Original subtitles

- Here in the forge... [eyes ding]

we've seen the best of the best

win this competition.

[applause] - oh, my god.

- Tonight, four of our champions return

to fight for the right to become super champion.

- To be a super champ,

you've gotta walk through hell.

- Jon nagel sailed to victory with his naval cutlass.

- Competing to be a super champ--

a little bit of nervousness,

but being in the military, we are trained to go up

against the best enemy forces out there,

so to be the best, you have to beat the best.

♪ ♪

- mike rowley smoked the competition

with a pair of pipe tomahawks.

- I am more nervous for this competition than the first one,

just because I have such high expectations for myself,

but... [growls] bring it on!

♪ ♪

- spicy mike kerley

beat the heat with a qinglong ji.

- My first experience here on "forged in fire"

was actually really, really awesome.

There's some very iconic banana action that went on.

You guys need hot sauce on it.

- No hot sauce.

- I'm here for the super championship

because it's another chance to try to get the judges

to eat my hot sauce, plus money.

- And collin sage came back from failure to win

with a kabyle flyssa.

- The first time I was on the show,

I broke a knife.

It was embarrassing.

[bleep].

Yes, I went on and won,

but that broken knife haunts my dreams.

- What these champions don't know

is that defeating their competition...

- You gotta have a lot of balls

to come over here as a champion.

- Is only the beginning.

One of you will have to compete against

historic weapons recreation specialist david baker.

On "forged in fire."

♪ ♪

champions, welcome back to the forge.

- It's a super championship.

I'm already so intimidated, and then you look out,

and wil willis has got you locked with those tiger eyes.

It's very intimidating.

- Today, you're gonna lay it all on the line again

as we engage you

in three rounds of super championship competition

designed to make one of you quit, cry, or collapse,

all in front of our panel of expert judges.

Let's meet them now.

Up first, abs master smith j. Neilson.

Next, two-time "forged in fire" champion

turned judge ben abbott.

And last, doug.

- [laughs]

- all right.

Gentlemen, there are a lot of qualities

that make up a "forged in fire" champion,

but more than anything, it probably takes...

♪ ♪

- [laughs] - oh, son of a bitch.

- Gentlemen, in your first round of competition,

you're gonna have to take these big round balls of 52100 steel

and collapse them all down

into those rectangular canoe canisters.

You have to fit every single steel ball

that is in that dish into that canister

to make that signature blade in your signature style

between 12 and 14 inches in length.

- I've never had good luck forging steel balls,

and I never actually have done canoe canister.

I've done the other type, and so, [bleep].

- You'll have three hours to design and forge your blades.

In the second round, if you make it there,

you'll have an opportunity to attach handles to those blades,

and we're gonna test them like

we've never tested blades before.

Hell, I'm not even gonna tell you what the tests are today.

Good luck, gentlemen.

Your three hours starts...

Now.

♪ ♪

- oh, this is gonna be fun.

- You've gotta have a lot of balls

to come over here as a champion.

- Oh, they're so heavy! - [laughs]

- so the challenge is to get all of these--

I think there's 10,000 or so--

ball bearings into this canister,

but two of those ball bearings

are way too big to fit in the can.

- We specifically gave them two large ball bearings

that are not going to fit in the canister

unless they manipulate it somehow.

- You can't just grind them. They're really hard steel.

You gotta squish them out and try to fit them in

like some giant puzzle piece.

Most mere mortals can't just forge steel.

I can.

But it is "forged in fire,"

so I decided to go ahead and use the fire.

♪ ♪

- to be a super champ, what these guys

don't even realize is, you gotta beat a judge,

and there's only one person here that's not at the table.

They're gonna have to beat dave at the finale.

- You know, this really is, like, two challenges in one.

Not only do you have to break down

the two large ball bearings;

then you have to combine them into the canister

and make another piece of steel with that,

so it all takes a lot of time

and a lot of energy to get it right.

- Looking over the canister.

I'm starting to fill it up with the pieces,

maybe put a little powder in the base.

I'm trying to get a feel for how much space I actually have.

- If you remember collin's competition,

collin's blade broke,

and the only reason that he moved forward:

Because his competitor's blade broke in less strikes.

- That's right.

- Now, he's got a lot to prove compared to these other smiths.

- I break another knife, you're gonna see me cry,

probably.

