O.T. "Forged In Fire" knife making contest on TV.

Where do they get some of these clowns? I watched 3 of those shows last night,and they are about my last 3. One guy thought the 9" BLADE LENGTH minimum referred to the total length of the knife(handle and all). He tried to stretch his short blade to 9" until it self destructed.

The first foul up was some guy who said he was the blade maker for some sword co. with 9000 blades to his credit. Said there was NO WAY those others could beat him. He failed first. I think his knife had large cracks in the blade.

Another had never done hollow grinding.

Another said he brought "Design ability" to the show. Proceeded to make a bizarre,shit knife. He amused himself by drawing nude women with swords. They looked like comic book illustrations. His handle broke off while the knife was being tested by hacking blocks of ice. His tang was the size of a pencil.BTW- WHERE DO THEY GET THESE TESTS?

Another guy donked his nearly finished blade on a vise and 1 1/2" of the tip popped off. Several others had long cracks in their knives from overheating the steel before quenching.

One 1 show,they were given a 2" ball bearing to forge into a blade. I don't think most of them knew you weld a long handle onto those AFTER annealing them. One guy was trying to hold his in tongs. And,NO ONE said anything about the fact that 52100 bearing steel DECARBS BADLY if not protected from the air. You have to forge that steel oversize and grind the finished blade from it cool. Then,protect it from air while hardening. Else you get a soft edge.

This show,like others of its ilk(The show about recreating Leonardo DaVinci machines comes to mind) is another display of incompetent guys who apparently get their design ideas out of fantasy comic books.

TV producers are SO FOS!!!!!

ON the overheating

Those studio lights are much brighter than what they normally use in their home shops

That will put off their sense of temperature and make them overheat


That may account for a lot of the cracking.

Most of their home shops seem to consist of home made furnaces in a weed infested corner of their back yards.

3 episodes! I admire your stamina.
I was good for about 30 minutes.
I think some of the clowns were showing too much skin to be mucking about with hot stuff.

gwilson said:

Most of their home shops seem to consist of home made furnaces in a weed infested corner of their back yards.

Click to expand...

That would be Mom's yard.


"It will Keeeilll"

Amazing the crap they put on TV. I was watching a History of the USA,or some such. They got to guns. Kept showing a BROWN BESS MUSKET while talking about the innovation of rifling!!. Then,when talking about the LEVER ACTION rifle,they kept showing the same picture of a .22 automatic!!

Then,somehow they get images reversed,and show guys shooting flintlocks with the lock on the WRONG SIDE.

P.S. I have no problem with using the weed infested corner of the back yard,and a furnace made of a propane bottle(trailer size). I just wish the guys KNEW SOMETHING!!!!

BTW,it is clear that most of those guy AIN'T GETTIN' NONE!! Especially the guy who draws naked women with swords.

gwilson said:

TV producers are SO FOS!!!!!

Click to expand...

And knowing this, you subjected yourself to 3 episodes of the unwatchable show.


Rex

I wanted my wife,who is also a craftsman,to see the BS!!. it had the benefit of watching a comedy show.

Yes,I knew the snide assed,hostile comments would show up. You guys have to fill the bile vacuum left by Matov's departure.

This thread will soon be closed as Milacron will ascribe it as "chit chat".

Normally I had reality TV, but I actually like this show. I think it proves just how little you can actually get done in the allotted time. Most of the knives they make are extremely crude. They only way to make something really nice would be unlimited time or some kind of mass production.

Also, it seems like most of them don't really do any forging or are not comfortable with the process. They must be used to making knives from sheet steel. They generally just forge into a knife shaped lump and then do hours of grinding to get it down to size.

Most of the stuff made in their home shops for the final round looks pretty good.

I had high hopes for the show when I first learned of it. Like you, I stupidly watched several episodes before I realized it wasn't getting any better! Great concept that they could have really taken somewhere, but of course, they instead turned it into the regular TV nonsense. Really sad, so many great craftsmen working in that field, but the media and hollywood always seem to feel the need to portray anyone involved in in the manufacturing of anything, unless using some brand new "high tech" method, as a bunch of backward clumsy fools.

They filmed the Black Gold show in our area, the show about drilling for oil. What a complete joke! Some of the key people that participated (actual oil industry personnel) were chastised by locals for giving our industry a bad name. So many OSHA violations, etc. it wasn't even funny.

But,as they say on Forged In Fire, "It will kill."

I wonder how much of the blame belongs with the TV producers who say "Put that on. I know it is wrong but the viewers won't know the difference." I remember one about flying that listed Charlie Hilliard as a consultant. Charlie was one hell of an acrobatic pilot and a very very nice guy. The show attributed an accident to a kid damaging the nose wheel on a Stearman. For non flyers in the audience, Stearmans ain't got nose wheels. Another one I recall was a narrator referring to bluing a pistol as giving it a coat of blue paint.

I could go until I overloaded Don's hard drives, but enough.

Bill

This kind of stuff happens all the time. I think it's not malicious, they just don't know. Or, they don't have footage that actually explains what happened, so they sub in something else. Car shows do this all the time. The host will say something like "we have to fix the rear suspension mounts on this Camaro.." and they cut to a scene of a guy obviously working on a Mustang.

I watched the first episode until the 2 min rum commercial, had enuf. It's an entertainment show, not an instructional video. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of it is designed and scripted by the producers for maximum drama and effect. Like who forges with bare arms?!? And the guy who breaks off his tip (Freudian?), what the hell was he banging the blade on the vise for? That's what I do in a demo to show how brittle dead hard steel is. I have to believe that was planned.

He didn't even donk the knife hard on the vise. Just a few casual donks and the tip went clink on the floor. Revealing the coarse,burnt structure of the steel.

Milacron must be taking his morning nap!!!

They figure without drama no one would watch the show .
I walked in the other day and wife was watching that show . Guy is quenching his blade in oil , no gloves , burns himself . Next scene a guy is pounding on the anvil , no safety glasses .
Putting a time constraint on the participants is another way to add drama .
There's real life and there's TV .

the whole idea of forging a knife in a short time is a laugh. this show unfortunately makes all knifemakers look like buffons and dimwits.
I have been making knives for about 4 years. I do not forge, i do stock removal. currently most of my work is with starrett O1 and sheffield O1. i do not use a propane tank forge for heat treat, i have a Lindberg muffle furnace and a Carbolite tube furnace. I do not use a blend of automatic transmission fluid and bacon fat to quench, i use quench from Fuchs. i know several makers who were contacted by the producers of the show, all said "thanks but not thanks" after reading the fine print.
here is a documentary to watch "Secrets of the Viking Sword" NOVA - Official Website | Secrets of the Viking Sword
scott

I saw one guy get the steel white hot and quench it. Amazing how much fire he produced!

On the bright side, if it inspires people to make something with their hands....can you really complain?

Yeah, it's BS. But what other TV show isn't? Ever watch "Fat guys in the woods?" that show cracks me up! The main character is an a$$hole and the other three "Guests" are overweight accountants trying to better themselves and their lifestyle....by making fire in the woods using sub-par techniques while being screamed at by someone else.

I grew up watching "Junkyard Wars." Now that was a great show.

Have not bothered to watch any and from the sounds of things probably should not.
But putting the clueless on TV to make blades is just idiotic, They could have made a show on the Japanese knife making industry - some serious history there and able to turn out a handmade finished product for roughly $200 (plus or minus the proverbial elephant). I think Murray Carter has a video out on forging a knife start to finish in about an hour. He plainly says at the end that it is rough and not to his standards, just done to show what is possible. He is a Japanese trained master.
Paul