Original subtitles

- Here in The Forge, we put hundreds

of smiths to the test.

- It's hot in here.

- But only a select few have proven themselves

time and time again, remaining undefeated.

Now, three of our most decorated champions

will put their perfect records on the line

and go head-to-head against previous

"Forged in Fire" winners in some

of the most heated battles yet.

- This is a living nightmare.

- Everything's right now,

if you know what I'm saying.

- Will anyone have what it takes to finally...

Oh!

Beat the unbeaten?

- My name is Jay Replogle.

I first competed on season three

and became a champion when I made the German Zweihander.

Being a champion has allowed me to grow my craft

and become better over the past six years.

I'm coming back to test my skills

against another champion,

and then possibly

face another champion.

Hopefully, I'm ready.

- I'm Trevor Jenkinson.

I'm a returning champion from season seven.

I made the war scythe on the Halloween edition.

Since I've been on the show, I'm in nursing school

right now, and that's taken up the majority

of my time the last two years,

But I definitely know more

than when I first competed,

and I'm really excited

to defend my title.

- Champions, welcome back to The Forge, gentlemen.

You guys are about to take part in an intense bladesmithing

competition that's going to test all of your skills.

Now, to start things off, it's just gonna be the two

of you in the first round going head-to-head

in a five straight hour bladesmithing round.

Now, when that five-hour round is over,

the judges will step in and test your blades

and ultimately decide which one of you has impressed them

the most and will be moving into the second round

of competition.

Now this is where things get interesting.

In the second round, you'll be going toe to toe

with one of our titans of The Forge

because this is "Beat the Unbeaten."

Now, if you have what it takes to beat your first round

competitor and one of our unbeaten champs,

you will go home with your second "Forged in Fire"

champion title, but also a check for $10,000.

- I love the challenge of facing an undefeated opponent,

but it's going to be super tough.

- Now in this round, you're going to be building

a signature blade in your signature style.

All that we ask is that they measure

between 11 and 13 inches.

In order to do that, gentlemen, you're

going to need what's under that cloth on your anvils.

So do us a favor and take that cloth off.

All right, what you guys are looking at there

is 80CrV2 high carbon steel.

Now, as you look at that steel, guys,

you're probably noticing it's not enough to make

an 11- to 13-inch blade.

And that's because we want you to add it to this...

Canister Damascus.

Now what we want you to do is choose your materials

and make a canister.

You're then going to use that billet

as the cladding on your 80CrV2 to make

your San Mai signature blade.

- I've never made this type of Damascus before.

I've practiced canister and I've practiced San Mai,

but I've never combined the two.

I'm a little bit nervous going into this.

- Now, when the five hours is up,

the judges are going to step in and test your weapons,

first for strength and durability in an antler chop.

And then they're going to check your edge retention

and sharpness in a Tatami mat slice.

You've only got five hours on the clock

to complete this challenge, so good luck

because that time starts now.

- You know, it's interesting that both

our contestants here--

Jay I remember from season three

and Trevor from season seven.

So what have they done since then to get to this point?

Now Jay here, if you didn't know, he's been in a cave

and he just came out, I'm ready.

I've been doing nothing but making blades.

- It feels good coming back as a champion.

The first time I competed, it was fairly difficult.

I was up against some really good guys.

Nerves and all that kind of take its toll.

But now I think I could come back and do a little better.

- Now Jay made the Zweihander, which,

at the time in season three, was the largest weapon

I think we'd ever done.

- Yeah, he comes in here and hears 11 to 13, he's like,

pfft, got it.

- My biggest concern is having to make a canister.

When I found out I was coming on "Forged in Fire,"

my buddy was like, you've made canister, right?

And I'm like, no, I actually haven't because I

hate the way it looks.

And of course, "Forged in Fire," they know.

They read your mind somehow, and your greatest fear

comes true on The Forge floor.

But I should be able to pull it off.

- All right, first things first.

These guys have to get a canister going.

We've got fishhook, we've got bike chain,

and we've got chainsaw blade.

What would you be going for?

- I think fishhooks.

It makes a really cool pattern, and it's

a finer thing so the welds are easier to get going on.

