Thoughts on Forged in fire

Atlas Knife Company said:
Did anyone else think that Matt's katana was air cooled stainless, or was he going for bainite? When he pulled it out of the HT column and let it sit there, I was a little baffled.
Click to expand...

Not air cooled stainless, but that could have been a normalizing heat. Looked like he was using a salt pot.
 
Hey, Tracy: New 3-hour contest at the hammer-in this year?

Yeah, I first thought salt-pot because it looks just like Howard Clark's salt-pot. When he pulled it out and just let it hang there and they were talking about 600°, I started to wonder.

Here's some of the behind the scenes videos for us makers:

[youtube]eIJl0s0PJRk[/youtube]
[youtube]dfE6g_uTEWU[/youtube]
 
Last edited:
pwheeler said:
I don't really understand the motivation in rushing the guys.
Click to expand...

Because every stupid reality show does that.

There's an impossible task and an impossible time limit and we just don't know how to cope, what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do
 
JZknives said:
I still think you guys should get a bunch of guys together and do a group letter to the history channel on good suggestions that can still make the show better.

What do you guys think would be a good competitive timeframe in which to make a knife in the format of this show? 3 hours seems silly. Would 8 hours be good? What about 5?

Or should they dump the time format all together and just do a "3 day" challenge and include "aesthetics" into the judging since the knives will likely hold up for any strength testing?

You guys are missing an oppurtunity to really drive home good suggestions. It wont make it for the first season. but if its successful , which im sure its going to be. There will be a second season. And you could improve the show 10 fold.

Get organizing
Click to expand...

I got involved in this project from the casting notice on IG. That's where I post most of my work and WIP's. I didn't see the casting notice here. I requested the information because I made a short film with a local producer here in Vegas who wanted to start a project exactly like the notice and thought it was his project. I quickly found out, it was two completely different people who somehow had came to the same idea on the show. I get text messages now from the Vegas producer who originally wanted to do a show similar to Forged in Fire, for something he thinks he can sell a show based off this show.

So because of Forged in Fire wheels are already turning for something new.

One idea I bounced off the producers head was similar to Faceoff. To save money though we don't live in a dorm or work in a central building and have dozens of complete knifemaking stations, but each contestant works out of their own shop. All contestants are giving parameters to make a knife. Let's say a bushcraft knife. After the knife is completed their judged on performance, fit, and finish. Unfortunately someone has to lose. Or do a running tally. You lost this match do better on the next. Have a weekly challenge for the participants. One week its a bushcraft knife, next week a fillet knife, (don't laugh those things can be difficult), next week a bowie knife, chef knife, straight razor, etc... That would be more like the deadliest catch series. In the end who ever did the best overall is the winner that year. Next year either the same people, more people, or completely different people.

Anybody else have any suggestions.
 
A show similar to "Biker Build Off", but with knives, would be awesome. You get plenty of time and then your work is judged. Work out of your own shop and we could see more of the process. Kinda like what Jimmy was talking about.
 
Don Hanson III said:
They never said or covered any heat treating on the first 4 blades. I suspect with all the bright lights needed for the show the guys over heated their blades in the forge, both forging & at time of quench.
Click to expand...

I believe you're right.

If they are getting fireballs on the quench, oil was at least an option.



Edit, I just watched the behind the scenes qucnch clip, they had both.
 
Last edited:
jimmyseymour said:
I got involved in this project from the casting notice on IG. That's where I post most of my work and WIP's. I didn't see the casting notice here. I requested the information because I made a short film with a local producer here in Vegas who wanted to start a project exactly like the notice and thought it was his project. I quickly found out, it was two completely different people who somehow had came to the same idea on the show. I get text messages now from the Vegas producer who originally wanted to do a show similar to Forged in Fire, for something he thinks he can sell a show based off this show.

So because of Forged in Fire wheels are already turning for something new.

One idea I bounced off the producers head was similar to Faceoff. To save money though we don't live in a dorm or work in a central building and have dozens of complete knifemaking stations, but each contestant works out of their own shop. All contestants are giving parameters to make a knife. Let's say a bushcraft knife. After the knife is completed their judged on performance, fit, and finish. Unfortunately someone has to lose. Or do a running tally. You lost this match do better on the next. Have a weekly challenge for the participants. One week its a bushcraft knife, next week a fillet knife, (don't laugh those things can be difficult), next week a bowie knife, chef knife, straight razor, etc... That would be more like the deadliest catch series. In the end who ever did the best overall is the winner that year. Next year either the same people, more people, or completely different people.