Weeping will be involved.

I might just lay down.

[laughs]

- spicy mike is the only one who put some wite-out

into his canoe canister,

and we know that that can either be exceptionally done

or just a disaster all the way around.

- Yeah.

- And typically guys have a problem peeling the can.

- My plan with the larger ball bearings

is to draw them out into long, narrow rectangles

that will fit inside the can.

So far, it's going slow.

They're really big ball bearings,

take a long time to heat up.

They take a long time to squish down.

Slow but smooth.

That's how you win the race, right?

♪ ♪

- I've fit everything else in the can,

and now I'm drawing these big ball bearings

out into rectangles and then just set them in.

- Big mike is a little bit ahead of everybody else.

- Ah!

You rowdy devil!

- He's got everything arranged inside of his can,

and now he's welding it up.

- It's fitting that mike is ahead of the game,

because his particular challenge in his episode

was canister damascus.

- One thing that I've learned about canister

is don't get in a hurry.

Take small bites, press little bits at a time,

so I can maintain some semblance of control

over this whole process.

Ah.

- If you look over here at jonathan,

he's very far behind the other smiths.

- I know I'm spending a lot of time

getting the different pieces of my canister ready,

but this is a crucial step in this process.

Any inclusion, any bit of grime,

anything that's not cleaned well could lead to a failure.

Proper planning prevents piss-poor performance.

- Jonathan took a large piece that he drew out,

cut it into small sections,

and then took each of those small sections

and tried to clean the scale off.

If you're just taking the whole thing, clean the scale,

and then cut it, it's about a quarter

of the amount of time it would have taken.

- Champions, one hour has elapsed!

You have two hours remaining to finish your work.

- So I get my can all packed up.

I get every single one of those little ball bearings in there,

and I'm into the fire.

I've accomplished this one task,

and it's like, "yay!"

but then it's like, "oh!

I still have to make a knife!"

there's a lot of pressure riding on this first round,

so I'm going forge, heat up, press, press, forge,

press, forge, press.

It seems to be working.

Is everything going right right now?

Is this a dream?

Am I in a dream?

[gauzy harp music]

look, mom! I made the wall!

No.

This is a super championship.

Whoo!

♪ ♪

- so spicy mike heading over to the press.

He looks a little bit cool on one side of the billet.

- Yeah, 'cause it's been

sitting on the bottom of the forge...

- Yep.

- And that doesn't help with your forge welding.

- Welding this billet up is very similar

to drawing out the ball bearings.

There's a lot of thermal mass,

and the press sucks a lot of the heat up,

so you've gotta keep that at forge welding temperature.

Making the knife is gonna be the easy part.

It's getting the billet

to make the knife out of that's kind of a pain.

♪ ♪

- well, big mike, man,

he's really way out ahead of the pack at this point.

- Oh, yeah.

- I am ecstatic over this billet.

It is solid. It is one piece of steel.

And that is magic to me.

I'm a magician. [chuckles]

next, I'm going to the power hammer.

I'm gonna try to get a little bit more length

out of it.

Big blue, we're buds, man.

We're bros.

Oh!

- Nice! Get some! - Whoo!

- Big blue!

- I would marry big blue if they would let me.

Sorry, honey, I wouldn't do that.

I-I love you.

♪ ♪

- my steel feels really good right now,

but now I want to see,

do I have a bunch of inclusions that I can see?

What does it look like?

So I go over to the chop saw.

If I cut this end off

and it's not a solid piece of steel,

I do not have time to restart this challenge.

[bleep]damn, it worked!

[laughs]

- jonathan knows that proper prior planning

prevents poor performance.

Maybe all of this planning and preparation

is gonna help propel him into pole position.

♪ ♪

if you didn't know what tests lie ahead,

what shape would you prefer to go with?

- One of our standard three: Camp, bowie, seax.

You know, any of those would do well.

- All right.

- Last time I came in,

I kept it simple with the knife shape.

Now I want to push myself,

so I'm gonna make a drop point kukri.

If you don't know, kukris have a forward bend.

My name is collin sage,

and this is how you put a bend in a kukri.

[bleep] mother[bleep], [bleep]!

- That's not a technique that's used in my shop.

- [bleep], [bleep], [bleep]. That's it.

- You have just 60 minutes

remaining to finish your blades!

