's
gonna help this
stay-at-home dad/knife maker
convince a few people that
they should try out my blades.
It's great.
[chuckles]
♪