[intense music]
All right, bladesmiths, your blades have been tested.
They've been evaluated.
The judges have deliberated.
And here are the standings.
In fourth place, we've got Gary earning one point.
In third place, Gene, you earned three points.
And our first place competitor is Chad.
You got 10 points, buddy.
Matt, that leaves you with six.
Everybody's done fantastic work.
And now it's time for our second event.
All right, gentlemen, over here on our pantry shelves,
we've got stacks of 15 and 20 and 1095 steel.
What does that mean gentlemen?
Damascus.
That's right.
This is a Damascus challenge.
And it's going to be made even more
tough because in our second event,
you're not making just one blade,
you're making two throwing knives.
Gentlemen, do your best.
Your three hours starts now.
I've never made it throwing knife,
so today is going to be my first and second throwing knives.
I'm taping up my ruler so I can't screw up my parameters.
All I got to do is tape between these two blue lines
and I'm golden.
If you start with good steels, it
makes it a better possibility of getting good welds.
[sizzling]
The only kind of throwing weapon I've ever made before
was a tomahawk, and that's not at all the same.
I designed kind of a throwing knife.
Got a good tip on it.
But it's also going to have a lot of meat
so that you can really feel it when you're throwing it.
I really want to focus on keeping it simple,
just really trying to meet the parameters.
It's a tall order, but I feel confident in my skills.
So I'm satisfied with the taking of my weld.
So now it's time to dance with Big Blue.
Me and Big Blue, we got a relationship now.
You know, we're pretty tight.
I actually narrow it down in the center.
And I'm going to draw up the handles.
At this point, everything's going great.
Couldn't be happier.
So it looks like my billet is up to heat.
I'm going to set my welds with a hammer.
It's a lot more cautious approach to me
to set it by hand.
But you know, I can't be too careful at this point.
I can really be particular on exactly where I hit the billet
and not being too violent by going over to Big Blue
and just smashing the heck out of it.
I really need to get the billet nice and hot
so that these pieces will all forge well together.
So I don't to rush this part of the process.
If they don't set, I'm not going to be able to get
two knives out of the steel.
I get my steel hot and I'm over to the press--
Oh no, these welds didn't hold.
It's kind of like if you're making that big sandwich,
take a big bite, and everything comes out the other damn end,
and it's all over the floor.
So now I'm looking at my billet, it's not forge welded.
And I'm going to have to figure this out right now.
I can't come in fourth because that's going to put
me out of the competition.
This time, I get it really hot and allow the width of that
die to sandwich it down.
I do feel like it's starting to weld to itself,
which is the ultimate goal.
But it's going to have to go right back in the heat.
I'm going to have to repeat this process
a few times before I can really start drawing this out.
My game plan is try to get these two
knives as similar as possible.
Now I have two identical throwing
knives at 12 inches long.
I realized that they're real heavy.
I want them heavy.
You have to throw them real hard, but man, do they stick.
And they make a really loud thunk.
So I finally get my steel drawn out.
Cut them in half.
I want to quench my blades early,
so that's going to guarantee me a hard edge.
I wouldn't call them knives yet.
They're more like bricks.
I feel good, but I know that it's
still really anyone's game.
I make the decision to just quench
the tip, thinking that's the only
critical area of the blade.
I have one of my knives cooling down, so what I need to do
is set up another vice at another station.
So I go to the scrap pit, and I'm going to go find two
matching pieces of angle iron.
Ow!
[bleep]
I snagged the inside of my left arm.
I'm that guy.
I'm bleeding on "Forged in Fire."
I'm just going to do a little bit of an edge quench.
There's no need for the tang or the side
of the knife to be hard.
I mean, we're throwing these things around,
so you don't want them to break.
As I'm starting to finish up and realizing
that they're pretty similar, it's what I was shooting for.
But things don't always work out when you only have three hours.
My plan is to heat treat one knife and then the other.
I'm just going to harden maybe the last quarter of the knife
because that's the part that's going
to be digging into the wood.
I feel pretty good.
You know, we're down to the wire,
so I'm going to have to keep hustling.
But I'm going to work till the last second.
