Bladesmiths, welcome to The Forge.
In past competitions, we've had smiths come
and we've asked them to layer steel
so that they could create Damascus patterns
like Raindrop, Ladder, and Sharktooth
And today, we're gonna ask a similar task of you guys,
except we don't want just one of these patterns,
we want them all.
What we have here are the bits and pieces
of pattern Damascus billets
that are Raindrop, Sharktooth, and Ladder pattern.
And you'll have to take these bits,
load them into the cans,
combine that with powdered steel
to create a Fossil Damascus billet
from which you will forge your signature blades
in your signature style.
Good luck, gentlemen.
Your three hours starts... now.
How difficult is this challenge?
Honestly, you've got really good steels you're working with.
The biggest challenge is packing
everything into that can.
With all these different-sized pieces and shapes,
they've got to make sure that they're filling in
all the gaps with that 1095 powder
or they're just not gonna get a good weld.
The only way I have any clue on how to do Canister Damascus
is from watching a video that J. Nielson put out,
so I'm gonna try my best to do what he did.
J. used Wite-Out, I'm gonna use Wite-Out.
J. inset his top cap on the canister,
I'm gonna inset my top cap on the canister.
Smart work. It actually makes the canister
a lot more structurally strong.
[Jesse]
My thought is it's less material per one
and it'll heat up faster.
And from my experience,
the smaller piece is actually easier to compact
and make it one solid billet.
[Wil] Why would you peel two cans
when you can peel one?
Doesn't make any sense to me.
I have one canister in the forge right now heating up
while I'm getting the other one prepped.
That way we'll get a cycle going
so both of 'em will be good.
Take 'em apart, forge weld 'em together,
should have a knife.
I am notorious for working messy.
God, it's a mess.
Wilson's, like, smearing Wite-Out all over everything.
[J.] Like a van Gogh painting over there.
What are you doing to our table over there, man?!
-I'll clean it up! -All right.
[Jesse]
over to the squaring dies on the hydraulic press.
And I want to squish it down a little at a time,
and I'm gonna keep going until this is solid.
That's how you do it. That's how you set your welds.
Get that square can, you're pushing all four sides
at the same time, compressing everything evenly.
[Wil]
[Teddy]
just smash, smash, smash.
The second one, same thing. I'm excited.
I can tell by the way it's smashing it's being spill set,
it's gonna be good.
I can't wait any longer.
Here goes nothin'!
Whoo! That's hot!
I give it a good press all the way down,
I turn it 90 degrees,
do another press all the way down,
I do a pass on the Big BLU.
That rod is hot as a two-dollar pistol!
Normally at home, I'd do at least two passes
on the squaring dies,
but I go with my gut that it's a good weld.
-Oh, that can is hot! -[whirring]
[David] I don't believe that those welds
are consolidated in that billet he's got
after one run on the press.
[muttering indistinctly]
Wilson's still got problems up in that blade
from that initial weld.
[Doug] So if Wilson's billet does have some cracks in it,
is it best to chop them up
and try to forge weld 'em all over again?
[J.] I'd try to grind them out. Just get rid of 'em.
Make 'em disappear, then you can stretch it out.
[Wilson]
To me, my only option is to try to weld it.
[Wil] We got Wilson over here welding,
and welding is... a bad thing at this point.
It's not a good sign.
Man, Jesse's got a cool-lookin' blade.
Yeah, I like it.
And we got a quenched blade.
Teddy quenched.
We have three quenched blades out there on The Forge floor.
Bladesmiths! Shut down your machines!
Drop your tools! This first round of competition is over!
Bladesmiths, welcome to the strength test.
We got the bone chop here.
I'ma take each of your blades and I'm gonna baton them
through these very large, very dense bones.
What your blades do to the bones I'm not too concerned about.
I wanna see what the bones do to your blades.
Teddy, you ready to rock and roll?
-Let's do this. -Let's do it.
[intense music playing]
[grunts]
[tense music playing]
[J.] Good job, Teddy. Your edge is fine.
There's a couple tiny little glints I can see on the edge.
-But overall, good job. -Thank you.
-How you feeling, Jesse? -I'm ready.
-Good, so am I. -Go nuts.
-I'm halfway there already. -[laughter]
[intense music playing]
[grunts]
Oh, my gosh.
[grunts]
[chuckles]
-Nice job, Jesse. -Thank you.
You did lose a little bit of your fine edge,
but overall, knife's fairly comfortable.
-You survived. Good job. -Thank you.
How you feeling, Wilson?
I'm ready for you to do whatever J. does.
This is what I do.
Then do it to it.
-[grunts] -[intense music playing]
[grunts]
-Yes! -Unbelievable.
[laughs]
Good job, Wilson.
-You made it through. -Made it through. [chuckles]
[J.] The only thing I see, there's not much edge
pretty much from here up.
Okay.
But striking the bone...
didn't roll anything, didn't chip it out.
-Good job. -Thank you.
Dave.
Gentlemen, you've survived our strength test.
Now onto the sharpness test. The apple slice.
Unlike the strength test, this is all about
what your blades do to those apples.
Looking for a good, clean cut.
Teddy, you're up first. Ready?
-Let's do it. -[David] All right.
[dramatic music playing]
[chuckles] Man.
[softly] Fudge.
So, Teddy, your knife is definitely sharp.
But if you look at the tip, it's kinda got a warp this way.
It's flat on one side, it's ground on the other.
When I hit those apples, you can actually see it
in the apples, it just goes "swish,"
and rides up right up out of 'em.
It affects the cut, but it doesn't affect the fact
that this is still a sharp blade.
-Well done. -Thank you.
All right, Jesse, you're up next.
-You ready for this? -Yes, sir.
[David] Okay.
[sharp exhale]
[intense music playing]
Man.
All right, Jesse.
There's some damage to this edge.
It's a really obtuse edge.
You can see that the slice
kinda goes halfway through that apple
and it cracks it off after that 'cause the blade gets so wide.
Not the sharpest thing on the planet, but it'll do it.
-Good job. -Thank you.
All right, Wilson. You're up.
-Cut it. -[chuckles] Okay.
[intense music playing]
[snickers]
So, yeah, it is sharp.
But it's just wedging them apart.
And yeah, I could probably chop wood with this,
but for slicing apples,
it's just got the wrong edge geometry.
I understand.
[Wil] Bladesmiths, the judges' deliberation is complete.
They've made their final decision.
It's time for one of you smiths to leave The Forge.
The Bladesmith leaving The Forge is...
[tense music playing]
Wilson, your blade didn't make the cut
and David Baker's gonna tell you why.
Wilson, your blade's heavy, it has an obtuse edge,
and it was really designed only for one of our tests.
But before we let you go, I wanna tell you
that rarely have we seen a smith
work so hard to get around what looked like
insurmountable problems.
You pushed to the very end,
made it through that strength test,
and I'm just really proud of what you did.
Thank you.
Wilson, please surrender your blade.
[Wilson]
It's showed me that I have the drive to keep going
and going even when things
are not turning out right
and are not gonna turn out right.
But you have to do the best you can
and keep going at it.