Thoughts on Forged in fire

And more than a few of them got surprise visits from the ATF and the state beverage officers!!!!! :eek:
Atlas Knife Company said:
Wow, I think you're in for a shock. I know of several people that went and bought Mr Distiller or Mile-Hi stills after watching moonshiners. The vast majority produce the equivalent of canned chicken and microwaved souffle, or worse, and they think it is awesome. It's only those that spent their due reading on the message boards that produce a decent product. Likewise, the vast majority of people are going to think that what we're seeing on TV is representative of custom knives and will try to replicate such.
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Atlas Knife Company said:
Wow, I think you're in for a shock. I know of several people that went and bought Mr Distiller or Mile-Hi stills after watching moonshiners. The vast majority produce the equivalent of canned chicken and microwaved souffle, or worse, and they think it is awesome. It's only those that spent their due reading on the message boards that produce a decent product. Likewise, the vast majority of people are going to think that what we're seeing on TV is representative of custom knives and will try to replicate such.
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I wish this forum had a like button.
 
are any of the guys who participated still in contact with history?

They should bring up these ideas.

I want to see REAL custom knives. I have never seen a REAL master blade smith pound out a work of art outside of youtube. I want to see this
 
Atlas Knife Company said:
Wow, I think you're in for a shock. I know of several people that went and bought Mr Distiller or Mile-Hi stills after watching moonshiners. The vast majority produce the equivalent of canned chicken and microwaved souffle, or worse, and they think it is awesome. It's only those that spent their due reading on the message boards that produce a decent product. Likewise, the vast majority of people are going to think that what we're seeing on TV is representative of custom knives and will try to replicate such.
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Lol, Atlas brother, you're talking about schmucks. Long before this show aired people were posting their sharpened lawnmower blades with 550 wrapped around one end and arguing how its a knife but they messed up the choil placement. We just don't understand their vision or the benefits of a skinner with a square profile :D

I like cooking and good food and discuss it often. I have never had a conversation about food and came across someone who thinks a $100 a plate dinner is canned or microwaved because of something they saw on Chopped!
 
jdm61 said:
A bit much with the artsy "stupid camera tricks" but Mr. Bush is a very talented fellow.
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I know right! I said the same thing while watching it, "What's with all the dang 'artsy' fartsy camera shots?!" They probably took up half the vid!.. :thumbdn: And I was looking foward to watching a nice long vid of a great bladesmith at work (since it's rare I haven't already seen a vid like this on youtube :D ), however I get 20 second long shots of dripping water and watching the very bottom of a contact wheel spinning for another 20 etc. :barf: lol. I think I'm more dissapointed with that than I am with forged in fire, since at least it was meant to show the "working" of a great bladesmith.. Oh well.. back to the topic at hand then. :p

~Paul
My YT Channel Lsubslimed
 
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Owen's awesome. I thought this was well done. I fear it would only appeal to a very small percentage of us, though.

Rody said:
If you want to see what a show without music, hype or even commentary looks like:

[video=youtube;kPpmj8RoAyY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPpmj8RoAyY[/video]

CHeers rody
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I think the problem with comparing this show to Chopped, and there's an obvious comparison to draw, is the time given in relation to the time needed. It is possible to cook a very nice meal in an hour. However, on Forged in Fire, they're being asked to cook a pot roast in an hour and that only allows failure to be displayed. Hopefully, in the second season, they'll take note of some of the things discussed here and make some changes.

Augus7us, I know what you're saying. I really enjoyed the time a knifemaker at a show explained how carbon wasn't necessary to hold an edge and how his RR Spikes held an edge better than 1095.
 
I'm just going to agree with Lorien and his friends words. As a contestant I debated the pros and cons of doing the show both for my own meager reputation and more importantly this craft I love that has done so much for me. When I met my fellow contestants I was greeted as a peer, as a brother by other craftsmen with a love for what we do. All of them had the same concerns as I. They were incredibly nervous, we had no idea what we were walking into, they're biggest concern was not how they would look but how the show would portray our craft and the people in it. For some of them it was so much so that it effected their performance which is unfortunate because I looked at their work and it's fantastic. We were worried the show was going to make our craft of Bladesmithing and Blacksmithing look like a joke. But here's the twist it doesn't those at the show seem to be doing their best not to, trying to focus on the nature of the competition and keep it entertaining for the viewer. They have gone out of their way to portray us well. Our peers however, that is another story all together. The real embarrassment here is how you are behaving, attacking your fellow makers and enthusiasts the way you have makes me sick. You have no idea what those guys were going through, but you have made at least one of their nightmares come true. To be attacked by the people they respect and admire in some cases look up to. Judging people off the limited screenshots of a tv show that are often out of order under circumstances you are clueless about projecting a shitty elitist attitude like your way of making a blade is the only way. Let me remind you there are a lot of ways to make a blade a lot wrong ways as well but there is no one way. Your the embarrassment to the craft, your critical monday morning quarterbacking elitist attitude is what is embarrassing and I'm glad the " unwashed masses " as someone put it are not on most of our "community" forums to see it. I am not the greatest Bladesmith in the world nor do I want to be. I do this because I love it, I do this to be better tomorrow than I am today. Words are not my strong suite but I can not watch my fellow craftsmen be treated this way. I have always found other makers to be incredibly supportive of each other please remember that and what we are truly about.
 
