[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
Bladesmiths, congratulations.
You've made it to the final round of this competition.
Now it's time for you to go back to your home
forges and recreate this iconic weapon from history--
a Bhuj.
Good luck, bladesmiths.
We'll see you in four days.
[INAUDIBLE].
Good luck to you, buddy.
[ROCK MUSIC]
BENTON: So it's day one.
I'm back home in Evansville, Indiana,
and I'm ready to get started on this Bhuj build.
I'm working on the dagger first.
I think it's the easiest thing to warm up and start with.
I really got to watch my dimensions.
This dagger, as I'm forging it, I'm
keeping in mind that where the ricasso and the transition
from the blade to the tang is, I got
to make sure I'm not too wide to go
inside the handle and the pipe.
I got to make sure I'm not too narrow
or this thing's going to rattle around.
So I really have a tight window that I need to fit in.
Good enough for now.
I made some great progress, but I've got a lot to do.
It's freaking me out.
JOE: It's day one.
I'm here at the home forge.
Get warm in here, man-- it's freezing.
I'm making a Bhuj.
It's a little bit boujie, I would say-- a little bourgeois.
It's not only a piece for warfare,
but it's a really artistic expression
of whoever's carrying it.
I'm thinking of doing some san mai,
so sandwiching it with a mild steel.
That'll just make it that much more tough.
I chose san mai to really bring the most out of these two
different types of steels.
The mild steel is very tough.
It can take a lot of bending without cracking,
while the hardened 51/60 in the center
is just coming down where I need it along the edge.
Just need to get the billet down to a more manageable size.
I hot cut off the excess.
And as I'm hot cutting, I'm putting a lot of stresses
on those welds.
And one of the pieces of mild steel's wanting to kind of rip
away.
That's pretty bad news.
From hot cutting it, all the stresses on it
found a weak point right there.
So in order to fix that delamination,
I got a few more tries at forge welding it up to the thickness
that I have.
If I get too thin, then it's a lost cause.
I just hope I can make this work.
Not only is it day two, but it is also my 28th birthday.
Creating a challenge weapon in my home shop,
that's a pretty cool birthday present.
Today, I'm going to start forging
the larger blade of the Bhuj.
So what I'm trying to do is split this tang off of here,
and I got to form my clip point.
Then I can draw my length out, and that shape will follow.
And then I can start getting that swoop
that I need for that Bhuj look.
Time to get this bad boy quenched.
This is the moment that I really need to nail,
and I am praying that this thing's going to stay straight.
I pull it out.
[LAUGHING]
Ah, that thing's harder than $9 worth of jawbreakers
and straight as an arrow, man--
pretty good birthday.
JOE: It's day two, and I'm looking at the blade.
And I'm not 100% on the laminations on the san mai.
So it's seeming to make the best sense just
to scrap it and start over.
I'm going to use a big old piece of leaf spring
and see what I can do a second time around.
Starting over with a 51/60 mono-steel blade,
time is really at a premium.
I may not finish.
So it's the start of day three.
I have to start putting a lot of puzzle pieces together
and do a lot of fabrication.
60's too hard.
So I think I need to temper this some more.
A little hard for my liking for what it's going to be doing,
so I'll soften it some more.
I'm trying to make sure that my blade gets up to temperature
and [INAUDIBLE] stress, so that way
I've got a nice flexible yet strong blade.
If I don't get these blades softened and more flexible,
they're more likely to snap.
Right now they're very brittle.
If I heat up the very end and keep heating up the end,
the heat will travel and draw the temper all the way down.
That's the best I can do right now.
I've got my dagger tempered, so I can put my handle on.
Then I'll slide my socket on, weld that beast up,
and we're ready to go.
It fits right in there.
My blade is completely assembled.
It's not pretty, but it would perform.
I think it's ready to roll, man.
JOE: So yesterday I forged out the blade of my Bhuj.
I forged out the stiletto, and I got around to heat-treating
the Bhuj blade.
Today I have to heat-treat the stiletto.
Heat-treating a stiletto is going
to be a little tricky because there's zero room for warpage.
So this thing needs to be dead straight to be
able to fit in that handle.
If it's not, I mean, it could hang up in there,
or might not even come out, or just rub against interior wall
and dull the blade.
So it's the moment of truth.
Yeah, it looks great.
It looks perfectly straight.
It's time to start chiseling in the elephant head
into the bolster now.
I'm choosing to put an elephant on my Bhuj
because that was the traditional creature
they would add onto it.
And I'd really like to honor the culture
and these amazing smiths for creating this.
There we go.
So the weapon as a whole I think is becoming a beautiful piece.
Joe, Benton, welcome back to the forge.
You fellas have had four days at your home forges
to work on your Bhuj with hidden stiletto blade.
Joe, how did it go?
It went well.
My blade's made out of leaf spring,
got a coil-spring stiletto, and some etch design work on there.
What about you, Benton?
I feel like my build went well.
My blade's out of 51/60, and my stiletto is 10/84.
It was a tough build, but I feel great about it.
Well, gentlemen, only one of you can be the "Forged in Fire"
champion.
And to determine which one of you it will be,
it's time to test them.
It will be a strength test, a sharpness test, and, up first,
the kill test.
Doug.
Bladesmiths, welcome to the kill test.
Your Bhujes look beautiful, but are they deadly?
Well, to find that out, I will take your weapon
and deliver killing blows onto pig carcasses.
Joe, you're up first. Ready?
I'm ready.
Let's do this.
JOE: My heart's racing.
My knees are rattling.
I just feel like anything can happen.
[ROCK MUSIC]
Nice.
Oh, man.
[SIGH]
First up, this blade is sharp.
The point is easy enough to get into the carcass
and smash on the way out.
It's got a great feel to it, nice stiletto.
There's even a handle that you put on this,
so it gets a nice look to it.
Overall, sir, this Bhuj will kill.
Thanks, Doug.
All right, Benton, are you ready to ham it up?
Ready to rock and roll.
Let's do this.
BENTON: Joe's Bhuj performed incredibly.
It split that pig in half.
And now it's my turn, and I'm terrified.
I've never made this style of weapon before.
I've never been able to test this kind of construction.
I just don't know how it's going to hold up.
[ROCK MUSIC]
Oh, [BLEEP], man.
Sorry, man.
It's a big piece of shrapnel.
[BLEEP] damn it.
Well, Benton, one of the things I like about this,
you put on the leather.
It gave me a very nice area to hold onto, and it's ovoid.
I can tell where the edge is.
But the obvious happened.
It's a coarse-grain structure here.
I should have normalized that tang much better than I did.
But when you're grinding away long days in the shop
during this challenge and you're just
focused on the finish line, it's easy to overlook some things.
And obviously I did.
Well, Ben, any warrior knows that if you
leave a piece of shrapnel that big in a target, it's deadly.
However, a warrior also knows that his weapon
needs to be strong.
And your blade has suffered a catastrophic failure
in our very first test.
And therefore, you cannot move forward in this competition.
Come on, brother-- did a great job, man.
[INAUDIBLE].
I feel pretty bummed.
But this challenge has been both very difficult and invigorating
at the same time.
I've made things that I've never made before,
and I've overcome some challenges that I've
never had to face before.
So overall, it was a great experience.
Joe, your blade is sharp, deadly, and strong.
And you are the new "Forged in Fire" champion,
and that's a title that comes with a check for $10,000.
Good job.
[APPLAUSE]
How do you feel right now?
It's a little surreal.
I'm a "Forged in Fire" champion.
I won.
But you know, it would've been nice to win
after the three tests.
But this has been a totally unique opportunity.
It's really a big affirmation of my abilities.
It's amazing.