my name is scott thomas i am pretty much self-taught i learned from the horseshoeing
trade to how to swing a hammer and the rest of it is just doing my name is jonathan wick
i spent 20 years as a goldsmith it's always been a blade in my hand a hammer in my hand
and a fire in front of me gentlemen congratulations you made it into the final round
now we're sending you back to your home forges to recreate an iconic blade from history
the scottish claymore the claymore was used by scottish mercenaries in battle from the 15th to
17th century the weapon usually 55 inches in length would have to be held with both hands
and swordsmen were unable to carry a shield symbolizing fearlessness on the battlefield
the klansmen would swing the sword in figure eight movements decapitating and dismembering
adversaries legend has it that scottish knight william wallace used a claymore in the war
for scottish independence this epic weapon has been immortalized in the classic movie
braveheart the length of the blade must be between 39 and 47 inches it must be an
authentic working version of that deadly weapon i'm terrified this thing is by far the biggest
blade that anyone makes there's nothing bigger than a claymore you will have five days at your
home forest to complete the construction of this blade after five days you will return to this
forge and present your finished claymores to our panel of judges only after they submit those blaze
to a series of dynamic tests will they declare one of you the forged and fire champion and the
recipient of ten thousand dollars all right well good luck bladesmiths we'll see you in five days
i am nervous as hell when it comes to equipment i'm more basic this blower here is 120 years old
here it's these that's going to be doing all of this the plan is get the blade forged out ready
for heat treat today crap i'm looking at the blade and i'm looking at my drawing and i'm realizing
i shaped to the final image of the drawing the problem is is i had to forge less than the drawing
so that i could stretch the blade out to the drawing this is going to cost me some more time
i know i'm not going to get to the quench today so it's day two and if i don't get a quench today
then i'm doing something wrong i'm going to have to grind those edges in before i can quench it yes
it's in the fire here goes nothing
the past day and a half of work has all been just to get to this point
if it goes wrong then the project's dead in the water here we go up and in
i'm gonna pull this thing out it's probably gonna burst into flames
or not heat treatment went well it didn't break
come on come on it feels good to be home i have the tools that i'm accustomed to
using and they may not be the best tools easy little fella but get the job done
i'm a smith we smite things it's a complex kind of piece here we go and i'm through
i'm not happy with it i just i i felt like scared
and frustrated christ it's just making me crazy
i'm having doubt that i'm not able to do this that is too big a job that is
beyond me losing my mind the new day i'm feeling upbeat the guard's looking
good the most crucial point is the hardening actually heating up pretty nicely i'm liking it
yes this is the part that always makes me nervous yeah baby there is a god
ah the feeling that it's a good quench this one's alive this one's gonna float this one's gonna fly
both of your claymores look fantastic but as we know looks are secondary to performance with that
we're about to put your weapons through a series of tests
doug bladesmiths this is the kill test the term claymore in gaelic means great sword
to see how lethal your weapon is and to test its functionality according to its historic design
i will deliver two killing blows on this animal carcass
scott you're up you ready i'm ready let's do it i see the pigs and i'm thinking oh crap
i've cut tests against pigs and they don't cut very easily at all
oh the moment doug hits the pig and i hear that thud i'm like crap
uh scott we have a little problem here the hardness of your blade is a little bit on
the uh flexible side it did not even cut the carcass so that brings into question also
the sharpness of your edge i think and we're pretty much done congratulations
it will not kill
this is a failure jonathan you're up are you ready absolutely i'm confident that i made a good blade
the blade is hard and it's ready to cut this is gonna be spectacular
oh boy
jonathan we have a major blade malfunction it did initially cut through
but then it probably hit the spine it just exploded i'm not completely confident that
i'm going to come out with a win here but my blade cuts and that's more than scots
jonathan your blade suffered catastrophic failure for safety reasons we can no longer
continue testing on your blade since both weapons have suffered malfunctions dave will now decide
on the best course of action to move forward with the competition in the viking sagas swords broke
in the song of roland's swords broke but bent swords can be straightened so we'd like to give
you an opportunity scott to straighten that weapon so we can take it forward into a sharpness test to
help us determine our winner so scott why don't you take a moment and straighten your weapon okay
that's as straight as it's gonna get
now not only was the claymore a battlefield intimidator but it was also a scottish symbol for
physical prowess and strength so what i'm going to do to test the edge of your
blade is i am going to cut into this piece of sheet steel so scott are you ready let's do it
i've got a 50 50 shot that it's going to do well you know i just want to see what happens
i don't even want to watch
well scott there's actually still an edge here we can see what it did to
the steel should had the pig made out of steel it probably would have got better
all in all well done thank you overall i'm pleased this was the first time i've ever made a blade of
this size of this complexity gentlemen this by far was our most difficult challenge to date
congratulations you both delivered your scottish claymores but there can only be one champion
scott congratulations you are the forest and fire champion thank you thank you man
thanks jonathan unfortunately your blade did not make the cut jonathan the design of your blade was
really going in the right direction basically once that blade snapped there just wasn't anything else
we could do to test that blade so that's why we're letting you go jonathan please surrender
your weapon it's great man thank you sir i'll be back absolutely proud of myself with every failure
there's a great lesson learned and i think i'm moving forward from here scott congratulations
you are the forge to fire champion and you'll be receiving a check for 10 000 good job
i've never won anything in my life this is the first time i've ever won anything
you try your best and you learn from it and then you do it again until you perfect it
i mean even though the sword didn't do what i wanted it's still okay
i won i'm certainly going to be buying drinks tonight
you