So I've got the edges kind of profiled in.
It's time to start working on the handle.
But the problem is the buffing bell took my edge with it.
Oh boy.
I don't have time to fix it.
So here I am again stuck with some bad on-the-spot decisions.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1!
Bladesmiths, stop what you're doing.
Shut down your machines.
Drop your tools.
[applause]
I'm frustrated, I'm disappointed.
But I'm also relieved because I was concerned I wasn't going
to be able to turn anything in.
All right, gentlemen, welcome to the knife throwing
triple threat.
All right, Gene, you're up first year.
Are you ready? - Yes, sir.
[intense music]
[thunking]
[clanking]
All right, so Gene, right off, a lot of weight to these.
So a fairly classic shape overall for a thrower.
What I do appreciate is that the handles are even in size.
The handles feel the same regardless
of the knife, which is really what I was looking for.
When we moved to the harder target,
this knife did take a bit of damage,
and you did lose just a tip right there.
Just packed out a little bit.
But these didn't start out with a lot of point on them, anyway.
But they threw well.
Good job.
- Thank you, sir. - All right, Chad, you're up.
You ready for this? - Yes, sir.
OK, let's do this.
[intense music]
[thunking]
[clanking]
All right, so Chad, I think you nailed it.
These are a great weight, a great size.
Feel super comfortable in my hand.
They match really nicely.
This is something that's super important in throwing.
Your tips, they hit into the clay pigeons,
didn't lose any tip.
Just a great job all around.
Nicely done.
Thank you.
Gary, you're up.
You ready for this?
Let's do it.
OK.
[thunking]
[shattering]
So right off, when I looked at these, I was like, nah,
I don't like them.
[laughs] I'm proven wrong again.
[laughs] These actually throw really good.
I did not think this skinny dropped
handle would throw well.
It actually feels better like that.
I was throwing them with the curve going up into my hand
as opposed to down.
They throw really nicely.
They've got a really sharp point on them.
When it penetrates, it just buries itself really nicely.
The back of the handle, there's a couple of spots on here
that I can feel.
They didn't really drag when it left my hand.
But they threw really well, so good job.
Thank you.
All right, Matt, you're up next.
Are you ready to go?
Sure.
[thunking]
Nice.
[clanking]
Nice one, Matt.
Thanks, brother.
So Matt, these things are heavy.
These have what I like to call the brick factor.
It's like throwing a brick.
It doesn't matter if you hit it with a point or not,
whoever you hit is going down.
The blades themselves don't quite match.
You've got one lean blade and one wider blade.
But what I do like is the handles match beautifully
and they really fit my hand well.
They do have a very cute point in profile.
I would have loved to have seen a little bit leaner,
but I mean, it's hard to argue with how easy it
was to get accurate with these.
As far as being tough, your points are still there.
Well done.
Thank you, sir.
[intense music]
All right, bladesmiths, the second event in the Summer
Forging Games is complete, and the judges
need to have a deliberation.
I remind you that after this deliberation,
the person with the lowest points
will be eliminated from the games.
Bladesmiths, we need the forge floor.
Thank you.
All right, bladesmiths, the second event in our summer
forging games is complete.
The judges' deliberation is complete.
And they have ranked your work.
In first place, Chad, congratulations.
That's 10 more points to you, buddy,
giving you a point total of 20.
In second place, Gary, our come-from-behind guy.
you came out of that first round with just one point
and now you've made up another six
points, giving you seven total.
Our third place finisher is Matt.
Congratulations.
That's three points to you adding to your six
from the first event.
That gives you nine points total.
And our fourth place finisher is Gene.
You came in third on the first event
and here coming in fourth in the second event
gives you one point for a total of four.
Gene, you came out with the least number of points
after two events.
Unfortunately, at this time, you've been eliminated
from the Summer Forging Games.
My knives performed poorly.
The other bladesmiths did a better job,
and I'm cool with that.
Hey, it was a good fight, man.
Thank you, sir
I've learned a lot and I'm just
excited to go back home, put that new knowledge to work,
become a better bladesmith, and hopefully come back one day,
and show these judges what I'm capable of.