hey ben jay how you guys doing hey dad what you doing man hey guys what's up i'm down
here at my new place in virginia and i'm still kind of building the shop but um
well i was thinking you know we've got this down time between shooting the show
it might be fun to do a little challenge among the three of us me challenge ben ben challenge jay
jay challenge me something like that so one person finishes and then challenges the next one sounds
good to me so what i thought was that we'll do a home build you know we're always making the smiths
do this so i figure let's do one let's show off what we can do see if i can remember how i could
get all the rust off my anvil so now well what i was thinking we'd do it a little bit differently
we'll give each other two weeks to complete the challenge i know that's a little longer than we
usually give the smiths but i figure let's do something kind of outside our normal comfort
zone do something a little bit more above and beyond all right works for me okay ben you're
always talking about the sutton who sword you even told me that you saw at the museum in england
absolutely yeah look i know it's an incredibly intricate sword but you're always saying how you
wanted to do one and now's the perfect chance oh no in two weeks make a sword yeah i know
ben's gonna be switching over to makeshift for a couple weeks yeah thanks a lot dave
found in the burial ground of sutton who in modern day suffolk england the sword was presumably
wielded by king redwald in the early 7th century the blade features intricate made pattern welding
twisting steel and wrought iron to create a unique damascus pattern while the handle itself was just
as elaborate and was inlaid with gold and garnet over 1300 years later the sword was painstakingly
recreated by scott langton and is now on display alongside the original in the british museum
look you're always saying how much you love that sword but hey it's going to be fun
and we got to test them so uh ben figure out how you're going to test that sword and what
you want to test it on okay sounds good have fun man i'll see you in two weeks okay two weeks
i think i'm gonna mutter about you a lot in the next two weeks but uh thanks i better get to work
in this build my reputation is on the line not globally but within the three of us so i want to
make sure i impress everybody i'm going to start by making my eight bars which is going to be high
layer of damascus and then i'll draw those out into these rods then i'm going to twist and stop
twisting and twist it and stop twisting then comes the four dwelling four together this way
the other four together this way except the top where they're twisted the bottom are straight then
weld those layers together for the twisted core then make the edge deal by making an extra stack
throw it out and wrap that all the way around the end and then forge weld that whole thing together
well guys it's been two weeks and uh here it is sutton who stored that is gorgeous look at that
pattern wow down that sword looks beautiful the dimensions that thing looks huge not the most uh
nimbly weighted sword in the world it'll kick some butt that's for sure so the plan is to test for uh
strength on some bamboo and then for sharpness i have a whole lot of shipping boxes lying around so
i set one up here i'm gonna see if i can't cut it in half make it easier to get in the recycling bin
i am actually nervous about the testing this is a long very complex welded sword things might let go
i don't want to break this thing to forever all right man good luck thanks man here we go
oh man that's great the edge held up all right
everything's still right and tight so now let's see how sharp the thing is
oh there it is good job man that's incredible that's a good job ben thank you man
so yeah now it's your turn aj all right what do you got for me how about you make me a chopper
out of material you've never used before you know it's funny you mentioned that because
there is a few different materials that i haven't tried yet but i've been wanting to
and then i want you to go like full nielsen on this thing and test it as hard as you can
on some of the most devastating test media that you have i could do that
because if i don't do a serious strength test the fans are going to crucify me for all the blades
i've broken and damaged so yeah i'm going to go hog wild on this thing no doubt there but i'm
pretty sure we're all going to love watching this all right i'll get to it good luck to you brother
i'm here in my own shop in tawanda pennsylvania ben did a great job on his weapon and i'm planning
on doing something just as good i am fortunate enough during this home build to have my very
lovely wife being my camera person and audio person your eyes are looking like they're up
in the ceiling look down i'm looking great at that little thing i'm just telling you i want a
new camera person she'll actually get to see what i do even though we've been together for 11 years
i think just put an hour in my shop now 11 years
so ben challenged me to use steels i haven't used before so what i'm planning on doing is
making canister out of drive chain and powdered steel and then i'll peel the can off slice it in
half and then sand might to adhesive 80 crv2 we've seen quite a few smith's use under finale weapons
but i actually haven't had a chance to use it yet hey guys it's been two weeks and i'm back
hey hey jay did you have fun i had a blast so here's my stand my chopper it's uh just under
a 13 inch cutting edge the core is adcr v2 new steel for me to play around with
and i took some drive chain and made a canister damascus and that's what i clad on both sides of
the core how'd you like that ultrax the ultrax is nice it gives you a really good grip cool
and i did a little work for a meatpacking plan a while back and they were nice enough to give
me these lovely bison jawbones i've got two of them strapped to the table over there
well that looks like some pretty brutal material jay good luck with it
let's have some fun remember jay it's not what your blade does to those bison bones
but what those bison bones do to your blade well hopefully neither of them do anything to make
so we're about ready to chop into some bison jaw bones
and i hope this thing doesn't break in half i'm gonna look like an idiot
well that didn't work the way i wanted to it worked pretty good whoa
wow that was wicked well she's still tight straight no damage to the edge and still sharp
well jay you really knocked that out of the park man nice job good job man appreciate
it all right mr baker i got challenge for you bud oh boy now i'm on the chalk and lock okay
all right what's the challenge gonna be if you remember we had somebody come on the show
and do a scottish basket hilt that really tore my wrist up and sent me to the er scale and all that
stuff is one of your things so make me a scottish basket health that won't tear somebody's arm up
okay all right i'm down for that the basket hilt originated in scotland in the 17th century
and include an intricate enclosed guard intended to protect the user's hand although primarily used
for defense the basket hill also had the ability to punch the importance of properly designing
the baskets is crucial in crafting a safe and effective weapon as seen in previous forged
and fire competition when a design flaw injured jay's wrist that sounds like a good challenge dave
it's gonna be really important that i get the scale the weight and the balance right
because i'm gonna be doing the testing and i really don't want a hand breaker looking
forward to it okay i guess it's my turn to head into the shop i will see you guys in two weeks
i'm here at my new place on the northern neck of virginia my barn there is my workspace i'm about
you know one-third the way through building my new shop space here so as though self shooting
from home isn't uh enough i've actually got large pieces of equipment being delivered
while i'm trying to do this jay has challenged me to make a scottish basket help my goal is to
get this as historically accurate as i can the blade is a very straightforward broadsword blade
so it'll have double edges and a deep fuller down the center it's the guard itself that becomes
difficult getting that dimension and scale perfect and as the historical recreation
specialist on the show it's important for me to nail it all right guys been two weeks
there she is nice wow very nice jay it's got a lot of protection of the hand and the wrist but
at the same time it's not going to get bound up so i'm pretty sure you'll appreciate that
the blade itself is 1095 and 15 and 20 300 layers it looks great
for my test i've got a shield now this shield's been with me for like 15 years this is a veteran
of a half dozen shows and then um to follow that up i'll do a sharpness test on this uh fig branch
that i just trimmed off there you go good luck brother all right so let's see how she does am i
a little nervous yeah every time i swing a blade it's something that you shouldn't swing a blade
and i get nervous but at the same time i'm excited this is what i live for this is what i love
oh my hand's okay that's awesome i like that i was not expecting him to punch with that basket hill
nice he's still straight it's got an edge like you always say dave it's cutter she did good she held
up nice job thanks so hey guys it was really fun seeing your work and and seeing you guys
test that stuff at home i'm looking forward to doing it again if your guys are up for it but that
was a great great challenge y'all did beautiful work i'm really impressed you guys take care later
you