Josh, Ben, congratulations.
You guys have made it to the final round
of this competition.
Now we're sending you back to your home
forge just to recreate this iconic weapon
from history, the ram dao.
The ram-dao was a sacrificial sword
that descends from the weapons of India's
legendary Rajput warriors.
It's broad, heavy blade flares to an axe-like projection,
which is ideally suited to the ritual
beheading of large animals such as buffalo and goats.
These sacrifices were made to the Hindu goddess of death,
Kali, whose symbolic eye is often
etched on the flared end of the blade
so she can watch over the ceremony.
The eye of Kali can be seen on the ram-dao wielded
by Zodd in the comic series "Berserk."
Josh, Ben, your final challenge is to forge a ram-dao.
It must be an effective and deadly version of the weapon
that you see here.
Just make sure that your blades fall within the following
parameters.
The length of the blade must be between 20
and 23 inches in length.
It must have a finial ball, a decorative eye of Kali
a demon buffalo head as well as a disc pommel.
Failure to meet a single one of our parameters
is grounds for immediate dismissal from this forge,
with no deliberation.
I feel excited about it, because it's
something that I've never, ever done before.
So let's do it.
You'll have four days at your home forges
in which to complete this challenge.
At the end of those four days, you'll return and present
your weapons to our panel of expert judges
and after they've thoroughly tested them,
they'll declare one of you the "Forged in Fire"
champion who walks out of here with a check for 10 grand.
Good luck, bladesmiths.
We'll see you in four days.
First thing I'm trying to do is
have a very, very good visual of what
I'm going to be aiming for.
Also, we need to concentrate on the finial right here.
That's going to be something that I need to keep my eye on,
and it's going to be a challenge.
So this is the piece I'm going to be using.
It's 5160 steel.
JOSH (VOICEOVER): I've never really have shaped something
like this before, so I feel that the easiest way for me
to shape that curve is just to start
using the anvil as a hammer.
And it actually worked.
First it's going great so far.
We've got the basic profile done.
Then when it's over, let's go have dinner.
This is mi abuelita, the matriarch of the family.
I'm tired, and I'm ready to stuff my face up with dinner.
[speaking spanish]
BEN: I'm back in my home forge.
It is about five degrees right now.
Spring steel's a great material for something like this that's
going to take a lot of abuse and be able to flex
over and over again.
So what I'm going to try and do first is drawing out the tang.
I'm going to do a through tang, so it's
going to need to be long, but also
thicker than the rest of the blade to give it strength.
It's a big piece of steel, but I'll cut it.
Oh, here it goes.
Boom.
The sun is setting.
It's starting to get even colder than it already was,
so I'm about to probably call it a night.
JOSH (VOICEOVER): All right, so everything ready for quenching.
The heat treatment is the soul of the knife.
This has to go well.
And I'm just noticing a slight curve.
It's not going away.
I'm not going to lose because of a warp.
I'm going to go ahead and re-quench.
If it doesn't go well, a couple of things can happen.
A big warp, or the worst thing can be a crack.
That's going to push me to start all over again.
Hopefully it worked.
Yeah, yeah, beautiful.
BEN: I have it hot-cut.
Now I need to add the sweep to it, which
is going to be challenging.
I almost forgot about the decorative finial at the top.
That's kind of one of the things of being
a ceremonial sacrificial sword.
There's a lot of stuff on it that's decorative that serves
no purpose other than for religious use,
but I forget about it because I'm used to making this stuff.
OK, the blade looks good.
I've got enough material to work with,
so I'm going to go take it downstairs, start grinding.
This is my homemade belt grinder,
and this is how I have to start this thing.
[grinding]
It's straight.
I have my bevels ground in.
It is the shape it needs to be.
I'm looking to heat treat tonight.
Start of day four is here.
I'm going to go ahead and start working on the handle.
Ideally what I want, is to have a handle--
not just nice-looking, beautiful, but also is
something that is comfortable.
So I need to have a handle that has a grip to it,
that it doesn't feel like it's going to fly off the hands.
I've never done a finial.
This was definitely very challenging.
I went with a diamond-looking piece.
It's different.
I need to really make this blade pop,
so besides the eye in the crown, I decide
to add extra edging to it.
But no matter how beautiful the blade
is, if you miss one of the parameters,
you're out of the competition.
BEN (VOICEOVER): It's day four.
There's a bit of a warp that happened
during the tempering of the spine,
and I don't have enough time to re-quench.
I have too much other stuff to do,
but I can still make this blade look the part.
I can still make it perform really, really, well,
so that's my goal for today.
[grinding]
[hammering]
I'm just getting to work on the finial.
It doesn't have to look like anything in particular,
it's just kind of a knob at the end.
I don't do a whole lot of engraving,
so this is kind of out of my comfort zone.
But after some light sanding, it's going to be done.
So I'm ready to go cut something.
Whoo.
That's sharp.
All right, bladesmiths, welcome to the kill test.
Ram-dao, ram carcass.
Josh, you're up first.
You ready for this?
Well, let's kill it again.
Doug is holding my ram-dao and I'm just thinking,
just chop the head off.
Just chop it.
My heart is just pumping 10,000 miles per hour, man.
[music playing]
Oh, my god.
[slashing]
Oh, my god.
[laughs]
All right, Josh, let's talk about your ram-dao here.
The blade you have here is sharp.
For every pass it makes, it cuts deeply.
But I also love what you have in the sense of balance.
That even though it's a chopper, the recovery
is just comfortable enough to where you
can cut all the way through.
It feels good in the hand.
It's got a great balance, and most importantly, it will kill.
Good job.
That's awesome.
Thank you.
All right, Ben, it's your turn.
You ready for this?
I'm excited.
Let's do it.
BEN: Right now, I'm really excited.
I've put my best work into this.
Nothing's perfect, but my biggest concern
is that there was a slight warp that I
just really couldn't get out.
So I'm really hoping that my blade outperforms
Josh's in every other way so that it's
a flaw can be overlooked.
Something's off about this design.
There's a bit of an issue.
BEN (VOICEOVER): At this point, I'm a bit confused.
I don't know what's going on.
Ben, your blade doesn't have a finial bowl.
One of the defining characteristics of the ram-dao.
It was also one of the parameters,
and the judges feel that your blade cannot be tested
evenly and fairly with Josh's.
Dave Baker is going to tell you why.
The design of the ram-dao has that
finial at the end of a blade.
That finial can wind up being a cut restrictor,
not allowing the blade to pass through a target.
It also keeps that blade from being able to stab.
Yours doesn't have that.
How can we test them evenly?
BEN: I understand.
Ben, "Forged in Fire" champions
don't miss parameters.
I'd like to invite you to shake our hands,
shake your competitor's hand, and then
please leave the forge.
I'm pretty disappointed.
I really wanted to see my blade chop through that ram.
But I'm happy with what I turned in, and at the end of the day,
I think I'm definitely leaving a better
bladesmith than when I came in.
Josh, congratulations.
You're the "Forged in Fire" champion,
and that's a title that comes with a check for $10,000.
Come on forward and shake our hands, brother.
I cannot believe this is happening.
I think what I'm going to do with the $10,000 is going to go
to open a shop where I'm going to be providing
workshops for at-risk youth.
My abuelita told me go, win, and come back.
Mission accomplished.
[music playing]