- All right, bladesmiths.
On your anvils is a cloth.
Go ahead and lift that up.
That is a pristine piece of 5160 steel.
And I'm sure you're thinking, man, I
can make a hell of a signature blade out of that.
However, that's not what we're doing today.
Instead, you'll be forging friction folders.
Really?
Why a folder?
It's a moving knife.
I mean, the more moving parts in something, the more
parts that can go wrong.
The blade parameters are as follows.
The length of the blade not including the tang
must be between 8 and 10 inches in length.
You will have three hours to forge your blades.
Good luck, bladesmiths.
Your 10 minute design window starts now.
JACOB: 90% of the time, I don't even draw a knife.
I'll just get a dream or something
and I'll just make it.
In this competition, I need to draw this thing out to make
sure I don't make any mistakes.
I decided my design's gonna be a clip point.
I don't know exactly what abuse they're
going to put on that blade.
And they don't usually snap.
HOST: Bladesmiths, your design period is over.
Your three hour foraging time starts now.
MAN: These guys have got to be focused on the specs.
Otherwise, those friction folders aren't going to hold.
BLADESMITH 1: You got to plan ahead of time
what you're going to do.
And I can't do it on the fly.
The area of the ricasso is so much more important now--
placement of your pin for the pivot
and then your tail for that tank that's going to lock everything
together when you hold it.
JACOB: After I get my tang stretched way out,
I'm trying to think, what's going to set me apart from all
these other guys in here?
JUDGE 1: Jacob's put a decorative twist.
JUDGE 2: How good of a strategy is it
to put that decorative twist?
It's not bad if he still grinds it flat.
Yeah. JUDGE 2: Uh-huh.
So it still fits in the slot in his handle.
JUDGE 1: Long as it doesn't create a nice spot to chew
the heck out of your palm. - Yeah.
JACOB: I'm drying this knife out.
And I'm like, wait a second.
This thing long enough?
HOST: If I were him, I'd try and draw another inch or so out
of that blade for a ricasso.
JACOB: Now I realize this blade is like right
on the dot of eight inches.
I can't work with that because I don't have any freedom
to do anything with it, really.
Like, I had to draw it out a little bit more.
Has to be within the parameters.
And if it's not, I'm gone.
Hoo!
HOST: Bladesmiths!
You have just 60 minutes remaining.
JACOB: Yeah, that's good.
Jacob didn't draw that blade out some more.
JUDGE 3: Without a ricasso.
JUDGE 1: There's a little bit of a ricasso there.
JACOB: I'm trying to figure out exactly where
I need to drill my hole at.
I look next to me at Fuad's blade.
And his blade is like, wow.
Mine's looking pretty good.
But I can't make any mistakes.
[blade sound] nice and slow just to make sure I get it right.
HOST: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Bladesmiths, shut down your machines.
This round is over.
JACOB: I'm feeling pretty good about my blade.
I got it finished.
I looked over all the guys.
And now I'm second guessing myself
because mine's the shortest blade.
But it's within the parameters.
They shouldn't have any complaints.
HOST: Bladesmiths, it's time for the judges
to take a closer look at your work.
Greg, you're up first.
I was a little bit worried in the heat treat.
This thing was glowing.
And you even picked up some of that dragon scaling
where the skin kind of burnt on this blade.
Hopefully you've nailed that heat
treat and you didn't quench it too hot, making it brittle.
HOST: All right, Kyle.
JUDGE 1: The biggest problem I see
is when you look down the edge, there's
kind of a corkscrew to it.
And that's-- that's a difficult warp to fix.
HOST: All right, Jacob.
JUDGE 4: Extra points for putting the twist because it's
going to make it look good.
But remember, the tang is the area where
you're going to hold onto it.
So be careful in how this will feel in the hand
if you move forward.
I like the fact that you've got it very, very straight.
But you're only going to have a quarter inch of material
in front of that pin, making an incredibly weak spot.
HOST: Well, bladesmiths.
The judges have made their final decision.
It's time for one of you to leave the forge.
The bladesmith leaving the forge is Kyle.
Kyle, I loved the profile of that blade,
having that sweep coming up.
But if you look down the length of that blade right now,
you'll see that blade goes down three different directions
looking on the spine side.
If you turn it over and look at the edge,
you've got a severe twist going off to one side.
It's going to be almost impossible to fix that twist.
So that's why we're letting you go.
Thank you.