In your first round of competition today,
you'll be using these.
These are .50 caliber flintlock single-shot black powder
Trapper pistols will use to forge signature
blades in your signature style.
COREY: [sighs] Flintlock pistols?
What are we going to do with these things?
It doesn't look like there's any steel in them.
WIL WILLIS: You will have 10 minutes
to work on your designs.
You will have three hours to forge your blades.
Good luck, bladesmiths.
Your 10-minute design window starts now.
COREY: Uh, I'm designing a modified chef knife,
just because it's a fairly easy shape for me to knock out.
WIL WILLIS: Your design window is now closed.
Your three-hour forge time starts now.
Oh, the poor, poor gun! Bye!
I cut my hand on a barnacle the day before I came here.
And this gauze makes holding a hammer
in my right hand extremely difficult, unfortunately.
So I feed it over the power hammer
to do the initial forge weld.
That power hammer no joke!
MAN 1: He's got one forge weld folded over.
He squished it flat.
And I don't think that forge world is holding.
He's obviously fighting it.
COREY: The power hammer is just way too aggressive.
I realize it's drawn out way too much.
And I have a bunch of delaminations.
[bleep] I have to just continuously start
folding this fillet and trying to consolidate
the steel into a solid block.
Otherwise, I'm screwed.
This could be [bleep].
Right now, the forge welds are coming apart.
That's a major problem.
It's just sucky.
MAN 1: Corey will try to press everything together.
And it looked to me like he pressed parts
and it opened up other parts.
[groans] My arm's getting tired and time's running out.
But as long as I can get the welds to stick,
I know I can get a blade shaped out quickly.
You just have 60 tiny little minutes to finish your work!
His 4140 is not going to get as hard as he
thinks he might be able to get.
MAN 1: But here's the thing.
It might not be as hard as the file.
It's hard enough to hold an edge.
I've decided this is as hard as I can get this blade.
And I'm just going to move on to the grinder
and start cleaning it up.
10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.
Bladesmiths, shut down your machines, drop your tools.
This round is over.
[whistling]
The overall shape of my knife is acceptable to me.
The hardness, that's whatever.
Let the judges take a look at it.
Now it's time for the judges to take a closer
look at all of your work.
Tony, you're up first.
Your work out there was textbook work,
from the use and control of big blue
all the way to normalizing and preparing your blade.
Masterful. WIL WILLIS: All right, Corey.
You're up.
Please present your blade to the judges.
MAN 2: Well, Corey, I like the design of your knife.
It is a little bit snug here.
But sometimes, a snug fit on the blade
makes it one with my whole hand.
It's just, how are you going to transition
that if you move to the second round to make it comfortable?
That's important.
You had me sweating there in the beginning.
The first couple forge welds didn't seem
to stick very well for you.
But you didn't give up.
And eventually, you got the welds to stick.
I can see some evidence of the welds maybe not being 100%.
But overall, well done. - Thank you.
WIL WILLIS: Gage, you're up.
MAN 1: Good choice on design for both
the apple slice and the chop.
There's a decided warp, especially
on the backside of the blade.
You added that low carbon steel to the back here.
That's a really good idea.
I'm just a little bit worried, because I can see, right here
and right here, where that weld starts
and starts to come together.
Bladesmiths, the judges have completed their deliberation,
and they've made their final decision.
It's time for one of you to leave the forge.
Gage, your blade did not make the cut.
Gage, your personal integrity is not in question.
The structural integrity of your blade is.
The junction where your tang meets the blade
has crack and delam on it.
For that reason, we're letting you go.