- The material I choose to put in my can is fishhooks,

and the reason is there's no cleaning.

All the saw blades and the chain

both have oil and grease on it.

Fishhooks, brand new, clean, perfect--

just dump them in.

- Now we've seen canister done and stripped

in 20 minutes, right?

This is a little bit more difficult than that.

They've got two forge welds to do.

They've got to forge weld that canister,

they've got to prep the canister,

draw it out, cut it, and then do another

forge weld on that 80CrV2.

So it really ups the ante and the difficulty

of this challenge.

Well, right off the bat, it looks like one of our smiths--

Trevor's decided to grab the White Out.

So he's planning on removing the can.

Now it wasn't a requirement.

Unnecessary step.

- I mean, the option of taking the can off is one thing,

but you could draw that steel out

and just grind the can off one side and then do your restack.

- I think the White Out is going

to help me in the long run.

I'll be able to peel this can off, I'll have a clean billet,

and I'll be able to see any problems

that my billet has with it.

So I won't have any cracks if we get to testing,

and I've got a big old gap in between something.

I'm going to let this White Out dry with just

the air because the last time I competed,

we had to make a pretty big knife

out of a bunch of Damascus plates

that had been abandoned.

I put the White Out into my can, I set it on fire.

It was not supposed to do that.

I should have just let it dry, but it

ended up making my cans stick.

And I spent the majority of my time peeling that off.

- Trevor cooked his White Out before he put his can

together, so you notice that can's

not peeling off real easy.

- So I'm kind of happy that we have to do canister.

And that sounds stupid to say, but I want to redeem myself

and see if I can do it a little bit better this time.

- You know, my concern with Trevor

is he's dumping powder and everything in there,

but I don't think he's giving it

enough time to really dry out.

- Now, he's making this paste on the walls

that won't weld well.

It's the main cause of a difficult can to peel.

- I'm going to start working on some handle scales.

- So Jay went shopping in the pantry,

and it looks like he grabbed a bunch of very

colorful handle material.

- I remember the first time I competed,

the testing, it was fairly difficult.

So I grabbed three layers of the G10

because I think it offers a lot more strength in the toughness

and durability tests, and it'll add

a little bit of cool factor to the knob,

having the triple colors.

- The nice thing about Jay making his own scales

is that it pulled him away from his forge.

He was busy working on that, and he's

allowing that canister to really heat up.

- Ah.

- My can took the heat.

I'm going to run to the squaring dice on the press

and just compress it on all sides.

- Trevor's going for his first press.

- Is he actually getting it up to a high enough

weld temperature?

Or did he get the core even to the weld temperature?

- He's glowing pretty good, but it's not at that,

you know, 1,800-plus welding temperature

that we want to see.

- I'm worried about being too aggressive

with this can right now.

If this powder isn't at welding temperature

and I start pushing and pressing,

it's almost like trying to make sand castles

without any water.

It's not going to stick to itself at all.

It's just going to crumble.

And if I push it up too far,

it'll squish out a little line of metal

going all the way down my can.

So that could cause inclusions,

cracks, fissures.

Anything like that, it could really mess up my knife.

- So I wonder how long he's going

to wait to peel that thing.

- I'd like to see him do at least one

more pass until the large dies are touching.

You're reducing the entire canister,

and it should be consolidated by then.

- I've gone over my can a few times now.

I think my billet's is solid.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to tap my billet out.

We're going to see how that goes.

- I've got my weld set.

And I can start drawing out the canister.

- I think that Jay's at a spot now he can run over

to Big Blu on the next pass.

- Yep, that's the plan.

- Because he's not trying to peel this can.

- I mean, that's a 20-minute advantage.

- My plan is to forge a canister,

then three-stack it, then build a tall, narrow billet

to compress and draw out to a blade.

It's quite important that everything's the same size.

If one side is fatter than the other,

what it actually will do is push

the 80CrV2 out of the center.

I may not have hardened steel on the edge

because the core has shifted over, which would be terrible.

- My can is solid now.

I'm going to cut the top completely off,

and then I'm going to cut the bottom completely off.

And I have one more cut I'm going

to make along the billet.

I'm hoping that this will make it

so I can just tap in the middle,

and my can fall off either side.