♪ ♪

- I finally get the outside of this thing off,

but the chromium in the ball bearings forms

its own type of strange layer if it's exposed to oxygen,

and that can make delams, and looking at my welds,

that looks like pretty much exactly what happened.

- It looks like mike's pulling out flux.

That's not a good sign. - Not good.

- If spicy mike's pulling out flux,

that means there's cracks or issues in his billet

that he cut out.

- I dump a whole bunch of flux on it.

- That's a lot of flux.

- That's a lot of flux. That's not good at all.

He put it on the whole length of that billet,

so there's probably flaws

going all the way down the length of that.

- I can't turn in a blade with non-welded spots.

It does not look good.

- Mike's screwed.

♪ ♪

- you're now our champion.

You're our selection to compete against

♪ ♪

- I'm drawing it out.

It's starting to not look so good.

There's some delams in there.

- That's a lot of flux. - That's a lot of flux.

That's not good at all.

He put it on the whole length of that billet,

so there's probably flaws

going all the way down the length of that.

- I can't turn in a blade with non-welded spots,

but I still have a lot of work to do,

so I just cross my fingers and hope for the best.

♪ ♪

- the pressure is on in this competition.

To be a super champ, you've gotta walk through hell.

An hour ago, I wasn't sure I was gonna finish,

but just going crazy on big blue,

I have made up some good time.

Now it's time to get to that heat treat.

- There we go.

- Jonathan, the first smith to quench.

- So I set up a straightening jig

so that as soon as I come out of the quench,

I can bring it right over and just clamp it in there

and just let it sit so I don't have any wiggles.

- Jonathan has somehow

come from behind in this competition...

- Yep.

- And overtaken mike's early success.

♪ ♪

- I don't want to jinx myself,

but things are going pretty well,

and I'm good to go.

Straight into the oil it goes.

- Big mike quenching.

♪ ♪

- whoo, doggy! That's a big'un!

It looks like a banana.

I need to go to the grinder.

I hope that I can grind most of this out.

- 30 minutes remaining!

♪ ♪

- so my strong suit's the grinder.

Once I got the billet made out, it really doesn't take me

very long to get it into at least a knife shape.

- The thing that bothers me is

spicy mike didn't really forge a blade.

- Right.

- He just drew out the bar, and now he's grinding it.

So to me, this is stock removal.

- To me, this is the most efficient way to get something

relatively blade-shaped in the shortest amount of time.

- You know, collin kept it

pretty simple on the tang there.

It's just a big rectangle right now.

- Yeah, there's not much to it. - Yeah.

♪ ♪

- yeah, there's a slight, slight warp,

but I'm pretty sure I can grind that out.

- It sounds like a hard blade to me.

- Sounds like a hard blade, yeah.

- [yells]

- five! Four!

Three! Two! One!

Bladesmiths, shut down your machines, drop your tools.

This first round of super champion competition is over.

♪ ♪

- nicely done, man. Nicely done.

- My first time here at "forged in fire,"

I thought that was, like, the hardest thing I had ever done.

After going through round one today, I stand corrected.

♪ ♪

- all right, bladesmiths.

The first round of this super champion

competition has concluded,

and the judges have already evaluated your blades,

and there will be no critiques today.

The judges feel that a super champion

doesn't need to be told how to fix his blade.

♪ ♪

spicy mike, unfortunately, the judges have determined

that your blade did not make the cut,

and j. Neilson's gonna tell you why.

- Spicy mike, you fought hard and you fought long.

We're very proud of what you did.

But you got a big warp in your blade,

you got delaminations,

and it was mostly ground instead of forged to shape,

and that's not what we're looking for in a super champ.

- Spicy mike, we'd like to invite you to shake our hands,

shake your competitors' hands,

and then please exit the forge.

- Everything the judges said was completely accurate,

and I completely agree.

It just was not the work that would be able

to compete with the other competitors.

I definitely didn't prove what I wanted to coming back

for a super champions challenge, but I still had fun.

♪ ♪

- all right, gentlemen.

Well, now that those blades have been tempered,

it's time to turn them into fully functional weapons

by attaching handles to them here in the second round.

You'll have only two hours

in which to complete all of your work.

Now, believe me:

After those handles have been attached,

your weapon's strength and durability

will be tested to the utmost.