Anybody else have any suggestions.
Click to expand...
I dont know about your production budget , but if you can get good graphic/cgi designers to explain the chemistry that is going on that would be groundbreaking. Like to explain normalization , annealing , hamons all that crazy stuff. Lots of science , but not alot of visuals to go around to really explain it to people who have no idea what they are looking at.

It would also be cool if you did challenges where no modern tooling is allowed. Base the challenge on the type of blade , and the time period they were produced.

So you could have one special where you have to take garbage inferior iron ore from japan , and then use a charcoal furnace to increase the carbon content , then after that do everything by hand to end up with a katana (hand polishing and all , not many people know katanas are made shiny via rubbing rocks on the blade!)

Same thing with ancient damascus (not pattern welded , actual damascus or "wootz" as its known now sort of)

Like mixing history in there with some of the challenges , but still having challenges that are top of the line technology.

just to mix it up.

but i like the face/off mention. That , in my opinion is a better direction. But you still have time limits that can really mess the quality up. but getting away from the whole "OMG ZOMBIE SLAYER KNIFE THAT CAN PIERCE BARRELS AND CUT WATER BOTTLES" is extremely good way to take the show.
 
Last edited:
everyone should consider one thing while suggesting all the what ifs. the only person getting paid is the guy who wins the challenge. most knife makers that I know cannot go more than about a month without a paycheck. Some of your suggestions would take several months of filming working one blade to finish. also this is a fairly low budget show so there is no way the production company will pay te number of crews for the length of time needed to do something in depth or historically accurate.

For right now my opinion is that it is not the worst reality type show out there, Hell I was able to watch the entire thing without too much disgust. and for the short time that all the episodes were filmed in ~ three weeks for the entire season, it is better than expected.
 
Saying that this show is not bad for reality TV is kind of like saying that you are dating the prettiest girl on the Oberlin College field hockey team. It's all relative. :D With that said, I may not be the only person who, when asked by a potential customer if I do it like the guys on "Forged in Fire" might be inclined to say that I do things similarly, but because am not time constrained by the logistics of television, I do it more slowly and with more attention to detail rather than going off on a rant. ;)
 
Looks like we have a new show. All we need is a money guy to come up with around a half million to a million dollars and we should be able to get a more detailed show filmed. Selling it to a network is another story. I looked into this a few years ago and visited with a friend that was general manager of a local TV station that had 40 years in the business.

Many of these shows are not commissioned by a network. They are put together by investors backing a production company -- ie money guys. They hire another production company to film a few test episodes, than take those episodes to a convention of sorts where hundreds of other shows have booths, "talent" and representatives trying to sell their show to possible buyers. That is why you see so many two or three episode reality shows. These are tests shows to see if a network will order/buy a season of them. Some initial episode investments are larger based on the concept, the track record of the filming/editing production company and likelyhood of commercial success. I think Forged in Fire filmed 8 initial episodes which is a big investment for these kinds of ventures.

If they can sell the test episodes and new episodes to an independent or cable network, they film some more. Payment to producers for these shows is free minutes commercial time that then have to be sold by the producers through an ad agency to realize any income. The network/independent also gets x number minutes of commercial time per half hour and they sell those directly or through their ad agency. There are lots of fingers in the pie but the dollars are significant especially if a show is picked up by a network or is syndicated.
 
I liked the show. Of course it's going to be excitable nail biting competitive and climactic. They try to do the same thing with following around gold diggers on TV (so I assume), you need suspense to keep you tuned in through the commercials. It's actually better than I thought it would be.
 
tmickley said:
Looks like we have a new show. All we need is a money guy to come up with around a half million to a million dollars and we should be able to get a more detailed show filmed. Selling it to a network is another story. I looked into this a few years ago and visited with a friend that was general manager of a local TV station that had 40 years in the business.

Many of these shows are not commissioned by a network. They are put together by investors backing a production company -- ie money guys. They hire another production company to film a few test episodes, than take those episodes to a convention of sorts where hundreds of other shows have booths, "talent" and representatives trying to sell their show to possible buyers. That is why you see so many two or three episode reality shows. These are tests shows to see if a network will order/buy a season of them. Some initial episode investments are larger based on the concept, the track record of the filming/editing production company and likelyhood of commercial success. I think Forged in Fire filmed 8 initial episodes which is a big investment for these kinds of ventures.

If they can sell the test episodes and new episodes to an independent or cable network, they film some more. Payment to producers for these shows is free minutes commercial time that then have to be sold by the producers through an ad agency to realize any income. The network/independent also gets x number minutes of commercial time per half hour and they sell those directly or through their ad agency. There are lots of fingers in the pie but the dollars are significant especially if a show is picked up by a network or is syndicated.
Click to expand...