- So cutting a slot is kind of like trying to peel

a banana from the middle.

- Yeah.

- And your banana's all chewed up at the end.

- Like eating a burrito sideways.

- Yeah.

- I can see that it's loose, but it's just not budging.

To boot with that, I've got little fissures

on one of these corners.

I think from working on this can so long,

I've introduced cracks.

That's worrying me right now.

I'm hoping one of these strikes, it'll just fall off,

but I'm just going to have to keep on going

and see how far we have to go.

This has taken me a lot longer than I thought it would,

and I'm really wishing for it to fall off at some point.

And I'm hoping there's just a little weld

somewhere I'll have to break.

- There we go. Good to see Trevor switching--

- Perfect.

- Realizing what he was doing wasn't working.

Now he's using the floor vise.

- All right.

- A nice smile going on in there.

- There you go.

- It's a boy. - It worked.

- We questioned the time he allotted for that White Out

to dry, but clearly, the recipe was right.

That can peeled just fine.

- I knew he would do it all along.

- That's got to be a good feeling.

- I'm happy with how the can just peels off,

but I'm seeing smaller cracks along some of these corners.

I don't think I'm going to be able to grind those out,

so I'm just going to cut my losses and cut them off.

- Trevor's billet had some cracking, but now what's left

is kind of like the dimension of a hot dog.

And he needs to get that to be 2 inches wide in order

not to lose any of the 80CrV2

- My initial idea for this knife

is going to be a big Bowie style chopper.

That is one that sticks out to me as just a good style

for this type of competition.

- You know, we've been talking about Trevor a whole bunch

because it's so much going on with him.

Meanwhile, Jay's over here just making a beautiful billet.

- I got my San Mai billet welded together.

I know I've got to start working

on drawing my blade out.

I intend to make a traditional Bowie knife

for this first round, but if things

don't go exactly right, it's going

to be close to a Bowie knife.

- Jay is in a really good spot with that second billet

all welded up.

He's already cleaned the edges up.

- The Bowie knife I'm making, it's a knife I make a lot,

and so I can almost make it in my sleep.

And I'm trying to shape that steel to the size

that I need it to make the knife that I want to make.

- All right, guys, two hours down, three hours left.

- I've got the length and the width on my billet sorted out.

I've got it cleaned up.

I've got it cut in the middle, and I'm

going to stick these two pieces onto that 80CrV2.

- I think the big problem now is that Trevor's platen

steel is looking so thin.

And if you try to bring up the forge weld,

some, like, foil on top of a big chunk in the middle,

it goes all over the place, and it's

just not enough meat there to get a good forge going.

- Where Trevor is right now, what might be a good idea

is to take what he's got,

cut it, clean it, double it over, and fuller that out.

- You know, I'm really hoping for Trevor's sake

that this forge weld goes well.

- Oh, this is where things can go really bad.

This weld doesn't take, or it falls apart

when he's shaping the tip or anything like that,

that'll be catastrophic.

- I can't restart now, so I really need to be

careful with this billet.

- Holy smokes.

- We're about two hours into the competition right now.

It looks like Jay has a blade starting to take shape.

And on the other side of The Forge,

Trevor seems like he's a bit behind running

into some issues.

- I'm really nervous about that billet,

so I'm going to take my time on this.

- Oh, Lord.

All righty.

It seems like these sides are stuck on good.

I don't see any cracks.

I don't see any inclusions, anything like that.

It's a big relief.

- Oh, it looks like Trevor's a little bit happier.

His smile is starting to come back, his lips are curling.

- I've really got to get going.

It looks real nice. - Thanks, bro.

- Jay's getting really close to a quench here.

- As I'm heating the blade, getting ready to quench,

I keep thinking it's too thick, it's too thick because

the one thing that can go wrong with a super thick blade

is it won't harden correctly.

But the clock is ticking.

I need to quench my blade.

- Oh!

- Jay's in the oil.

- Nice.

- There's still a lot of meat left on it,

and so my main priority is hitting the grinder,

shedding the weight, and getting

it down to a usable size.

- So these guys have five hours to work on the entire blade,

but Trevor has to get this thing quenched

if he has any hope of getting to testing.