Additionally, you must include a mosaic pin,

and I cannot tell you how much

fit and finish really matters in this round.

Good luck. Your two hours starts now.

♪ ♪

- we didn't critique their work,

so if they're gonna be super champ,

they need to fix their own mistakes.

- So they have to be a knife-maker, you're saying.

- Yeah.

- I know that I need to fix that banana shape,

but I decide in time management to go ahead

and get my pin set up.

- I want to mess with glue first,

'cause glue needs time to dry, so mosaic pin.

- A mosaic pin is a hollow pin

that has decorative items inside--

brass, bronze, copper, whatever.

- Collin's mixing something up over here,

but I don't see what he glued anything to.

- They're mosaic pins. - Oh!

- They're making their mosaic pins,

getting those set up first.

- They all made their pins. I forgot about that.

- Thankfully, they didn't.

- I've never done a mosaic pin,

but I've seen a few videos on how it's done,

so I'm just kind of winging it here.

- Jonathan's got one of the heavier blades

out there in the forge.

What do you think, ben? What has he gotta do?

- He needs to grind it down and make it more usable.

He's got a lot of work to do on his handle as well.

It's got some shaping, but it's still a very unrefined handle.

- I know my blade has a few issues

that I'd like to work out.

The goal here is to just remove

that mass that I don't need.

- I think jonathan, even though he's got a lot of work to do,

he's set up in the best position right now

to be our super champ and go against

dave in the finale.

♪ ♪

big mike has got a lot of material.

He's got a big warp.

So there's things he can correct,

but he's gotta focus on those

and get all the other challenges done too.

- I know that I have to get this warp out.

I'm gonna heat it up, put a pin here and a pin here,

and try to push that warp over.

If I can get even just a little bit of that warp out,

I can grind the rest.

♪ ♪

- I have no idea what the tests are gonna be,

so I'm taking some extra precautions here.

I'm gonna glue back the spine,

and this is gonna help kind of ensure

that there's a little bit more shock absorption in the back.

- He's softening the spine, gonna make sure

that if anything were to happen,

it doesn't snap in two.

- That's smart.

- I don't want that thing

to blow apart like the last time.

- Collin's got kind of

a unfinished tang situation going on,

but that should be easily fixed.

- You know, one of the things

that these smiths have to realize,

that in order to beat a judge like dave,

fit, finish, balance.

- I want to shape this tang up a little bit more.

I want to get this thing as close to shape right now

as I can, and then we'll slap those scales on.

- 60 minutes has elapsed!

You have just one hour remaining

to finish your blades!

- The next hour is going to be not so smooth,

not so steady, maybe a little more panic.

- Jonathan's blade looks like it's been

on a little bit of a diet.

It's not quite as thick as it was before.

- If I grind too long,

I'm just gonna run out of time, so the next step is my handle.

I decide to grab some kirinite.

The kirinite has a really cool look to it.

Knowing that fit and finish is of such importance here,

I really need to make sure things

look and feel the best that they can.

♪ ♪

- my steel cannot grind out enough of the warp,

and I look up at the time,

and the time's just running out.

- Mike's been at the grinder for the last 90 minutes.

- You gotta be kidding me.

What do we always say? "time management."

- I get it as straight as I can possibly get it.

I have to live with what I've done and get these scales off.

- Some people always wait to fix the blade,

so you may have a champion blade but a lackluster handle.

Overall, it's not a champion's blade.

- The first time I was on the show,

handles were almost an afterthought,

but not this time.

I did a bright liner

and then put on a really thick, dark material,

and that'll be a good contrast.

I'm trying to take off all the marks that I had.

Is the handle good?

Is it sharp? Is everything coming together?

Is it, is it, is it, is it?

Not enough time.

- Five! Four! Three!

Two! One!

Bladesmiths, shut down your machines!

Drop your tools! This second round is over!

- Dag nabbit, wil, I need another hour, man.

I'm proud that I got it done in that short amount of time,

but I'm not proud about the fit and finish.

♪ ♪

- all right, gentlemen, I told you that fit

and finish is gonna matter more than any other competition

that you've ever been in before.

Only two of you are moving forward

in this super champions competition.

- All three of us put in five hours

of work on this-- blood, sweat, and tears--

and now one of our blades isn't even gonna be tested.

- The bladesmith leaving the forge is...

