Forged in Fire

My name is Nick Zentella.

I am 39 years old. And I am a geologist.

I would say that, being a geologist,

I do have a little bit of extra insight

in the materials.

Not that I have a very technical approach

to blacksmithing.

I'm more a pound away and see what happens.

- My name is Dwight. I'm 52 years old.

I'm from Harford County, Maryland.

My confidence level for winning the competition,

barring the heat, 80% or 90%.

'Cause I'm that good.

- My name is Brian Neville. I'm 31.

I would describe myself as slightly anal, overly punctual,

very coarse.

If you're late, I can be very, uh...mean.

- My name's Alex Eisenberg. I'm 29 years old.

I own a tattoo shop and am a full-time tattoo artist,

as well as bladesmith.

Most of my tattoos are a representation of something

that's happened to me.

And the rest of them are just stuff that I thought was cool,

and I liked, and I said, "I want that one."

- Bladesmiths, welcome to The Forge.

You're here for three timed rounds

of edged weapon-making competition

designed to test every aspect of your skills.

At the end of each round, you'll present your work

to our panel of expert judges.

ABS master smith J. Neilson.

Next, historic weapons re-creation specialist

David Baker.

And last, edged and impact weapons specialist

Doug Marcaida.

These are the men that ultimately decide which of you

is our next "Forged in Fire" champion

and leaves here with that check for ten grand.

All right.

It's one thing to be able to make a signature blade

in your signature style and design that blade.

It's a fantastic skill.

An entirely different skill set

is making a blade of somebody else's design.

So, today, there will be no signature blades.

You'll be making this.

Adopted by the United States Marine Corps in 1942,

the Ka-Bar fighting knife has seen action during Korea,

Vietnam, Desert Shield/Desert Storm,

and Iraqi Freedom conflicts.

Keep in mind that, in the second round,

you'll be attaching handles to those blades,

turning them into fully functioning fighting weapons

that will be tested for strength and durability

in a paint can chop and stab,

and edge retention in a leather bag slice.

Do I have any questions?

Where's my steel?

That's an excellent question.

Today, you'll be using this steel.

Gentlemen, these are one-by-one cubes of W-1 steel.

You'll have to forge weld these together to have enough steel

to make your blades.

Keep an eye on that clock, bladesmiths,

because when the time runs out

and the judges inspect your work,

one of you will have to surrender your blade

and leave The Forge.

Your three hours starts...

Now.

Talk to me a little bit about the Ka-Bar fighting knife.

- It's one of the most iconic military blades

we can say that is American-made.

The design alone is very useful as a fighting utility blade.

Before the Ka-Bar fighting knives came up,

the military had, like, a stiletto-type blade.

But they found that it was only workable

as a killing blade,

so they wanted to make a fighting utility knife.

- You only want to carry so much stuff around with you.

If you get multi-purpose out of your tools,

it's a great thing.

So the Ka-Bar was made

to have a certain amount of flex in it,

so you can actually use it to pry a crate lid off

or use it to open cans and things like that,

and still be able to re-sharpen it

and put an edge back on that.

- I think the most difficult part about creating a Ka-Bar

is that it's such a recognizable knife.

When you tattoo Mickey Mouse on someone,

it's got to look like Mickey Mouse.

My plan of attack for the cubes is that

I'm going to make four different stacks

so four stacks of three, where I can then

weld the four stacks together,

and then draw that out to my final billet.

- My plan of attack is to weld four cubes together.

- Dwight's cubes are looking pretty good right now.

- Yeah, it looks like he's getting his weld set

pretty nicely.

- How would you go about it, Jay?

- I'd take a three or four stack, tack weld them together,

get 'em nice and hot, and just put 'em upright.

Squeeze 'em down on the press,

and that way you can forge weld them

into little longer lengths.

- I'm really apprehensive about working with the W-1,

because I've never used it.

As for making this blade, it's going to be hard for me,

because I like to take my time to

make sure everything is the best I can get it.

So, we have to really put the accelerator down on it.

I am incredibly relieved

that it's just one steel that we're working with.

Unfortunately, that steel is in multiple pieces.

I'm going to stack my 12 cubes,

because at the end of it I'll be as close to a billet

to where all I have to do is drill it out.

- That's a heck of a stack that Brian's got together there.

- - Holy cow.

- That is a huge stack of steel.

- We've seen before what happens when we have

thin lengths of steel, and they make too high a stack

and starts folding over.

Brian's got to be really gentle on that press.

- To create a successful knife,

I'm going to have to figure out a way

to hold those little metal cubes together,

and get 'em forge welded.

- I'm going to be honest, when I revealed the cubes,

Nick looked like he his pants.

- I have not had a lot of experience

with large masses of loose cubes.

I'm going to see what happens.

- I get them stacked, get everything up

to welding temperature, and then I run over

to the hydraulic press.

I feel confident I'll be able to get

all my forge welds to stick.

- With Brian having all those blocks stacked together,

it'd be very easy if he pushed a little too hard on that press

to blow things off.

But he went slow and steady,

and did a nice job of putting them together.

- J. Neilson, he has that eye that critiques everything.

He's a master smith. I respect him.

But he scares me to death.

- So far, I'm getting clean welds.

Everything is sticking.

- Well, Alex, he took a single stack--four of them,

flattened them down basically into buttons,

and that should give him enough steel to make his blade,

I think. - Oh, yeah.

- So, my wife smells everything she sees.

Anything she picks up in a store,

she smells it for some reason.

And I guess that carried over for me.

I put my metal in the fire,

and then I immediately smelled my flux.

- Alex is smelling his flux to make sure it's good.

- Is he like, "Is this happening?"

Stop doing that.

You got a stock in flux?

- No, I make my own,

so I don't worry about it.

I was just too curious about what it smelled like.

It didn't smell like anything.

- Are you all right there, Dwight?

- Yes, sir. - Cool.

- So far, I ain't fell out yet, buddy.

- I'm feeling good with the forge

and the way the billet is coming out.

I've been working with metal my whole life,

so welding is not an issue for me.

This is my first Ka-Bar,

but I've made plenty of nice knives that resemble.

I get all this confidence from being an industrial mechanic.

My goal is to retire,

and spend the rest of that time making knives.

The forge welds look good so far.

So, I'm praying for the best.

- I have never made a Ka-Bar before.

It's a more modern style that I don't usually do.

There's a lot of lines that have to line up perfectly,

and if any angle is slightly off,

everybody's going to see it.

- Even though this is a shorter blade

than we do a lot of times,

it isn't a signature-style blade.

It's a blade shape that we want them to make.

- And just like the military, pay attention to the details.

- I am taking my time because I want to get everything right.

This is definitely out of my wheelhouse.

I've never tried to do a weld like this before.

Nick is back over to press.

He's got his short stack of steel there.

Round stack of steel.

- Looks like it's sticking together.

- Yeah, his burger is welding up.