The anxiety is finally over..

Well, (at least in the U.S.) my episode of Forged in Fire has aired. I would love to not give a spoiler for our international friends but I’m going to. Lol

I didn’t win. I was eliminated in the first round.

The judges were fair, knowledgeable, and gracious with their critique. I fought hard, but it just wasn’t my day.

We were tasked with making a Bowie style knife with a d guard handle from a really thick bar of 5160 high carbon steel.

Luckily, we weren’t given any weird, junk yard steel. That isn’t uncommon on this show, but it was still a thick bar.

I used a hand hammer for the majority of the time to shape my blade. I don’t know if it was nerves, or feeling the pressure of the 3 hour time limit, but I went to framming on that joker like a madman. I had a good shape to the blade, and things seem to go pretty well until the heat treat. From my perspective, the steel looked like the right color and the right temperature. When watching it on camera, it was not, and you can tell just by looking at it. I ended up quenching my blade three times to get it hardened properly. That really threw my timing off.

I then started to grind and polish it. The problem is that I went apeshit with the hammer and put some fairly deep hammer marks in the steel. Normally that isn’t a problem, you just keep grinding until they are gone and the blade is smooth. BUT!!! I was on a time limit and the quench hurdle cut into my grinding time. So, at the end of the round, my blade was not quite as finished or polished as the others.

After I came home, I made a comparable blade from the same type of steel. It take me just a bit longer than 3 hours to complete, but this is what I came up with.

I want to thank you all for reading our blog and following along with us. The outpouring of support has been wonderful.

I also want to thank Andrew, Tom, and Tim for some greatlooking competition and for our new friendships.

Jay Nielsen, David Baker, Doug Marcaica (the judges), and Wil Willis ( the host) were all absolutely great and I thank you, gentleman.

All the staff with Outpost Entertainment were absolute professionals and super impressive with the process.

But most importantly, the person I want to thank….is the person that I couldn’t do any of this without, and the person I do all of this for……my lovely, beautiful, witty, wicked smaht…Maria. Thank you, and I love you baby.

There will always be more adventures with Maria and I, we hope you come along for the ride!

All the best,

Chad