I made my short film on a budget of 5000.00 Turned out pretty good for 5 grand. I have all my own sound, and lighting equipment. I have a decent camcorder but would rather rent a decent camera like a C300 or C500 like they used in making this TV show. If we come up with a decent idea getting a production company to make a pilot will not be that hard. We just have to do our part, and put in the sweat equity and give them something to run with. Plus their is always kickstarter. Look at the great videos Walter Sorrels put out.
 
I missed this show... intentionally. Oddly enough, nothing anyone said up to now has given me any interest in failing to miss it in the future. :D
 
jimmyseymour said:
I made my short film on a budget of 5000.00 Turned out pretty good for 5 grand. I have all my own sound, and lighting equipment. I have a decent camcorder but would rather rent a decent camera like a C300 or C500 like they used in making this TV show. If we come up with a decent idea getting a production company to make a pilot will not be that hard. We just have to do our part, and put in the sweat equity and give them something to run with. Plus their is always kickstarter. Look at the great videos Walter Sorrels put out.
Click to expand...

Youtube.

Man at Arms on youtube gets about 1 million views per vid on average. I believe if you are a Youtube partner you get a few dollars for every 1000 views. So you can make a decent buck if you either put out a ton of content that gets decent viewership or just a few amazing videos that get a large amount of viewers.
 
Well, I watched it last night ( was at a meeting the first episode, but was made familiar with the shows content). I had an open mind and put aside all my pre-expectations. By the end, I was saying to my self, "Its only a TV show for entertainment. It isn't a real competition."

My first thought was that these guys don't seem to know how a hammer works. After an hour one was still pounding the tip of a file blade. Cracked blades, wrong size knife, "sudden medical emergencies", trash talk......Oh boy! When the blacksmith switched from knife to a wall hanger fantasy hand axe with pieces of horn hanging off the back ( held on with nails) I gave up hope. When the 9" OAL knife was replaced at 7 minutes time left, to become a smashed RR spike knife...I was done. I guess it isn't all that real.....no, I guess it isn't real at all.

Observations -
I saw no HT at all, but considering the problems, I would assume water was what they had.
There was definitely some time shifting in the editing that made some things look to be different than real time.
The home forge shots were also edited to make the winner look like he was having problems bending hot steel, while the guy with the big shop had all sorts of jigs and tools. As Gomer Pyle would have said - "Surprise, surprise, surprise...the poor underdog wins!"


I watched about 15 minutes of "Woodsmen" waiting for the show to start. It was one of the stupidest reality shows I ever saw. It made the forging show look really good in comparison.

I think the mass audience will like the show. It is annoying to folks who forge because they see all the deliberate flaws and errors that are done to look good for the camera.

I have to say that it looked rather scripted. I seemed like a day before the filming they drew straws and the producers said, OK, you guys make what you want, but Mr. A will make a poorly made knife that will fail the tests, Mr. B breaks his blade at the last second and has nothing to submit...he is out first, Mr. C is clueless and makes the wrong thing and then makes something crazy, and poor humble Mr. D makes a good blade, toughs it out, and becomes the winner. His main task is to look appropriately shocked in the end.

Comments on the winner:
He took the best material on the table for a quick and dirty big knife - a farrier's rasp. Good enough metal and known to be tough. Also easy to shape into a knife and HT.
He stayed simple - Basic fighter knife shape with krinite handle. File teeth accents on a heavy and tough blade edge. Best use of time. At his simple shop he used simple shaping techniques. He made a simple sharp ring shaped weapon and added just a dash of accenting. Only real negative is that he should never take up acting, as his "surprise face" at the final decision was not very believable.

Comments on the runner-up - He had serious metal working skills. He spent all his time on accents, whistles and bells, and almost none on making a usable battle blade. I guess he didn't know this was a edged weapon competition. Gee, you would have thought that was explained in the instructions and interviews leading up to his selection. He should also stick to blacksmithing ( which he clearly is good at) because his tears of sadness at loosing were about as real as the winners surprised look.


Did anyone else think the shot of the smith dripping water on his hot blade after forging seemed like a deliberate attempt to crack it at the ricasso? That crack in the blade was clearly there long before he had shaped the bevels as far as he had when he suddenly "discovered" the flaw.



What a show like this often has as a second purpose besides entertainment is to make people who forge say, "Hey, I can do a better job than that!"
It certainly made me feel like my skills had gone up a notch.

I hope it makes for a surge in people taking up forging and an interest in the hand forged blade.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top