All right, bladesmiths,
congratulations. You've made it to the second
round of this competition, and now it's time to take
those tempered blades and make them fully functional
by attaching handles to them. A lot of weapons are
defined by their handle. Good luck, bladesmiths. Your two hours starts now. All right. These guys are off to the races. I came in with an edge on,
but that edge doesn't matter. I've got to remove all that
mild steel can that was left, and I've got to get this down to
a good solid carbon steel edge. Matt's shaping the handle. He's already got the
pommel and guard on there. Yeah. When you make a knife for
this kind of competition, everyone pays
attention to the blade because that's where
it's going to break, that's where it's going to snap. You've got to make a
strong blade, sharp blade. Everything in their mind
is from the guard forward. I pick antler because
there's an outside layer that's extremely
tough, extremely hard. He's going to grind
right into the pith. Right into the pith. And the pith is just
like bony, spongy material. It's not strong. It looks like a sponge. Yeah. Everything seems to
be going great, and then all of a sudden, there it is. I got into the soft
part of the antler. What the crap am
I going to do now? If I start another
handle, there's no way I'm going to be able to finish. So I've just got to
roll with it and figure out a way to address this. My best bet is to fill
it as full of epoxy as I could get and then
coat the entire outside. The handle often decides
what that weapon is. Now, how thick of a
coat do you put on this? In something like this,
to get it 1/16 of an inch in is pretty good. Yeah. Now, Mark had a pretty
complete blade with an edge at the end of the first round. But he had a weird
kick to his tang. As I'm grinding
this tang, I just need to make sure that there's
enough meat left in that tang and handle to where it
makes for a strong knife. So the handle
design dictates how you're going to fight with it. That's a big heavy
blade hanging out there, and I don't want it coming
apart with the judges trying to do their tests on it. I know I've learned
a lot about handle making by destroying
other people's handles. [laughter] I've got everything
ready to fit on. I'm ready to epoxy
this thing together. And I'm screwing this butt cap
on, and I go to tighten it up-- Ah.
Ah, ah. Wait, wait, wait. [bleep] dammit. And the allthread breaks. [groans] And that just snapped free. Yeah. I'm just floored. I don't know what
to do at this point except take it all back
apart and get some parts fixed back on it fast. I'm scared of this one. I'm really trying to make this
blade as smooth and beautiful as possible. Whoo-hoo. I've got to fix the warp
that these guys don't have. They're already working
on handles and I'm not. So I've got to just hustle. In this competition,
especially, what people do is they
go and do the first round making the blade. When it comes to the
handle-making round, they're spending
so much time trying to fix the blade that
they'll forget the handle, and look-- you've become
like the handle mangler. I mean, how many kills have
you had based on the handle? It's in our testing
that it shows that if you don't do the handle
properly, it falls apart. I'm going to try clamping the
blade between an angle iron, putting heat to it and torquing
on the spine where it's bent, start straightening it out. I'm keeping my edge in
the water cool so that way I do not lose the temper
in the edge of it. It took me way longer
to get the warp out than I thought it would. What is happening right now? Why is he so far behind? Well, he wasted
45 minutes trying to straighten that blade. And then there's been
a real persnickety fit up with the guard. And with this
amount of time left, it's good enough, good enough,
good enough, get it in there. Clock is worrying me
really bad right now. It's ticking down fast. I am way behind
the wall right now. I've got to get the
handle glued up, end capped, bring it
over to the grinder, and start refining everything. And then I've got
to get an edge. I'm just like, screw it,
I've got to help this guy. Come on, brother, you're
making me nervous. We've got Mark and
Scott trying to find the right tap for his blade. Right here, right here.
Here you go. I guess I'm just
the kind of person-- Thank you. --that that's just
my mentality is, just don't leave anybody behind. Check your threads. Is it different?
So check your-- No, it's the same.
It's the same, it's the same. OK. Now we've got Matt coming
over to throw in his two cents to give everybody a hand. That's awesome. So he's got the right-sized
hole with the right-sized tap. And now is the time. Don't cheat it by-- Oh, man! See? The tap snapped off. - Come on.
- Oh, [bleep]. What am I going to do? My first thought process
is, punch another hole. Get on that grinder
man, you can do it. 1 minute, bladesmiths. I'm going as fast as I can. Make sure you get
that edge, dude. I need to etch this or
I'm going home right now, because that's a parameter. Look at that. Matt getting ready
just to dunk it in. 15 seconds. There you go, dude.
