[suspenseful music]
Congratulations, gentlemen.
You've both made it to the final round, which
means you're both one step closer
to the title of Forged in Fire Champion
and that check for 10 grand.
When you came to our forge, you used our tools and equipment.
Now, we're sending you back to your home
forge to forge an iconic blade from history.
Are you ready to see what that weapon is?
Hell yeah.
I'm ready.
All right.
The haladie.
Ooh.
WIL WILLIS (VOICEOVER): The haladie
was a fearsome double-bladed dagger
created in ancient India.
The two recurve blades would meet at a straight handle
and could be used for slashing or stabbing.
Some haladies even featured a third blade
running out of the hand guard.
Though the haladie might seem like something out of a fantasy
video game, it actually dates back to the mid-fifth century
and was wielded by the Rajput, a major Hindu
clan known for their bravery and ferocity in battle.
Your final challenge is to forge a haladie.
It must be an effective, working version of that weapon.
You will have five days at your home forge to accomplish this.
Additionally, each blade must have
a counter recurve and a centered, unguarded handle.
At the end of five days, you will
return and present your haladies to our panel of expert judges.
Good luck, bladesmiths.
We'll see you in five days.
Good luck, Steve.
[music playing]
STEPHEN: Feeling amazing.
I made it to the finals, and I get to make
a really awesome weapon--
a "hal-a-die," or a "hal-i-die," or something like that.
[laughs]
Ray has more experience than me, and I kind of feel like it's
old school versus new school.
Got my blade length that I want to.
Now I'm moving on the handle.
Every time I hit it on one side, the other side
bends a little bit, so it's a challenge
to keep everything in line.
Oh, yeah.
It's the end of day one, and I feel like I'm
a step ahead of the game.
I only expected to get forging done today,
but I got a little grinding in there too.
[music playing]
RAY: The plan for today is to get the Damascus ready
and hopefully get a couple welds in on it.
I'm going to cut up a bunch of steel here.
I used a 15-piece billet.
I've never made a haladie, and I've never made
a double-ended knife either.
To me, it's a challenge.
Challenge is good.
Even though I've got, like, 37 years experience,
it's not going to be easy.
[music playing]
I'm going to go for, like, 120 layers.
It'll give me a bold pattern, and I
think it'll look really nice.
STEPHEN: It's day two.
I've got pretty much all the grinding done.
Today I want to get to the heat treating.
That's the make-it-or-break-it part of the knife.
This is my first time having this much riding on the quench.
I hope nothing goes wrong, 'cause if it does,
I'll have to restart, and that would really suck.
[suspenseful music]
It survived.
Feeling good.
Now I just gotta do the same thing to the other side.
RAY: Ready to start day three.
I wish I was a little farther ahead,
but everything is times two.
So whatever I do to one blade, it has to be
exactly like the other blade.
And that can be a challenge in itself.
So I put the first blade in the jig,
and I can't get it to bend.
So I said, I'm gonna do it the old school way
and go back to the anvil.
So it's just going to be a guess.
Whenever you're dealing with Damascus,
it's a risky business.
And it doesn't always turn out right.
Nobody makes perfect Damascus every time they make it.
This is about a wicked looking weapon, I'll tell you what.
[music playing]
STEPHEN: It's day four, and pretty
much all I got left to do is glue on the handle,
polish that up.
Ray is probably doing Damascus with his blade,
so I'm trying to be on the same level.
I'm going to hand-sand.
I'm going to add filework on both sides of the handle.
I'm doing, like, the really fine detail stuff.
I'm going for, like, a vine pattern on the filework
just to give it an elegant design,
a little something extra.
I'm kind of just gonna freeball it on this one.
It's just about ready to glue.
As soon as I start mixing the epoxy, time starts going down.
I only got five minutes to get everything where I want
it to be because of the epoxy.
This is the first bump in the road I've run into,
and I feel the time crunch.
OK.
I finally get it together.