♪ ♪

in order to become our super champion,

you're gonna have to defeat dave

as you forge your way through this historic weapon.

♪ ♪

- only two of you are moving forward

in this super champions competition.

♪ ♪

big mike, your blade didn't make the cut.

- Big mike, it was a pleasure to watch you work,

and I loved your energy.

- Thank you.

- But time management is one of the big things.

You had to rush that handle at the end,

which left it very rough with a lot of gapping.

That's why we're letting you go.

♪ ♪

- I'm a little disappointed in myself that I didn't

keep track of time like I should.

The warp just took way too much time,

threw me off for two hours.

But this is a super champions episode,

and they raised the bar,

and it takes a little bit more to be a super champion.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- [sighs]

are you [bleep] me right now?

- I see it now.

♪ ♪

- bladesmiths, we promised you a test like nothing

you've ever seen before--

mainly because we haven't done it before.

This is our version of the classic flex test.

You notice your blades

are clamped into this monster already,

and it's holding hundreds of pounds of weight,

which I am going to lower onto your blades

until one of them breaks.

The blade that lasts the longest before breaking

will be moving on.

- [chuckles]

okay.

- Why not. [laughs]

- let's see who survives.

♪ ♪

- when I look at this machine,

it looks like something out of the middle ages

they used to torture witches or something.

- "come on the show," they said.

"come compete for super championship," they said.

J.'s gonna [bleep] destroy our knives.

♪ ♪

- ooh, [bleep].

♪ ♪

[creaking]

♪ ♪

they both holding all of it? - Yeah.

The blades are holding the weight.

- You wanted a couple super champions?

Well, here we are.

- Oh, yeah, baby!

[both laugh]

- you guys really think we're done now?

- No. - No.

Clearly, we picked the right two knives,

but now what we're gonna do

is we're gonna reset this and add more weight.

- There's a lot of tension in the room, but for me,

it's like a release of tension.

I was afraid of my knife breaking,

and now it's gonna break on purpose.

♪ ♪

[creaking]

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- gentlemen, both of your blades were gonna fail

no matter what.

It was just a matter of whose failed first, and I gotta say,

we're impressed with both of your blades' performances.

Jonathan, unfortunately, your blade snapped first,

and for that reason, we have to ask you

to please shake our hands, shake your competitor's hand,

and then please leave the forge.

- I'm still just kind of shocked.

Happy with how my blade performed.

It was very strong--just a little bit too brittle there,

probably on the spine.

My hat's off to collin. He made a great blade.

So I hope he does well with whatever the next challenge is.

To you former champions that are thinking of coming back,

just prepare yourselves.

You really gotta push the limits

of what you've done before

so that you're ready for whatever they throw at you.

♪ ♪

- collin, congratulations.

Over the last two rounds, you've maintained drive,

determination, and the heart of a champion.

However, you're now our champion.

- Collin, congratulations.

In this final round of competition,

you'll be competing against a man

who has 30 years in his industry.

He's provided weapons for "deadliest warrior,"

"ncis," "stan lee's superhumans."

he's a swordsmith.

He's historic weapons

re-creation specialist david baker.

♪ ♪

- hi, dave. - Hey, collin.

How you doing, man?

- Good.

If somebody had asked me,

"you want to compete against dave baker?"

I'd have been like, "no! That's a nightmare.

That's crazy."

oh, [bleep].

- Look here, collin.

In order to become our super champion,

you're gonna have to defeat dave

as you forge your way through this historic weapon.

♪ ♪

the russian cossack world war ii shashka saber.

- Oh, yeah.

♪ ♪

- this shashka saber is an antique

from j. Neilson's personal collection.

Your final challenge is to forge your own versions

of the shashka saber,

and your blades, gentlemen,

must fall within the following parameters:

You must have a fuller on both sides of the blade

that runs to within 7 inches of the tip.

You must also have a brass spacer,

wood handle, bird's head pommel,

leather tassel loop, and leather tassel.

You'll have three days to work on your blades.

It's 30 hours, in this forge.

Collin, dave's created every single weapon

that's sat here for round three, so keep that in mind.

- Dave, got a lot of respect for you, but watch out,

'cause I'm representing the little guys.

That's me, and that's all of them

sitting on these shoulders, and I'm coming for you.

Good luck. We'll see you in 30 hours.