Csfarrell, It seems like the majority of the criticism is towards the format of the show, not the bladesmiths. It is a tall order what y'all are being asked to do. I just wish the show would've been formatted to show off the skills of the contestants.
 
For the sake of context in Chris's response, here, I've quoted the post Lorien made in a similar thread that Chris alludes to:

Lorien said:
That sounds like a positive repurcussion to me!

No one is born a custom knife enthusiast, that's a learned thing and we all start somewhere, the guy you talked to might have started while watching the show. In 5 years, he might call you back and place an order for a $3000 knife.

I think some of you might be losing sight of the bigger picture here, and that's totally understandable. How many top chefs do you think take Chopped or Hell's Kitchen seriously? As professionals, it's super easy for you guys to see through the spectacle of the thing and pick apart every aspect. But to the layperson, who didn't even know that PEOPLE make knives before seeing them do so on tv, this kind of stuff can help to open minds...and wallets!

Just think of it this way; say 20 000 people who know nothing of custom cutlery watch this show. Of that, do you think it's reasonable to assume that up to 5% of them might follow up with a call to a knife maker, a visit to an online purveyor, discovery of Bladeforums? That's 1000 people! These are arbitrary numbers that I'm pulling out of my ass. But consider the resources behind this show; the demographic surveys, viewer surveys etc... a lot of time and money was invested with the expectation of a return- this stuff is never done on a lark, and is always done to generate profit.

And please also consider the risk and investment by those who've chosen to participate. I personally feel like these guys should be commended for sticking their necks out, and they should be encouraged by their peers to succeed.

As for the weapons slant the show has, I personally agree with Mr. Long in a sense. But....just consider how this approach might have been arrived upon. Viewer surveys, demographic studies etc. I think it's safe to say that, generally speaking, Americans LOVE weapons! Now, I'd prefer watching a show that portrays the creation of knives as tools, but I know that consumers of programs like this are less likely to be engaged by that angle, and the job of any source of entertainment is to engage as many as possible to the point of saturation.

I pulled the following from a friend's facebook feed, (without permission :) ), and I think it merits a read;

I have to say that I’m a little bit disappointed to read the comments that are streaming in. Especially from other custom makers.

Before making the decision to be part of the show, I spent a lot of time talking to fellow smiths about their thoughts on the show, both negative and positive. Almost unanimously, the feedback I got was extreme skepticism and negativity about how they will represent us personally, as craftsmen, as a representative of our trade, the quality of our work and what it will do to our reputations as makers.

Based on all the competition/“reality” bull-shit, shit-show television out there, I have to say that I was on the same side of things.

Sadly, I’m seeing the exact negativity and reputation bashing that we were afraid of right here. We’re doing it to ourselves. If this is how we’re treating each other, what keeps them from doing the same and most likely worse? Not just to us and our trade, but on future shows to other makers and other trades?

Everything I’ve heard from non-makers and folks completely unfamiliar with our craft has been nothing but positivity and awe. By talking shit here and tearing our fellow craftsmen apart we’re setting an incredibly poor example that does nothing but turn us into the evil we feared would befall us.

This is our opportunity to stand together and show the entertainment powers that be, that though we may not agree with choices made, techniques or actions taken, we stand together and applaud our fellow makers for putting forth their best efforts with what they had to work with.

You’ve chosen to or not to be part of the show, and whether we wanted it or not, the show was going to be made. You may not appreciate me, the rest of our representation on the show or even the show itself, but as fellow craftsmen of bladesmithing, I believe we need to show the world that we are an honorable trade and that we stand together.
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Chris, about an hour before your response I got the chance to watch episode one streaming from the History Channel website. I have to admit, although there was quite a lot of the goofiness that the knifemaking community is charged up about (mystery steel, lighting issues that correspond to inconsistent heat treat, etc), all of you handled yourselves extremely well and represented our community with gusto.
Are the challenges contrived? Yeah, but I'm not sure they wouldn't feel like that regardless of what was finally decided upon. Perhaps, though, if this gets continued into another season, changes can be made that will benefit all.

I know you've got skin in the game, and are likely feeling as if these criticisms are personal attacks - to be expected, I guess - but, just like for you, this is a delicate subject for most of us. Knifemakers tend to view their calling VERY passionately, and I suspect we're treating the topic more like someone criticizing our child. :)

My hat is off to those that participated in this series, and chose to be the faces of bladesmithing to an uninitiated viewing public.
 