The glue's all set up, and it looks like there's no gaps.
I finished the weapon a day early.
There's always that thought in the back of my head
where I'm going against the best.
But age definitely doesn't limit your skill.
I'm very proud of this weapon.
RAY: Last day.
It's crunch time.
Time to finish it up.
The heat treat went really well yesterday,
and the blades look good.
First thing I'm going to do today
is sharpen the blades up before I assemble
the bond to the handle.
I think my skill set as a mastersmith really shows up.
I came here to prove that I could
compete at a really high level, and I think that I did that.
The only thing that could stop it
is if my competitor built something better than I did.
I think it's ready to go.
[suspenseful music]
Stephen, Ray, welcome back to the forge.
You've had five days at your home forges
to work on your haladies.
Now it's time to see how they hold up in our weapons test.
But first, Ray, tell us a little bit about your weapon.
Well, I made my haladie as close as I could
to the original type of weapon.
And I made the blades out of Damascus,
and I think it'll do well.
OK.
Stephen, tell us about yours.
I forged mine out of 1095 high-carbon steel
and put my own kind of twist on it from
stuff I saw on the internet.
All right, gentlemen.
Your weapons will now be put through a series
of three tests.
Up first is the sharpness test.
Doug?
Bladesmiths, the haladie was a weapon
used by the Rajput warriors.
It was designed to have a blade on both sides of the handle,
and they were known to be very sharp.
To see how sharp your weapons are, I will take your blade
and deliver multiple cuts and stabs to this canvas bag.
Ray, you're up first.
You ready?
I'm ready.
DOUG: Let's do this.
RAY: I'm really proud of this knife.
I mean, it turned out really well.
The curvature on the blade is a recurve,
so what happens is the blade starts in one direction
then comes back in the other direction, which
gives it a lot of character.
[music playing]
OK, Ray.
I like the design of your blade.
It feels good in the hand.
You got that ovoid shape for the handle.
And I like also how it flares over there,
so it stops for the thrust.
I love your recurve and Damascus pattern that you have
on both ends of your blade.
It's very dramatic, and it looks good.
The belly of your blade slashed nicely on the canvas,
and it allowed for a good thrust.
And this blade will cut.
Good job.
Thank you.
Stephen, you're up next. You ready?
Hell yeah.
DOUG: Let's do this.
[music playing]
STEPHEN: Going up against a master bladesmith
with 30 years' experience is definitely
a little nerve-racking for me.
But I'm pretty sure I got everything
executed perfectly on it.
Well, Stephen, we have a big problem here.
What's the problem?
We specifically asked for a recurve on each blade.
These blades are not recurve.
They're simply curved.
We put that specifically on the parameters
so that both blades are equal and fair
in all the tests that we do.
Your blade does not have that S-shape recurve
that we're looking for.
Because you don't have that S-shape recurve that we
needed for the parameters, we cannot
move on to test your blade.
Well, Stephen, the devil's in the details.
The blade parameters were very specific.
We asked for counter recurve blades on your haladie.
You didn't deliver that.
Therefore, since your weapon cannot be
tested fairly and evenly, I must ask
you to please leave the forge.
I'm feeling a little bummed.
I put in all that hard work and then
didn't even get to test it.
I still feel really proud of my work.
It's just I failed to see that one small detail,
and that led me to losing.
I learned I gotta follow the instructions a little better.
Ray, congratulations.
You are the Forged in Fire Champion
and will be receiving a check for $10,000.
Good job.
[applause]
Thank you.
It's a good looking weapon, sir.
Thank you.
DOUG: I love your Damascus pattern.
Really, really nice recurve through it, beautiful shape.
WIL: How you feel right now?
Feeling really good.
Being Forged in Fire Champion, it's really nice,
especially at my age.
I'd have felt a lot better about it
if they could've did the cutting contest and everything
with his blade also.
But I just sold a knife for 10,000 bucks.
That's the best part.
[music playing]