- Looking at that clock, it's really bugging me.

I've got to get going if I want this quenched.

I'm trying my best to get this knife up to temperature.

And I'm seeing some places at the tip that are too hot,

and I don't have time to really cool it down.

I've got to quench now.

- What on Earth are you waiting for?

- If this quench doesn't go good, I'm pretty well done.

I'm going to cross my fingers and my toes

and hope everything goes well.

- I guarantee you that blade is hot right now.

- That's hotter than his steel was when he was welding.

- Probably.

- Hoping there's no warp because he's got

no time to deal with it.

- It doesn't seem to have any extra cracks

or pieces hanging off of it, so I'm

feeling all right about it.

I just have a lot of grinding to do.

- All right, bladesmiths, you guys have an hour left.

- So my handle fit up is really important

because I know how David and those guys

hate a huge, overly big handle.

And if it doesn't feel good, if it's not comfortable,

it's not going to perform well.

- Jay's got a finger weld on his handle,

and he's got the giant swell at the base of the tang.

Is that not good enough?

- It's an aesthetic choice, but it is important

that it's not 1/4 inch off.

You can put it in the wrong spot.

I'm looking at this blade,

and I see horrible delaminations.

I thought I've gotten rid of all the delaminations,

but they've really spread.

At my home forge, I'm kind of a perfectionist with my knives.

I want them to look really nice.

I want them to look how I envision them.

That's going to really mess with me

here because I'm not going to get the chance

to make it look how I want.

So I got to put that behind me and just focus on getting

something that works.

- This is what he's stuck with.

So delaminations or not, he's stuck with his blade.

- It's looking a little mangled, but--

- Yeah, it's got a little bit of thickness to it.

It's about 3/16, it can deal with a little bit of grinding

and still come out OK.

- I want to chase these delaminations more,

but I've really got to get a handle on.

The judges aren't going to accept it without something

to grab onto.

- We're under ten minutes left

in this "Beat the Unbeaten" competition.

Jay's moving along.

- My stacked handle scale is fitting nice.

So I've got pommel swell on the back,

but it's still overly big handle.

I need to speed up the process, or I'm not going

to be able to be done in time.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Gentlemen, turn off your machines.

Put down your tools.

This first round is now over.

- I feel really good about my blade,

and I think the judges are going to be really surprised

that I even got one to them.

So I'm proud of that.

- All right, bladesmiths, welcome to the strength test,

the antler chop.

Jay, you're up first. Are you ready?

- Yeah. Let's do it.

- All right.

- Testing is always nerve-racking.

You know, I'm confident in my build.

I think everything went OK, but you never

know until it's tested.

- All right, Jay, well, start up here at the edge,

I don't see any issue.

It's still got a nice fine edge to it.

The handle is comfortable.

I would have liked just the tiniest bit of refinement

right here.

It's just a little fat on my ring finger,

but the retention on it is really good,

the indexing is great, and the edge held up really well.

Nice job. - Thank you.

- All right, Trevor, you're up next.

Are you ready? - Absolutely.

Give it hell. - All right.

- My number one fear is chipping.

That heat treatment wasn't my best,

and I'm really stressed about what the antlers

are going to do to my blade.

- All right, Trevor, we were watching your heat treat

that you did on this, and it was really rushed,

and it was very hot.

And I was nervous that this was going

to be a very brittle blade.

- Me too. - But the edge held up great.

It's amazing.

But I can still see some delaminations.

My big problem is that on this side

there's a delamination that is large enough

that a piece of antler is actually

wedged up in the delamination.

Moving on to your handle, it's a little on the bigger side.

There's about a 1/4 inch, 3/8 of an inch too much handle.

But all in all, man, nice job.

- Thank you.

Appreciate it.

- All right, champion bladesmiths,

congratulations for making through that strength test.

This is the sharpness test, the Tatami mat slice.

- Jay, you're up first. You ready for this?

- Yeah, let's do it.

- All right, Jay, let's talk about your San Mai knife.

First up, I like the profile.

I like the way it just matches and glides

right all the way to the tip.

It's a handsome, nice design you have here.

Your handle construction, it just happens

to fit my hand perfectly.