♪ ♪

- so which side do you want?

- You know, I've won 1 1/2 times on this forge over here,

so I'm gonna take this.

- You got it. - Lucky number four.

♪ ♪

- so for the next 30 hours, I'll be building

the world war ii russian cossack shashka saber.

I've never built this weapon. I've always wanted to.

Normally, these bladesmiths duke it out

for the chance to go back to their own shop.

This time, collin's gotta come to my shop.

I hope there's a bit of an intimidation factor.

[laughs]

♪ ♪

- not at home.

And I have to make my shashka saber

better than dave baker's, so no pressure.

♪ ♪

obviously, it has to be damascus.

What I'm planning on doing is making 45 layers,

and then I'm gonna take those, once that's all drawn out,

turn it into ladder damascus, take that damascus,

and stick it on the side of some 80crv2

and make a damascus san mai.

This is a super championship, so I have to take risks.

I can do a simpler blade construction,

but is that to this level?

♪ ♪

- I've managed to do a san mai with 300 layers of damascus

on either side of a 1095 core.

There are risks involved in making damascus--

winding up with delaminations

or cold shuts that you don't find

until the time that you've hammered out an entire blade.

I made a false tang,

and I'm using that to set everything up.

[gasps]

oh, god!

When the blade's done,

I'll make sure that I copy this tang onto that blade,

and everything should just fit right out.

♪ ♪

- what the hell? - What?

- I said, "what the hell?"

you already have a quenched blade.

♪ ♪

I don't need to rush, but at the same time,

dave is so far ahead, I want to try to catch up.

♪ ♪

last-second quench of day one.

I can't tell you how I feel

until tomorrow when I get to touch it.

♪ ♪

so this is the moment of truth, right?

I quenched last night, put it right in this vise.

I just hope it's okay.

- After ten hours, I've got 2/3 of my blade done,

and I still have 2/3 of my time left.

- I don't see any cracks.

- Today, I want to clean up the shoulders of the blade

so I get a super nice, tight fit.

♪ ♪

while I'm polishing the blade, I see a delamination.

♪ ♪

I can see where it starts, and I can see where it ends.

It's not long. It's very small.

So I flex the blade a little bit

to see how deep it goes.

[bleep].

- While I'm polishing the blade,

I see a delamination.

So I flex the blade a little bit

to see how deep it goes.

Pop. I blow that thing apart.

♪ ♪

literally, I experience what smiths go through in this shop

when things don't go right,

and it's a humbling experience.

But I come up with an idea.

I will take my broken blade, chop it up,

throw it in a canister, and draw that out.

My second blade

will have elements of the first blade throughout.

I'm just hoping that crack doesn't come along with it.

The clock on the wall-- it gets in your head.

My goal is to not rush.

Just take a deep breath and make it all come together

as nice as I can make it happen.

♪ ♪

- I have to make sure that the handle is perfect.

I don't stand a chance against dave unless this sword

is just smooth like butter in the hand.

I want to get these pieces rough shaped out

so I can fit them onto the handle

and know that it's all gonna work and come together.

I have absolute confidence

that dave baker can still catch back up

and pass me by the end of today.

♪ ♪

[humming]

♪ ♪

doug.

- Get the hell out of my chair. Let's get to work.

- Oh, jeez. - [laughs]

- so I only have ten more hours

to try to make a blade worthy of super championship.

- We're not down to the wire yet, but we're close.

I thought I'd be further along,

but the hiccup with the first blade set me back.

- The super champion's up here.

I'm still down here.

Is ten hours enough to make the difference?

Hopefully so.

One of the main focuses today

is to get this blade light and fast.

If it's a big weight on the end of a handle,

that's not gonna cut it, so I have to get

as much weight and meat out of it as I can.

- I got to the quench last night,

so I'm a happy camper,

because now I can play catch-up this afternoon.

I'm planning on doing a really deep etch.

Since I made this damascus from other pieces of damascus,

this pattern could be stunning.

It could be really unique.

I don't know.

There's a lot going on. [laughs]

- looks really cool.

♪ ♪

working with dave baker, it's really awesome,

and no matter what happens, he has all of my respect.

♪ ♪

whoop!

It's so much fun when you're done.

- There you go, man.

