"Forged In Fire" on TV: Any thoughts?

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VorpelSword

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During periods of pandfemic confinement I have watched various episodes of "Forged In Fire" on The History Channel. It appeares tohave been on for as couple of yeasrs alreadyt. Any thoughts on what, if any, influence this show has had on knife making?
 
Realizing that it's just a one-hour show: they just don't have enough time to get into the finer points of forging...
(heat treatment, and tempering)
But we watch it every week.
 
I think in general, the show only appeals to knife people. People that are not interested in knives would probably just flip past the show.

There have been a couple "known" makers appear on the show - Max from Zombie Tools was a competitor on one of the episodes, as was Burt Foster.

It is an interesting show, but I really think the appeal is limited. The fact that it has been on for several seasons now leads me to believe that I may be wrong however, or there are a lot of knife people out there.

I don't think the program shows much in the way of ground breaking innovations in the forging world, but it does show some of the challenges of making a blade completely from scratch.

The hosts and judges are very charismatic. I met Doug Marcaida several years ago, as well as Wil Willis.
 
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I watched for a few episodes but got tired of the silly obstacles in the challenges. I'd prefer to see knifemakers who make similar styles of blades working on something they are experts at. Instead, the format forces them to try a method or use materials to make an obscure knife style they've never tried before....."OK! You will have 3 hours to make a bat'leth out of old tuna fish cans!"

I'm sure they do this to ensure dramatic catastrophic failures, but that's not interesting to me.
 
To me, it's primarily background entertainment. I never could get into the new host after WhiskeyWhiskey left, and at some point, I'm just tired of watching J. Nielson or Ben Abbott smash perfectly good knives into things that NO knife would take and that no real knife person would ever do. So, I don't really follow the show like I used to.

All that said, I've met most of the hosts of the show, and many contestants at BLADE shows over the years. Good folks, I just think I'm jaded due to the fact that there's what, eight seasons of the show? I've watched all of it except for most of Season 8.
 
I was disappointed to see that in some cases the competition ended when something broke off. Another issue for me is that many of the winning knives are, well, rough. That is a result of the one-hour format of course. Seems that most of the "weapons" are larger than any knife I have ever worn on a belt or used, except for a Machete perhaps.

However, I do like the attempt to test the blades in real-world challenges. It would be nice to see these sorts of tests done on production and custom knives on a regular basis side-by-side. Maybe another series could be spun-off for tis.

Surrendering my Man-Card for a minute: I have watched a fashion-oriented TV series with my spouse called "Project Runway" A lot like "Forged In Fire" except they start with many emerging fashion designers and it lasts for weeks.. One designer is eliminated each week. At the end of the season, the overall winner and the finalists participate in a fashion show in NYC (pre-pandemic). Real world work in a real world setting with careers on the line.

RE-boot: I think the Forged In fire show would be much better for the knife making world with a model that parallels the Project Runway model.
 
VorpelSword said:
I was disappointed to see that in some cases the competition ended when something broke off. Another issue for me is that many of the winning knives are, well, rough. That is a result of the one-hour format of course. Seems that most of the "weapons" are larger than any knife I have ever worn on a belt or used, except for a Machete perhaps.

However, I do like the attempt to test the blades in real-world challenges. It would be nice to see these sorts of tests done on production and custom knives on a regular basis side-by-side. Maybe another series could be spun-off for tis.

Surrendering my Man-Card for a minute: I have watched a fashion-oriented TV series with my spouse called "Project Runway" A lot like "Forged In Fire" except they start with many emerging fashion designers and it lasts for weeks.. One designer is eliminated each week. At the end of the season, the overall winner and the finalists participate in a fashion show in NYC (pre-pandemic). Real world work in a real world setting with careers on the line.

RE-boot: I think the Forged In fire show would be much better for the knife making world with a model that parallels the Project Runway model.
Click to expand...
FiF is modeled after the Food Network show Chopped.
 
Danke42 said:
I'm pitching a hybrid version of Forged in Fire/Cutthroat Kitchen but no takers yet.
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If it involves the Chefs forging their cutlery in a pizza oven count me in!
Extra points are awarded to the winner of the knife fight finale scene...
 
badmatt said:
Maybe I said it the wrong way.

Its a reality show that doesn't educate people?

Better?
Click to expand...

No not really, because that’s just plain false. Is it as good as a multi day course on forging? Of course not, but when I was first getting into knives as a hobby it gave me a lot of language for things I’d seen but didn’t know what it was called. All you need to say is that you don’t enjoy it cause it doesn’t offer you more than what you already know. Saying it’s bad for the knife community or doesn’t educate people is just false.
 
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