Now, the way you have your grinds,

it allows to cut cleanly through the Tatami mats.

Overall, your weapon, it will cut.

- Thank you.

- All right, Trevor, your turn. So are you ready?

- Yes, sir. - All right.

Let's do this.

All right, Trevor, I'm really impressed that you were

able to pull this off despite all the troubles

that you were having.

This blade right here performed very well because the edge

is still very razor sharp.

Now, you still have a delamination there that it

took during the strength test.

But it cut cleanly.

Overall, your blade, it'll cut.

- Thank you, sir.

- Well, gentlemen, I got to say,

it's been a pleasure watching both of you guys

work over the past five hours.

But, unfortunately, we can only bring one of you

into the final round to face off against our titan.

The bladesmith leaving The Forge is...

Trevor.

Unfortunately, your blade did not make the cut,

and Doug's going to tell you why.

- Trevor, I have to commend you.

Because despite all the problems you had,

you turned in a blade that performed

very well in our test.

But your blade is the only one that took some damage

during our strength test, and that's the reason

why you're not moving forward.

- Yes, sir.

- Well, Trevor, obviously nothing can

get that smile off your face.

It's very evident you love what you do,

and it's been a pleasure watching you

work at your craft.

But unfortunately, your time here in this competition

has ended.

But before you step off The Forge floor,

we'd all love to shake your hand, man.

- Yes, sir, it was a privilege. Thank, y'all.

- Thank you. - It was really awesome.

- Good job, brother. Good job.

- I may not have won, but this has

been an awesome experience.

And I'm really happy with how I did.

I'm not sad about going home.

I'm really kind of pumped up I get to take a nap.

Jay, you did awesome.

And I am just wishing you the best of luck

going into this next round.

Whoever you're up against is going to need it.

- Well, Jay, you are the epitome of slow is smooth

and smooth is fast.

Through the whole first round, you kept your head down

and it paid off.

Welcome to round two.

Now, in order to take home the $10,000 check

and your second "Forged in Fire" champion title,

you're going to have to beat an unbeaten competitor.

It'll either be gladiator of The Forge Jesse Hu,

super champ Collin Sage,

or our very own judge Ben Abbott.

- I really don't want to see Ben Abbott.

Pretty sure he could be a Superman.

I don't think that I can actually beat him.

- You ready to find out who that is?

- Oh, yeah.

- All right, man, you are going to have to go

toe to toe with this guy.

You know what, that's my mistake.

Your competitor's not coming out that door.

You're going to have to beat our judge

who has an unbeaten record, the most wins

in this forge, Ben Abbott.

- Oh, boy.

What's going on, man? - Hey.

Good to see you.

- I see you smiling over there.

Was he your first choice? - No!

- Ben, welcome back to the competition, bud.

- I think every time I do one of these competitions,

the stress level goes up.

I think Jay is a really good competitor,

so winning is not a guarantee.

- You two are going to be competing against

each other over the next eight-hour

weapons building competition.

Now, the choice of weapons is not up to us.

Jay, because you won the first round,

I'm going to open up our "Forged in Fire" vault

and give you access to all the weapons in there

that were built by previous champions.

And you get to select one of them to build against Ben.

Are you ready? - Oh, yeah.

- All right, let's do this.

- Wow.

All right.

Going up against Ben is going to be super tough.

So I'm going to pick a weapon that

would be a challenge for him hoping that it'll give

me a better advantage.

- Great choice.

All right, Jay, you chose the Medieval Sword of Mystery.

- Hmm.

- The Medieval Sword of Mystery has

puzzled the world since its discovery

in England back in 1825.

Believed to date back to the 13th century,

it earned its name for the mysterious inscription

on the blade that to this day, no one

has been able to decipher.

Smiths in the "Forged in Fire" arena

have also attempted to crack this mystery back

in season eight, but a parameter failure

cost one competitor the title.

Now this blade comes with its own very specific parameters.

Your swords will have to have a blade

that measures between 28 and 30 inches from tip to guard.

Now, down to the hilt, you need to have a cruciform guard

and you need to have a disc-shaped pommel.

Now this is called the Medieval Sword of Mystery

because it's got this inscription on it

that nobody can decipher.

