Welcome to the strength test.
Obviously, the ice block chop.
I'm going to take your completed knives
and I'm going to smash them quite
vigorously and enthusiastically into these big chunks of ice 10
times.
And I want to see what the ice is going to do to your knives.
Ethan, you're up first.
You ready?
Let's make snow-cones.
My main worry is that the ice will
split open any seams on my blade that didn't weld properly.
[rock music]
Good god, man.
[dramatic music]
Well, Ethan, your edge held up pretty well for the most part.
That heavy convex helped you.
The big issue I have is the handle, the way it tapers down.
When I was striking, I started out here
and I ended up with a knife like this in my hand.
If it wasn't for the little hook back here,
it would have gone out of my hand.
Overall, your knife survived the ice.
Good job.
Ron, how are you feeling?
Little nervous.
It's all right, I'm not nervous.
It will be OK.
[nervous laughter]
RON: Watching Ethan's blade perform, I'm feeling good.
We both used a chain and sprocket
on each side of the blade, so I'm
ready to see mine perform too.
[rock music]
Oh, Ron, there's definitely a big issue here.
Material sheared right away from the sprocket steel here.
When you first took that chain, you put it in the forge
and heated it up cherry red and then set it aside, not built
up forge scale on that chain.
I would like to have seen you go ahead
and actually start trying to clean
that up right off the bat, because there's
that forge scale.
There's nothing holding this together.
Ron, your blade has suffered a catastrophic blade
failure in our strength test.
However, it doesn't mean you're out of this competition.
Liam, your blade still has to go through the strength test,
and it would seem that both of your fates
ride on whether or not Liam's blade can hold up.
[dramatic music]
Even with Ron's catastrophic failure,
they still have to test my blade.
I used the wrong metal for my edge.
I know it's going to pick up some damage against the ice,
I just don't know how much.
I could still be going home.
[rock music]
Well, Liam survived.
You've got a couple of small rolls on here,
but overall the edge held up very well.
The only thing is the handle--
it's on the narrow side.
You can see it actually kind of got into your tang a bit there.
And the texturing is a nice touch and a good idea,
but smoothing it out would have helped a lot.
Liam, your blade held up, congratulations.
Ron, unfortunately that means that your blade
did not make the cut.
I have to ask you to please leave the forge.
Thank you.
RON: Being here meant a lot to me.
I didn't make it all the way, but when I get home
I'm going to get all my kids, give them all a big hug,
and practice with some more chain.
This time I won't heat the chain as long.
[music playing]