♪ ♪

- collin, dave, your 30 hours are up,

and it's time for the judges to test your blades,

but first, collin, you're a candidate for super champion.

Tell us about your sword. How'd you make it?

- I took two pieces of 45-layer ladder damascus,

san mai'd that onto a piece of 80crv2.

The handle is antique brass with a walnut handle

that I dyed blood red.

- Dave, tell us about your sword.Ent

- it started out as a 300-layer

each side san mai around a 1095 core,

but I found a crack in that blade,

so I busted that blade up,

created a canister damascus of that 300-layer sword blade.

The handle is brass with a stabilized walnut center.

- All right, all right.

So your blades will be put through a battery of tests

by all three of our judges.

Up first is doug.

♪ ♪

- gentlemen, welcome to the keal test.

I will take your weapon and deliver some killing blows

on this pig carcass.

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

- Yes, sir. - Let's do this.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

good job.

- Collin, well done, sir.

- Thank you.

- The balance is very wieldable.

Every cut with your edge cuts deep.

Overall, sir, your shashka will keal.

- Thank you. - All right, brother.

Are you ready?

- Oh, do that voodoo that you do so well, doug.

- Let's do this.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

the handle is spot-on.

It's perfect fit for my hand.

It's perfect fit for my hand.

The balance of this is very wieldable.

Your weapon, sir, for this test, will keal.

- Thank you, doug. [chuckles]

♪ ♪

- all right, bladesmiths.

This is our combination durability-sharpness test.

I'm gonna start by bashing into these pots.

Then I'm gonna take what's left of your sword

and try to cut into this sheepskin.

Collin, you're up first. You ready?

- Let's do it.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- well, collin, there's just about

no edge damage on this thing.

Your handle, it's a little long for my taste.

That being said, though, it is comfortable,

and all in all, your blade is still nice and straight.

Really well done.

- Thank you. - Dave, you're up.

Are you ready?

I thought you might be.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

well, dave, first off, it's all in one piece.

- Ah.

[laughter]

- your handle is perfectly dimensioned.

It held up really well. Nice job.

- Thank you, sir.

♪ ♪

- dave, collin,

welcome to your final test.

I'm gonna take your swords

and beat them into this bamboo and post.

Then I'm gonna strike at these attacking dummies

in leather vests.

Super champion time. Collin, you ready?

- Yes, sir. - All right, let's do it.

♪ ♪

- this final test is really the destruction test.

I just don't want it to break.

I just don't want my sword to break.

♪ ♪

- this final test is really the destruction test.

I just don't want it to break.

I just don't want my sword to break.

♪ ♪

- [grunting]

♪ ♪

[grunts]

♪ ♪

- [sighs]

- nice job, collin.

I like this sword.

You still got an edge.

And that's some pretty abusive testing there.

- Yeah. Yeah.

- Everything's still tight. Everything's still sharp.

Nice job.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, yeah. Hulk smash. Go.

[laughter]

- all right, dave. Have it your way.

♪ ♪

[grunting]

♪ ♪

[grunts]

♪ ♪

- a little problem, dave. - Yeah. Oh, yeah.

- That sucker's got quite a bend to it.

Steel looks great, though.

For the most part, still has an edge,

but definitely took some deflection the other way.

- Mm-hmm.

♪ ♪

- collin, dave, the judges have completed

their deliberation.

Collin,

you are our

"forged in fire" super champion.

Good job, brother.

- Well done, man.

♪ ♪

- dave, you had a great handle.

Your blade took a couple of warps.

I'm gonna have to ask you to please surrender your blade

and leave the forge.

- I am happy to.

Collin's a wonderful competitor.

I am so impressed with his work.

Biggest piece of advice I can give anybody

doing one of these challenges

is don't worry about that clock.

It's just a distraction.

Just do your work, play your game,

and build the weapon you know you can build.

♪ ♪

- collin,

damn it, look at what you've done.

You are our "forged in fire"

super champion, defeating historic weapons

re-creation specialist david baker.

♪ ♪

- as a super champ, I just want to say:

Don't be afraid.

Courage isn't the absence of fear;

it's doing something in spite of fear.

I'm a super champ,

and I wouldn't be here without my friends,

without my family, without god.

♪ ♪

anyway.

♪ super champ! ♪

♪ got a super champ! ♪

♪ ♪

♪ gonna feel, uh! ♪

feels good.