In the spirit of this competition,

we don't want that inscription.

We want your blades to say "Forged in Fire."

All right, Jay, you have one more decision to make.

You not only got to choose the weapon,

but you also get to choose the technique

that you and Ben will have to use

in order to make this weapon.

You got anything in mind?

- Yeah, I think we should do a raindrop Damascus.

- Mm, all right.

Now, gentlemen, we have put eight hours on the clock.

Good luck.

Your eight hours starts now.

All right, we've got Ben going against Jay.

They've got to make the Medieval Sword of Mystery.

It's a very large blade.

They've got to do it in raindrop pattern Damascus.

- Welding!

- So Jay picks the Medieval Sword of Mystery.

He also picks raindrop Damascus.

So I decide I'm going to get 23 layers of 1095 and 15N20,

forge all those together.

Then I can cut my billet into six pieces,

and stack three on top, 80CrV2 in the middle,

and then three on the bottom.

I feel like that's going to give a really

nice raindrop pattern, something that

stands out and is visible.

- This is why he has the most wins.

Look at his face. We're eight minutes into it.

He's running.

- Facing off against Ben, with that kind of record,

it's a tall order.

Welding!

My biggest concern right now is, of course, the clock,

but I'm just trying to get this thing

together as fast as I can.

- I think every time I do one of these competitions,

the stress level goes up.

And this sword makes this even worse.

It's just so much to do, and I'm just nervous that I'm

not going to have enough time.

- Ooh, that's a biggun'.

- For me to get a good raindrop pattern,

I'm going to cut and restack my billet to end

up with 139 layers total.

OK, welding!

- One thing I've noticed is, when you guys are competing,

you do a lot of what you say at the table

while you're out working on the floor.

Ben's no different.

He talks about pace. He talks about speed.

He talks about multitasking.

And he's sprinting.

- I'm right on track for where I want to be.

Here we go.

Looking good.

- Jay, Ben, gentlemen, you guys have six hours left.

All right, here we go. Jay on the press.

He's going nice and slow. Easy task.

- Jay's stacked so tall, and that's where

you've got to be careful.

But, man, it's taking forever.

- Yeah, it really is.

- In a competition, usually I have

a plan that I'm sticking to.

That's why I go really slow, really easy.

Draw it out.

Make sure everything's really even and nice.

Beautiful.

- So Ben's got his final billet drawn out.

This is going to be a really long process.

It seems like a pretty straightforward blade,

just double-edged straight blade cross guard.

But raindrop is going to add a ton of time.

- Oh, my gosh.

This is the fun stuff right here.

- It's important to not draw your billet

to its final length before putting the raindrop pattern.

Because in order to expose the pattern,

I need to drill in some divots all along the blade

and then hammer those divots flat.

- Holy cow, Ben put so many raindrops in that.

- Raindrops?

More like a torrential downpour.

- I'm hoping it's going to turn out well.

There's a lot of other steps in this,

but I think I'm on track.

- Now, we're almost halfway into the competition already,

and both Ben and Jay have a ton of process left

to do if they're going to have any hope

of getting this blade done.

- Instead of cutting my billet into little bitty short pieces

and then restacking my billet, I decided I'm going

to do the hot fold method.

Whoa, Nelly.

It saves a lot of time.

You can produce a high layer helm super fast.

Whoo!

- That Z fold requires so much cleaning of the material.

- Oh, he didn't clean it?

- This could be a problem.

- Yeah, it looks like Jay's going to be relying on flux.

- The problem is fluxing metal that already has forged scale

on it, the flux is going to keep

forged scale from building up.

- But it was already there to begin with.

- Right. - So this is critical.

- . Oh, man.

- Oh, guys, it's not working.

Jay's billet is opening up on the press.

- Well, I'm panicking.

If I can't get this billet to stick,

I could be going home.

- This next heat is the do or die.

If it doesn't stick, he's in trouble.

- Now we're almost halfway into the competition already,

and both Ben and Jay have a ton of process left

to do if they're going to have any hope

of getting this blade done.

- . Oh, man.

- Oh, guys, it's not working.

Jay's billet is opening up on the press.

- Well, I'm panicking.

