You tube v. Forged in Fire

J

Johnny Diamond

Joined
Sep 16, 2014
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16
Been watching a lot of tv and you tube last few weeks. Enjoy the video.

1. On forged in fire smiths heat blade and then quench and then move on.

2. On many you tube video smith heats blade up and let it cool in room temp air, twice or three times. hen heat and quench. Then heat again to temper blade.

So why the different treatment? Thanks. Johnny
 
Forged n’ fire edit a lot out. Thy do t show the tempering cycle that do e to the blades while the competitors are sleeping. Also a lot if them do thermal cycle the blades befor quenching. I would not look at forged n’ fire as a good way to learn. There are a few times I have seen someone do something that I thought was clever and I file away for later use. But generally it’s watched for entertainment.

YouTube can have good and bad advice as well. Just make sure your learning for someone that knows what thy are doing.

but all that said you do need to thermal cycle forged steel. Generally this is done at lower and lower temps for each cycle. This normalizes the steel and refines the grain. It gets the steel ready for a proper heat treat. If you heat treat a blade before doing this you could end up with very large grain which reduces toughness and the blade can be quite brittle even after tempering. Large grain can also cone from quenching steel that’s to hot.
 
Yeah... they get 3 hours to make a blade (nevermind the handle!) from some weird challenging starting point to some challenging end point. The smiths have varying degrees of skill, often cut corners, get flustered, are in a strange shop... and then it all gets edited down to under an hour for TV drama. Definitely not a how-to series.
 
JT nailed it. We did alot of things on the set that didn't make the final cut. It's not designed to be educational, although as JT said you can learn some stuff also. I normalized mine 3x then ended up quenching I think 3 times as well. The norm was on purpose... the multi quench was bc my blade kept warping.
 
In the earlier episode of FIF there tended to be a lot more thermal cycling but the challenges seemed to be more straight forward. Now with the Smith's struggling to find even usable steel to make some weird design that's put through some insane testing most don't have time.

Im blown away by what those guys are able to accomplish in 3 hours. Alec Steele did a 3 hour challenge with good steel in his home shop and he was struggling. And hes the Energizer bunny. I'd love to see some episodes where they're given clean steel and are able to spin out nice knives instead of struggling with random steel or patterns. I especially hate when they're each given different steel and or a pattern to make. Everyone should be given the same project IMO.
 
scott kozub said:
I especially hate when they're each given different steel and or a pattern to make. Everyone should be given the same project IMO.
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That is one of my favorite gripes also. I enjoy the show, but that's one of my biggest gripes.
 
I watch the show with my 20 year old daughter, for the entertainment value. We find it fun to watch lol.
 
I enjoy watching the show, but I find that Youtube is more educational since a ton of videos are available and are posted specifically for teaching purposes. I have learned a few things from FIF though, especially during round 2.
 
I like to watch forged in fire ....learn something new every time ...how to do it and HOW not to do it :D About You Tube...............I like to watch more anonymous knife maker , because they often improvise with tools ...some of them have genius ideas....known and proven knife makers most time use expensive tools and have amazing skills so no use for me because i can t replicate that :D I mean you watch Nick Wheeler how he free hand grind big Bowie and it looks easy ....till you try that :p
 
i4Marc said:
Jason, do the producers allow you to correct warps in the temper stage?
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No, but it would have been a lot cooler if they had, lol. Even after 3 quenches, because I had done sanmai with mild over 1095 and forged a bit unevenly, I couldn't get it straight. Still passed into the third round with a warped blade. Could have tempered it straight EASILY, but that's not an option, so I heated it up a bit with a propane torch and straightened it manually.
 
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