Doug, Ashley, congratulations.
Your karambits have led you guys into the final round
of this competition.
Good job.
Now we're sending you back to your home forges
to make one of these.
[music playing]
The cane sword.
Good luck, bladesmiths.
We'll see you in four days.
ASHLEY: It's day one.
I'm back in my shop in Columbus, Ohio,
and I'm going to start working on a rough blade shape.
This is going to be a very thin, very light blade.
I don't want to have excess material that's
going to come back to bite me.
I'm going to start with exactly what
I need and work from there.
I can't draw it out too thin.
I'll end up with weird little weak spots in the middle,
and that's catastrophic for a blade.
Just cleaning off a little bit.
Some pretty gnarly scale on it.
I'm checking and I'm grinding.
I don't want to take away any more than I need to.
A little bit more work in the forge tomorrow,
a little bit more work on the grinder,
and then I'll be good for a quench.
I'm going to do a little fireball action
here to kick this project off.
I'm a trained professional.
Do you not do this at home, ever.
3, 2, 1.
[explosion]
[laughs]
Fireball.
Let's get this party started.
It feels good to be home in my home shop.
I'm going to take this piece of 5160, and get it in the fire,
and get it heated, and get it drawn out.
A little nervous about it because I only
have one piece of this 5160, so it's kind of crucial
that I don't screw it up.
I'm a Damascus guy, so I'm going to use
the Damascus for the pommel and for the burl.
There's no way this piece is getting out of here
without some Damascus on it.
ASHLEY: Starting off day 2, I've got to do a little bit more
of a touch-up work, and then I should be ready for a quench.
All I'm really working on is straightening out any wiggles.
I've still got a couple, so I'll just
hit and check back and forth.
Things aren't really trueing up like I'd like,
so I decide I need to just go into the quench now.
I don't feel any tings.
Comes out of the quench--
[sighs]
--and there is definitely a warp.
I feel like I could requench it maybe once.
I've got to go in for a second quench.
Am I going to scrap this blade?
Am I going to start over, or is this going to work?
I come out of the quench, skate a file down it.
There's a couple spots towards the handle that
are a little softer, but I think we're
good to keep moving along.
I feel like I can finally a little bit start to breathe.
DOUG: I would have liked to have gotten
a little further yesterday, but my quench was very successful.
Daddy likey.
Woo!
And so it's mechanism day.
The cane sword is going to require
a locking mechanism so the sword will lock
properly in the cane itself.
I'm not really tooled up to do stuff like this.
This locking mechanism really is a tricky bastard.
The brass hook slides into the bolster,
which latches it and locks the sword into the cane itself.
And that has to hinge because there
has to be a spring underneath it that will allow the button
to compress down to where it releases the lock,
and then the spring will push the hook back up to lock
into place in the bolster.
Yeah, I got a latch.
All I have to do is attach my button to it and tap this in,
and I'm on my way.
ASHLEY: I've never made a cane before,
so today I want to spend a whole day dedicated to it.
I want to make sure that this cane
is structurally solid in case they're going to beat on it.
So my cane is going to be a framed construction.
This bit will be in the middle of two other slabs,
kind of like this one, and it'll all be pinned together
as well as a fair bit of epoxy.
Beautiful.
I'm taking my cane down from being a box
to being a hexagonal shape.
It's starting to really look like something
other than a block of wood.
So I've done the texturing on my cane.
That's very similar to the flint knapp that we did in round 2
on the handles of our karambits.
All that's left is I want to pop a little linseed oil
on all the wood parts and, I mean, I'm done.
DOUG: Last day.
First thing I have to do is make a cane.
It's a little wobbly and rough, but I
think it gives it character.
We're going to sand it down really smooth and then oil it.
It'll be great.
This is my Damascus billet for the pommel.
That's carbon steel, so carbon steel doesn't like this.
The Damascus pommel has to be tapped so that it
will screw on the bolt that I've welded
into the tang of the sword.
If I break the tap off in here, that's it.
Oh, god, I wish I had another tap.
There it is.
Sure enough, it breaks.
[bleep] damn it.
Failure is not an option, so I'm going
to go to my plan B, which is building
one out of a piece of rosewood.
It bums me out because the rosewood pommel isn't as pretty
as the Damascus one, but I'm just going to have
to settle with the rosewood.
It's going to be a good weapon.
There we go.
Button's working.
It'll definitely hurt somebody.
And if you've got a bad leg, it'll hold you up.
[laughs]
[music playing]
Doug, Ashley, welcome back, and welcome
to the frozen great outdoors.
You guys have had four days at your home forges
to work on your cane swords.
Doug, how did it go?
It proved to be a difficult build for me.
I built the blade out of 5160.
It's a black-walnut cane and handle with a rosewood pommel.
The bolsters are Damascus.
It was tough.
All right, Ashley, how'd it go for you?
I kept mine pretty straightforward.
I did a 5160 blade, brass pins here and there,
and a copper connector to a black-and-white ebony
little stop at the bottom.
All right, bladesmiths, your weapons will now be put through
a series of three tests-- a strength test,
a sharpness test, and up first, the kill test.
Doug.
DOUG: All right, bladesmiths, welcome to the kill test.
The cane sword, what an elegant way to walk
around with a concealed weapon.
To find out what kind of lethal damage your weapon will do,
I will take your cane sword and deliver killing slashes and
blows to this ballistics dummy.
Doug, you're up first. You ready?
I'm ready.
All right, let's do this.
All right.
I'm really nervous about today's testing.
Anything could go wrong.
I'm hoping to do as much damage to the mannequin as possible.
But, you know, I just-- no matter what,
I don't want anything to break.
[rock music]
Are you kidding me?
[laughs] All right.
All right, Doug, let's talk about your cane sword.
You have a very sharp edge.
This blade thrusts nicely.
It cuts nicely.
And who knew such a very slim blade
could do that much damage?
What I love about your handle right
here is that curved part right there gives me that flair
that I like to feel when I'm thrusting or slashing
and moving a weapon around.
Your weapon, sir, it will kill.
Thank you very much.
All right, Ashley, it's your turn.
Are you ready, sir?
Absolutely.
Let's do this.
Tough act to follow.
This is the kill test, and a cane sword has to kill.
If it doesn't, this is the end of the line.
[rock music]
Oh!
There it was.
Bro, I'm sorry.
It's all right.
All right, Ashley, let's talk about your cane sword here.
The cross actually shows here that it is kind of coarse,
so it could be a heat-tempering issue.
But worse than that, some of the grinds here are uneven,
and this was its thinnest spot.
So as you can see, it's a critical failure.
Well, Ashley, when we have a tough break on this show,
it's literal.
You suffered a catastrophic failure and cannot
continue in this competition.
And for that reason, I'd like to invite
you to please leave the range.
DOUG: It's heartbreaking, but I am incredibly proud of the work
that I've done.
When I get home, the first thing I'm going to do
is make another cane sword.
I-- I got to do it right at least once.
That's how it goes.
Tough break.
Doug, congratulations.
You are the new "Forged in Fire" champion,
and that's a title that comes with a check for $10,000.
How do you feel right now?
$10,000 richer.
[laughter]
All right, come on over here and shake our hands, brother.
DOUG: I did it.
I did it.
Good job, Doug.
DOUG: It's awesome.
This has been one of the best experiences of my life.
It took me every emotion possible--
anger, joy, to just absolute crying.
For anybody out there that wants to do this,
my suggestion to you is show up with your A game
and get a lot of sleep before you
come because you're not going to get any until it's over.