If I can't get this billet to stick,

I'll probably be trying to flag down a taxi...

And go home.

Try this damn thing again.

Hopefully, I can just put a lot of flux

on it to get it to stick.

- This next heat is the do or die.

If it doesn't stick, he's in trouble.

- Got it!

Whoo!

I got it to weld.

Thankfully, it worked out.

- So Ben's getting ready to do his quench.

- All right, here we go.

- All right, 3 hours and 15 minutes left.

Ben's now quenched.

- Looking good.

It looks straight to me.

Time to go get to work on the pommel and the crossguard.

- I feel like I'm struggling to keep up with the pace

that I need to keep up.

I peeked over at Ben, and the way he was running around,

I thought he might be building a spaceship.

When you're going up against the best,

you got to get crafty.

- No way.

He's making a raindrop die.

Smart move.

- That's going to speed up this process tenfold.

Yeah, we were talking about the raindrop

being the most time consuming part of this build,

and he's just knocked a ton of that process out.

- Hey, OK.

I got my pommel and the guard all done.

Now it's time to put in the lettering

so that I can go to the edge.

- What's going to be interesting is how

they're going to be putting "Forged in Fire"

down that blade.

- There's two basic ways to do it.

One, they could engrave it.

It's what I did. Worked out great.

The other way is to use, like, a nail polish

and paint on what you want.

Then when you acid etch, it'll cut away everything

that's not on that resist.

- I'm really worried for Jay.

As he grinds, he's going to find things

trapped inside that blade because he

didn't do that cleaning step.

As I'm grinding my blade, I see

it's got bubbles all over it.

- See, this is what I was worried about.

- I have to make sure these delams,

they're only on the surface and they don't go deeper.

Whoo-hoo!

It's just surface issue, so it's solid,

but it's not like I would like for it to be.

Now I got to get this thing quenched.

- You know, we were worried about Jay continuing

with that initial billet, but it seems like he's

moving along with it.

So hopefully, it's working out.

- There's a couple surface delams that I wasn't able

to completely get out, but I just have

to go with what I've got.

- There we go.

All right, Jay is now quenched.

- Hard.

The quench went pretty well, but I hope these little issues

don't cost me in the end.

- Jay, Ben, guys, you got one hour till testing.

- I pulled the sword out of the edge,

and bright as day there is all the letters.

They look amazing.

But right now, I don't have time to sit and stare at it.

I need to finish getting my sword together,

and I don't have much time left.

Jay's a really good competitor, and I saw him

doing some things that were really intelligent.

So now it's just going to come down to how they perform.

- Jay is well on his way.

He's got a fully formed blade.

Now it's just a matter of getting his handle fit up.

- It's really important to have the right weight on a blade,

but the clock is ticking.

I need to start working on putting my handle together

or I may not be able to finish on time.

- He needs to put a handle on it pretty quick

and get to the grinder.

He has, by far, the largest blade out there by volume.

- My plan from the get was to build a simple blade.

Ben's got a few more fancy-dancy pieces on his,

and so I think if it comes down to fit and finish,

he's definitely going to have an advantage.

But nothing is 100%.

Shew!

Damn.

It's a little bit heavy.

The only thing left to do is just getting the blade thinned

down, getting the edge thinned down,

and just bringing that blade into the final form.

- 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Gentlemen, turn off your machines.

Put down your tools. This round is over.

- I'm feeling good.

I made a sword that I'm proud of.

It looks beautiful.

I could have used some more time on the grinder,

but it feels good in my hand.

We'll see.

- Champions, welcome to the dynamic KEAL test.

Jay, you're up first. Are you ready for this?

- Let's do this.

I'm worried about a couple surface delams that I wasn't

able to completely get out.

So that makes me kind of nervous.

But anything can happen.

- All right, Jay, let's talk about your sword here.

First up, when I picked it up,

I was wondering about the kind of wrap

that you're putting on this, but it actually works

very well, and it's comfortable.

Nice job on that.

The pommel does pull back a little bit on the balance,

but it's still a little bit forward heavy.

Now, your edge-- those first shots

were very deep into this pig carcass.

But after the clay pot shot,

you could see that there was some type of dulling because

it didn't cut as sharp.