You've got this. 10 seconds. Get in the etch. There you go. Yes.
Yes. 5. Yeah, buddy. 4, 3, 2-- - Good job, man.
- --1. Bladesmiths, stop
what you're doing. That's a heck of a comeback. Scott, pull your
blade out of that acid. This second round of
competition is over. [cheers, applause] Good comeback, my man.
Good comeback. Good job, man. Way to hang in there
till the end, man. Thank you, guys. If it wasn't for
the other smiths actually stepping in and helping
me, I wouldn't have made it. But inside, I'm really
pissed off because I know I could have done way better. Bladesmiths, welcome
to the strength test-- the dreaded, dreaded rod chop. To test the strength and
durability of your edge as well as the overall
construction of your blades, I'll be bashing them
into these threaded rods. We're going to use
this test to figure out who comes out unscathed
and who gets screwed. [laughter]
Matt, you're up first. You ready? Let's get it. [music playing] Oh. [clatter] Nice. Well, Matt, you blades
are all still in one piece. But unfortunately, your edge
has split open to the point where there's a piece
of brass stuck inside. It is still straight. It is still in one piece. But there's no denying that
that's split in the seam right there. OK. Mark, you're seeing
what I'm up to. What are you thinking? Make it or break it. All right. One or the other. Oh, crap.
Oh, crap. Oh, crap. [music playing] Took out two brass rods, baby. Yeah, you did. First one right there. All right, Mark. Blade's still in one piece. It's still straight. There's definitely two areas
of chip out right here. And in between the chip
out, there's some roll. All being said, it
held up pretty well. I mean, this is a brutal
test, and it really shows the strength of your blade. Well done. Right on. - Good job, bud.
- [exhales] All right, Scott.
You see me. You ready for this? Yeah, give her hell. All right. [music playing] Holy sh-- [laughs] [whistles] All right, Scott. For a beefy chef's knife, this
thing held up really well. Your blade is still straight. The edge took some
flatting in spots. It's not chipped,
it's not rolled. It's just kind of mushed
in by a little bit. I think you knocked
it out of the park. - Thank you.
- Nice job, dude. - Thanks, man.
- Good job. - Thank you.
- All right, guys. I give you to Doug. Oh, yeah. All right, bladesmiths. This is the sharpness test,
the fabric loom slice. Now, a sharp blade should
cut through the yarn. A dull edge or a jagged
edge, we just pull at it. Matt, you're up first.
You ready for this? Let it rip. That tip had such
an edge on it, bro. All right, Matt. First up, the front
part here is sharp. In the first cut, it
cut the yarn nicely. On the drag slice,
it did cut initially. But then on the third
one, where you're really exposing it to this
particular edge, it just dragged through it. But overall, sir, it will cut. - Yeah.
- Fantastic. Good job, man.
Good job. All right, Mark.
Your turn. So are you ready? Let her cut. Let's do that. [music playing] Ooh. [laughs] [exhales] Good job. All right, Mark. The front is sharp. Even parts of the
blade opens it up. It cuts easily. It will cut. Yes. All right, Scott.
It's your turn, sir. You ready?
- Yep. Let's do this. [music playing] Did it cut? No, it's not cutting. I think it's pulling. All right, Scott. Let's talk about
your blade here. Your edge, it's not very sharp. It did cut a little bit. On the draw slice, slightest. It even pulled it
all the way down. Your blade, sir,
will cut a little. Thank you. All right, gentlemen. Bladesmith leaving
the forge is-- Matt. Your blade didn't make the cut. Well, Matt, your blade
suffered some serious damage on the strength test. It's literally splitting
in half at the edge. And that in turn impaired
its ability to cut well on the sharpness test. And it's for that reason
we're sending you home. Yeah. I understand. Matt, please
surrender your blade. Right now, I feel
disappointed I didn't make it. But at the same time,
I feel great because I did make it this far. I think my blade actually ended
up splitting because I didn't clean my needles
and bolts, and those didn't weld together
good enough and set me up ultimately for this failure. When I get home and
fire up my press, canister is going to
be the very first thing on my list to start working on. [music playing]
