Forged in Fire: FRIGID-FORGE! Smiths Create Legendary Alaskan Blade (Season 8)

now guys you might have noticed that it is absolutely frigid in here that's because today in the Forge we are paying tribute to some cold weather Warriors who've been fighting the Ice for centuries this is a competition we are calling Arctic Forge in this first round of competition we're going to ask you to recreate a blade that has been used by Alaskan natives for centuries now that blade is the ULU when you're building your ULU I want you to meet the these parameters you need to have a crescent shaped Cutting Edge that measures between 7 and 8 in you also must have a fully enclosed Full Tang handle now you guys are probably thinking what am I going to make my ULU out of well that answer lies at your workstations on top of your table is you have a tarp go ahead and remove that for me what you guys have there is a great piece of high-carbon Steel and a form of a ball bearing but unfortunately it's frozen in a block of ice we've got a solution for you next to that block of ice there is a cylinder of mild steel we want you guys to take that mild Steel make a tool and break the ball bearing free good luck your time starts now ice cold boys I got my mild still in the Forge I decide to make a little hammer out of it simple as that basically just make a mace make a short mace leave one end of it draw a little handle onto It Whack It Whack It Whack It it's a little Hammer easy psycho there you go good Lord once I see that ball slides around I grab it and I run back to the forge my plan with the mild steel is to forge out a pick I just need it to be long enough to hold on to and to have a sharp point so I can really really attack that ice Andrew went straight for big blue I had to smart move I get the ball bearing out it's really cold I'm a little worried about that but I don't have time to let it warm up or anything I just have to get it into the forge taking that ball of Steel and just throwing it into the forge is probably not the best idea what could happen I could shock it fracture it to the point where you can't even fix it my plan is to make a small hammer out of the mild steel and go right at it I broke out my ball bearing relatively fast I'm feeling really good right now [Music] I'm looking at my steel I'm getting the basic shape I need now I just got to figure out how am I going to attack getting a hole in this thing for a hand to sit comfortably in I decide I'm going to have to cut it on the angle grinder I'd still prefer to use the hot wrench and just blow a hole out seems like it'd be the fastest I've been wasting so much time just trying to get this hole out I know the time's caught down I've been trying to avoid cutting through the bridge of this handle but it comes to the point where I need to cut through this handle it will completely just ruin the Integrity of the blade in my opinion I finally get the piece I need off finally de's back of the welder he's putting that chunk of handle material that he cut off he's welding that back on now the one thing about putting holes into this piece is that it's got to have enough space from the knuckles not tiny a lot of space it looks good to me I noticed that my handle Tang got too thin for what I wanted but I don't have time to fix that right now if you notice he's got a lot of Blade and a long spindly little handle now that's going to roll in your hand if he doesn't build that up with a lot of handle material I'm feeling my blade and I notice right where the handle connects to the blade that there is some sharp corners and you don't want sharp Corners because that could cause a stretch fracture so I got to fill it with some weld that's definitely a smart move I'm really liking the overall shape of this blade and now it's time to move on to punching the hole through it for the user's hand looking at Andrew's blade I think it shape is really nice it's just very very tall and having that pole being that size you go and hit something it could flop one way or the other depending on handle construction and really mess your hand up the problem with having Corners the way I cut them is that when you quench the blade those are stress risers and it could create a crack that just completely ruins the edge I make the decision to go ahead and weld up the corners because I know that if the blade cracks welding that will just not work at all all right guys we're coming down to the wire you have 30 minutes left on the clock Devon's actually turned out all right yeah as I'm getting ready quench I want to make sure I'm only focusing on the edge that gets hot and not the rest of the material if any the rest of material gets hot I don't know what way can warp and I am not prepared for that or have the time to fix that I need this thing to go perfect woo and only quenching the edgeart nice good for him smart lord behold no warps straight as an arrow now I just need to make sure this sits comfortably and looks better than it does right now I'm getting ready to Quench and I realize that I really have forged the blade pretty thin and that could create warping Andrews in the quench after the quench I clamped the thing into the vise when you do that it helps to straighten everything out if I pull it out of the vice the blade is straight I'm pretty happy about how that came out Edge qu my blade is straight and it's hard and now off to the grinder I need to clean up my blade I look down there's a crack no no no no no no no o I don't have time to fix this and the forge so I run over to the welder and I put a bead of weld along the crack you know it really makes you wonder how the ball bearing steel encased in ice and then thrown into fire has affected that steel you gave them time to start to crack the ice open but nobody had the patience to warm it up 3 2 1 gentlemen turn off your machines put down your tools this round is over all right gentlemen it's time for the strength test and to keep with our Arctic theme we're going with the Moose antler punch and chop remember this is not about what your ULU does to the antler but what that antler can do to your ULU clay you're up first you ready I guess so well I'm going to do it anyway Dave's punched me before it's not that [Laughter] bad holy sh Leep I take it back all right clay let's talk about your ULU now right off it's got a good Cutting Edge and it didn't lose any of that edge so that's good as far as the handle goes it's a rough construction without a glove on this is really not a comfortable handle there are you know parts that are kind of scking up but uh didn't hurt my hand stayed where I wanted it to be so good job thank you all right Andrew you're up are you ready knock it [Music] out so Andrew there's some obvious issues with this when you were drilling to mount the handle there was some overworking and not good thermocycling going on to reduce that grain structure and give it the strength that it needs once I hit just face on it just cut loose you good yeah yeah well Andrew that is an absolutely tough break unfortunately you had a catastrophic failure in your blade which means we cannot test your ULU further clay congratulations that means you're moving forward into round three's competition Devin not quite out of the woods yet you got to make it through a solid punch ready yeah let's get weird all right let's do it Dave get weird careful what you asked for so Devon Your Design is pretty much spoton for an ULU as far as holding up in this test you really didn't take in any damage at all I feel like I could work with this either skinning or chopping and the blade held up beautifully nicely done thank you well gentlemen you guys all did a great job but Andrew unfortunately we can't continue testing and your time here in the Forge has ended man I'm going to have to ask you to please step out let the young dogs play it wasn't a big shock for me when the blade failed there were a lot of things wrong with that blade and it would have taken a miracle for me able to get through to the finale my wife's been bugging me to make her in ULU so when I get home one of the first things that I'll do is make a decent ULU that'll be useful in the kitchen and it's not going to be used to punch handlers or do crazy stuff like [Music] that

Channel: Forged in Fire

Views: 157,952

Keywords: Season 8, Episode 18, Arctic Forge, Alaskan Blade, Legendary Alaskan Blade, legendary, legendary blades, history, history channel, history channel shows, history shows, forged in fire, forged in fire clips, forged in fire full episodes, bladesmiths, metal, swords, sword making, sword makers, knife makers, blade competition, edged weapons, marine corps, marines, branch battle, will it keel, will it kill, wil willis, doug marcaida, dave baker, ben abbott, j neilson

Id: b6vo6KH892g

Length: 9min 45sec (585 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 19 2023