congratulations gentlemen you've both made it to the final round which means you're both one step
closer to the title of forest and 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 all right ready
the hilati
the hilati was a fearsome double-bladed dagger created in ancient india the two
recurved blades would needed a straight handle and could be used for slashing or stabbing
some pilates even featured a third blade running out of the handguard though the hilati might seem
like something out of a fantasy video game it actually dates back to the mid 5th 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 hilari it must be an effective working version
of that weapon you will have five days at your home force 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 hilarities to our panel of expert judges good
luck bladesmiths we'll see you in five days good luck steve i'm feeling amazing i made it to the
finals and i get to make a really awesome weapon a holiday or a hella dyer something like that
ray has more experience than me and i kind of feel like it's old school versus new school got
my blade the length i want to now i'm moving on to the handle every time i hit it on one side the
other side bends a little bit so it's challenged 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 the plan for today is to get the damascus ready and hopefully
get a couple welds in on it we're gonna cut up a bunch of steel here i use a 15-piece villa
i've never made a hilarity 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
i'm going to go for like 120 layers it'll give me a bold pattern i think it'll look really nice
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 because if it does i'll have to restart and that would really suck
survived feeling good now i just got to do the same thing on the other side we're ready to
start day three i wish i was a little farther ahead but everything is times two so whatever
i do to one bite it has to be exactly like the other blade and that can be a challenge in itself
so i put the first blade in a 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 gonna be a guess whenever you're
dealing with damascus it's a risky business it doesn't always turn out right nobody makes
perfect damascus every time they make it it's about a wicked looking weapon i'll tell you what
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 gonna hand sand
i'm gonna add file work on both sides of the handle doing like the really fine detail stuff
i'm going for like a vine pattern on the file works just to give it an elegant design a little
something extra i'm kind of just gonna free ball 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 run into when i i feel a time crunch okay i finally get together
the glue is all set up and looks like there's no gaps i finished the weapon a day early there
was 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
last day crunch time time to finish it up the heat tree went really well yesterday and the
blades look good first thing i'm gonna do today is sharpen the blades up before i assemble them
onto the handle i think my uh skill set as a master smith really shows up i came here to
prove that that i could compete at a really high level and i think that i did that the only thing
could stop it is if my competitor built something better than i did all right it's ready to go
steven ray welcome back to the forge you've had five days at your home forges to work on your
pilates 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 helati uh as close as i could the original type of weapon
and uh i made the blades out of damascus and uh i think it'll do well great steven tell us about
yours i forged mine on a 1095 high carbon steel and put my own kind of twist on it from what
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 ladensmiths the haladi 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 let's do this
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
okay 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 we'll cut good job thank you steven you're up next you ready hell yeah let's do this
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 steven we have a big problem here
what's the problem we specifically asked for a recurve on each blade
these blades are not recurved they're simply curved we put that specifically on 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-shaped recurve that we needed for the parameters we cannot move on to test your blade
well steven the devil's in the details the blade parameters were very specific we asked
for counter recurve blades on your hilati 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 didn't even get to test it
i still feel really proud of my work it's just i failed to see the one small detail and that
led me to losing i learned i gotta follow the instructions a little better
ray congratulations you are the forge and fire champion and will be receiving a check for ten
thousand dollars good job thank you it's a good-looking weapon sir thank you i love your
damascus pattern really really nice recurve with beautiful shape how do you feel right
now feeling really good being a fortune fire champion it's it's really nice especially at my
age i felt a lot better about it if it you know if they could have 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
you