But more importantly, your weapon, sir, it will KEAL.

- Thank you.

- OK, Ben, your turn, sir. Are you ready?

- Sure. - All right, let's do this.

- Going into testing, I felt nervous.

I've seen them chip out blades.

I've seen them do serious damage.

So now I'm just hoping that my edge geometry

is good enough to hold up.

- All right, Ben, first up, your handle dimensions

are perfect for my hands.

I also like the work that you did with your pommel

and your guard.

Now, your edge--same thing.

Your first initial cuts are very deep,

but after the clay pot strikes, you can see

where it took some dulling in the sweet spot

right here.

But it will KEAL.

- All right, gentlemen, it's time

for our dynamic strength test,

the bamboo and watermelon chop.

Jay, you're up first.

- Let's do it.

After the first test, I'm worried about my edge.

Because if my knife doesn't perform

and doesn't cut like it needs to,

I could be going home.

- All right, Jay, right off, there's an edge there.

I wouldn't want to be hit with this thing.

And you can see, it cut into the bamboo,

and it cut through the bags.

But it's an impact tool as opposed

to a really slicing tool.

All in all, I think it's a really good-looking piece.

But as far as the edge goes, it's just not as sharp

as I'd really like it to be.

All right, Ben, are you ready to go?

- Do it, Dave. - All right.

- Good job, man.

- Thanks, man.

- All right, Ben, first off, beautiful pattern.

- Thank you. - That really came out well.

You know, I can see the raindrops

on all the high spots.

That's really nicely done.

It's got a good weight to it.

It's not very heavy.

As far as the cutting goes, blade held up fine.

It's easy to use, and it's got a good feel

to it, so nicely done.

- Thank you.

- All right, gentlemen, very difficult eight-hour round.

We got two blades that survived the strength, sharpness,

and KEAL test, and now comes a time when the judges need

to take a closer look and decide which one of you

is coming out on top.

So if you could please give us a moment

and step off The Forge floor.

From where I was standing, it looked pretty close.

Curious what you guys think. Doug, I'll start with you.

- Boy, these are very evenly matched.

When it comes to Ben's blade,

I love the overall look.

The weight is so much better with his blade.

- OK. Dave, what about you?

- When I pick up swords in this type,

the main thing I want to be able to do

is move it and fight with it.

Jay's weapon is at least 3/4 of a pound

heavier than Ben's weapon.

And when fighting, for me, that's a huge game changer.

The blade, it more smashed the watermelons

than cut them at all.

Literally, I could run my finger on it.

Ben's blade, it functions a lot better.

- OK. Doug, you made your choice?

- A very difficult one.

- Dave, you made yours? - Yeah.

- All right, I'll call them in.

Gentlemen, this has been a very exciting competition.

You both performed extremely well,

so much so that it made for a very difficult

decision for our judges.

The winner of this "Beat the Unbeaten" competition is...

Ben Abbott.

Now, Jay, you fought extremely hard.

You gave us a great blade, but, unfortunately,

it just didn't make the cut today.

And Dave's going to tell you why.

- Jay, this was really close.

Both of your blades took almost identical damage.

Both of your blades performed very closely.

So this came down to the finest of details.

Your competitor just beat you out by that much with the fit

and finish of his blade.

- Well, Jay, you're clearly a fierce competitor,

a talented smith.

And before you step off the floor,

I would love to shake your hand.

You have fun? - Oh, yeah.

To not get the win, you know, that stinks.

But this whole experience has been great.

We made awesome swords, and it feels good to say Ben Abbott

just beat me by this much.

- Well, Ben, by that reaction, I think you're a little bit

surprised, but congratulations, buddy,

you are currently undefeated with a record of 10 and 0.

- Thank you, guys.

- How you feeling? - Oh, I'm amazed.

I'm relieved.

- Well, Benny boy, your time on that side is done.

Come back over here, bud.

- Any victory is a victory, but one

against a really talented smith like Jay

just means that much more.

He was a tough competitor, for sure.

Keeping the streak going is amazing,

but I know there's somebody somewhere that's going

to be a faster draw than me.

And I'm just happy I came out on top on this one.