theo joe congratulations the strength of your blades has earned you a spot in the final round
of our competition when you came here you used our forge and our tools and our equipment to
forge signature blades in your own style now we're sending you back to your home forges where you
will recreate an iconic blade from history are you ready to see what that weapon is absolutely
now weapon is the naganatha all right the naginata emerged around a thousand years ago in japan as a
powerful pole weapon used by samurai warriors featuring a single-edged slightly curved blade
mounted on a wooden shaft this seven to eight foot weapon was ideal for warding off attacks
from enemies on horseback because it relied on momentum rather than upper body strength it was an
ideal weapon for female warriors the naginata was the weapon of choice for samurai wives defending
their homes and was even wielded by xiong mi nan in the video game series soul calibur
the traditions of the naganatha continue to be preserved through the teaching of
the martial art arashi naginata good luck blade smiths we'll see you in five days
today is day one the first step i'm going to do is draw out our blade
design the process of making this is going to be outside of my ballpark i am not a japanese
sword maker i'm an american knife maker but we're going to give it our best shot we're going to do
a damascus billet so we're going to let this saw blade hopefully do some wonderful things
for me doing damascus is essentially tougher to do just because there's a lot of failure points
so in three to four hundred layers that's three to four hundred times that i could fail
we're gonna turn that into hopefully a form today i'm gonna put it in here heat it up
put some flux on it and then this thing's gonna be glowing i've never made a damascus billet or blade
uh this large before most stuff i make is about nine inches long and so i have a billet that is
going to be drawn to about 40 inches in overall length which is ridiculous so yeah it's going
to be a challenge so the very first thing i have to do just start cutting the sections that i need
here i'm in a forge i'm comfortable with and i have more time this being the first day i would
really love to just go ahead and start tackling forge welding all the pieces of the blade together
i'm gonna do a three layer laminate so here i have my core material and then here's my shell material
on the outside the benefit of the three layer laminate is that the outside shell absorbs the
shock whereas the hard core or edge material will stay very sharp i definitely have the
advantage over joe when it comes to this simply because i've made large blades many times before
and this will be his first well i can see that the outer layer is starting to bow outwards
this is a big piece of metal i may have bit enough more than i can chew it's starting to look like
the layers are separating from each other they're expanding at such a great rate that even some of
the tack welds may be busted this is a problem because it means i'm going to be constantly
chasing the material to get it to re-weld to the other steels it's delaminating already i have
a decision to make do i continue to pursue it's gonna be a headache if i continue down this path
no i can't but ultimately it's gonna require too much time i'm gonna have to strip off the outer
shell and just do uh pure w2 it's gonna be a mono steel blade i trusted my gut and my gut lied to me
today is the morning of day two and the plan for today is to go and draw the blade out um grind it
and heat treat it so we got a lot of work ahead of us today
hopefully everything goes according to plan but it's got a diet move on slim fast or grind fast
so i have a blade it's pretty square there's a lot of little finishing
to do but it's uh actually ready for heat treat i am scared out of my mind
i have to get down trying to move some of the equipment with the propane tank out of the way
because i really don't want to burn the building down
when you change a variable you get different results i've never
worked uh with that particular oil before and we'll heat treat again
i have no regrets in dropping the lamination at all today i need to create an integral
guard i'm continuing with a process that i'm familiar with and i know i'll do a good job on
i've decided to go with just a simple low count twist but it'll give it the additional wrought
iron feel that i've been going for integral guards are very european in general but i really think it
will work for this piece it looks nice are guards important on a knife well they can be integral
never done anything with a handle this long so brand spanking new for me
ash is historically a very nice flexible wood for this it'll be great because it'll be able
to take the shock of hitting something really hard like bone or armor oh yeah
morning of day four we're just gonna do a hack test it's more than sharp
enough to hack through a tree
sweet work all right the plan for today is to trim down the half and then just fit everything
together and work on the finishing this is my piece of ash it's supposed to be vertical
grains a little off-centered but it's not horrible um i've never really haftened
a sword to a long pole there's one little part of the hatching fails and the whole thing fails
and so there's a lot of little working parts i'm really interested to see what theo brings
because i feel like i'm going to give them a really good product to compete
with the heat treat went very well ultimately it's about little details this is same manta ray skin
it's a traditional wrapping material for handles that's beautiful i have no
intention of doing any testing on the weapon myself because the last thing i want to do
is push the weapon to its limit and break it no thank you this is a damn good blade
and that's what i came here to do is to forge a weapon that's going to knock their socks off
the naginata was a japanese weapon known for its long-range cutting ability to see how sharp your
naginata is i will take your weapon and i'll attempt to cut through these tatami mats and
the cider beef theo you're up first you ready yeah yeah i think so let's do this oh geez all right
i'm nervous the area where the guard meets the tang is a little narrow
which could result in bending maybe a snapping
i'll take it yeah all right i just want to point out that after that test your blade has a slight
bend to it it almost cut all the way through one of the tummy mats when it came to the side of beef
it cut cleanly through your blade feels good it's got a nice weight to it a nice balance overall
you're not get outta we'll cut good job thank you joe you're up next you ready oh yeah let's
do this let's do it i feel like theo did really good in the tatami match slice and exceptionally
well through the v-slice i'm pretty nervous at this point on how my blade is going to perform
nice oh well done man yeah
i would say i'm a head in the game uh performed a little bit better than what theos did
well joe you have a very sharp blade but we now have an issue
when i cut through the tatami mat your handle at the seams here came apart
your handle seam has opened up and not only that it picked up some cracks on this side that runs
all the way down here and on the other side a hairline fracture that goes down this way
the seams are big enough to where i can actually put my fingernail through them
that is a critical failure and for purposes of safety we cannot continue to test your weapon
there's nothing we can't do nothing bladesmiths the judges have determined that there's no reason
to deliberate joe due to the catastrophic failure of your weapons handle you may now leave the arena
it's not the way i wanted to win i wouldn't say i have regrets
i'd say if i go back and change some of the things i did i would have gone with
a different wood something that was less likely to open up in a crack i feel like i'm in a round
room and i'm looking for a corner to cry in it's a pretty tough loss theo congratulations
you are the forged and fire champion and will be receiving that ten thousand dollar prize good job
you know what i like about your blade the way you reinforce your handle because the
power you generate with that saved it congratulations thank you sir
i am elated to be the forest and fire champion not the way i wanted to win but i'll take it
i came here the youngest smallest person and i won for the shortest guy i certainly came out on top