Matthew,
Thanks for sharing the Owen Bush video. Amazing videography, and blade smithing. I really enjoyed it and it made this whole string worth plodding through!
 
I watched the show, and will continue to watch the show because;

It's about blade making, duh.

It has a slant toward weapons. (I'm not all that PC and will readily admit that I like the weapon aspect of a knife just as much as I do the tool aspect.)

It is better than most of what else is on, not a particularly high bar and I don't really watch much TV.

And low and behold through the silliness of what is reality/game show TV, I learned something already. When Trenton the Blacksmith, I think that is what he said, made the form for the chakram, don't think I didn't mentally file that away for the future. I also thought the chakram was a really cool choice for a weapon to make and showcase. I do wonder what type of steel they used, what the final dimensions were, and how they HT'd them without warp or how they straightened them if they did warp. (Big plate quench?)

Finally, my kids liked it. Chad, when I told my kids (9 and 10 yrs old) you had chimed in on here they said that they felt really bad for you because that first knife was looking really good and they would have like to have seen what kind of handle you would have put on it. Even cooler though was the teachable moment that this presented. We got to talk about how to persevere, even when the task becomes impossible. And better yet how it is okay not to win especially when you demonstrate such grace and dignity at a disappointing exit. All the contestants have shown that but you are who prompted the discussion. Very cool.
 
What happened, happened , it is what it is, thanks guys I would have like to shown a nice finished knife too
 
Jonathans said:
Matthew,
Thanks for sharing the Owen Bush video. Amazing videography, and blade smithing. I really enjoyed it and it made this whole string worth plodding through!
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Actually, I was quoting Rody in that post - he posted it. Regardless, good to hear it hit a mark.
 
Well said csfarrell and it needed to be said, but I feel the criticism here is aimed at the show and not the contestants. I have huge respect for any maker who signed up to do a show like this!
 
CSFarrell, I only see one post criticizing the contestants on the show, and when he was corrected he quickly apologized, sincerely. I think the biggest criticism is that they introduce the contestants, tell how long they've been making blades, but never show the amazing quality work they are capable of. Just for our own curiosity, could you give us a link to some of your work? I really enjoyed showing my wife Chad's work after she watched the show.
 
csfarrell said:
I'm just going to agree with Lorien and his friends words. As a contestant I debated the pros and cons of doing the show both for my own meagre reputation and more importantly this craft I love that has done so much for me.

When I met my fellow contestants I was greeted as a peer, as a brother by other craftsmen with a love for what we do. All of them had the same concerns as I. They were incredibly nervous, we had no idea what we were walking into, they're biggest concern was not how they would look but how the show would portray our craft and the people in it.

For some of them it was so much so that it affected their performance which is unfortunate because I looked at their work and it's fantastic.

We were worried the show was going to make our craft of Bladesmithing and Blacksmithing look like a joke.
But here's the twist it doesn't those at the show seem to be doing their best not to, trying to focus on the nature of the competition and keep it entertaining for the viewer.
They have gone out of their way to portray us well.

Our peers however, that is another story all together. The real embarrassment here is how you are behaving, attacking your fellow makers and enthusiasts the way you have makes me sick.

You have no idea what those guys were going through, but you have made at least one of their nightmares come true.

To be attacked by the people they respect and admire in some cases look up to. Judging people off the limited screenshots of a tv show that are often out of order under circumstances you are clueless about projecting a shitty elitist attitude like your way of making a blade is the only way.

Let me remind you there are a lot of ways to make a blade a lot wrong ways as well but there is no one way.
You're the embarrassment to the craft, your critical Monday morning quarter-backing elitist attitude is what is embarrassing and I'm glad the " unwashed masses " as someone put it are not on most of our "community" forums to see it.

I am not the greatest Bladesmith in the world nor do I want to be. I do this because I love it, I do this to be better tomorrow than I am today. Words are not my strong suite but I can not watch my fellow craftsmen be treated this way. I have always found other makers to be incredibly supportive of each other please remember that and what we are truly about.
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Matt R said:
Csfarrell, It seems like the majority of the criticism is towards the format of the show, not the bladesmiths. It is a tall order what y'all are being asked to do. I just wish the show would've been formatted to show off the skills of the contestants.
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CS Farrell

I don't know what conversations you've had before you got here, but I have to agree with Matt above; Whatever you're all wound up about, it' hasn't happened in this thread.
Have a breath.


Someone said it in this thread before, when they introduce the contestants, the producers could show some of the contestants portfolio of work.
It would even help their "drama and time pressure" because it would show they these are skilled craftsman, just that the situation is constrained.
Right now you only get the impression that all they have ever made is prison shanks.
It's the show's "production values " that defined that.
 
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