Forged in Fire on the History Channel

The new season of The History Channel's "Forged in Fire" in June will feature a friend who makes FANTASTIC swords. No word on how Mark did in the competition, but I know he had to be good.

 

I wish him the best. If he's any good at all, he should do fine on the show.

 

This is his first attempt at making a knife from scratch about 6 or 7 years ago.

 

let us know

 

borax every time you fold it.

 

Wayne, if you need anything, let us know, we weld.

 

I have an "in house" welder and blacksmith that has to get first pass, but I will keep it in mind.

 

we got a lot of tools wayne

 

I can imagine, I seem to have an entire section of the building with a couple of forges, torches, a plasma cutter, three different welders, presses, post vices, drill presses, an assortment of benders, and two of my back up tube furnaces being used for heat treating various tools at the moment. There is talk of a small building off the rear for the storage I used to have. LOL. At least I got some of my personal stuff sand blasted last week for free .... just after I placed the order for welding gases I never needed before.

 

Nice piece. I enjoy the show although I could do without the reality TV drama.

 

More technique would be better but it seems not a popular with the general audience.

 

Yeah, they have to sell advertising and that's what our population seems to thrive on. I could do with less drama and more reality but I'm in the minority I guess. Everybody loves a train wreck.

 

I have a set of good matching machine made swords that are nice, but I really would like one of these hand made versions. I keep hinting for one for Christmas, but to no avail.

 

Do you have a 3-D Printer?

 

No, we do the bulk of our prototypes in aluminum unless it will be subject to a higher temperature and then we use stainless, but an associate down in Pinehurst does use a 3-D printer a bit. It is good for more complex geometries in a prototype, but for most things it just takes too long for my tastes. He printed the base for a fence line monitor in about 23 hours. I drew up a sketch and fabricated a similar base in an afternoon. Mine was not as atheistically pleasing, but it is not something for display either. The joke was that I did more designs on a napkin than anyone ever should be allowed to do, too.

 

I saw a full size model of Lincoln's head that took 28 hours to make on a 3-D Printer. Friend of mine makes many items out of metal, tho.

 

I believe the size and quality of the printer and software has a bearing on the speed, but for our purposes it has not presented a better option for the cost. I would not mind having one to play with however, but if I was going to push for something expensive I think one of the custom swords or a good .50 caliber long range set up would be my choice. Probably the sword because my property in Virginia is not laid out for long range shooting like I would want to do with the .50.

An old associate at NJIT had one of the first printers set up for their 3-D prototypes and it has already been relegated to secondary use due to later advancements.

 

Mark was on last nights show, but he did not win. He loved the experience but pointed out a few of the oddities behind the scenes. The producer did not allow him to make the knife he wanted to make for some reason and all of the references to that discussion were edited out. He has now earned the nickname of "the knife whisperer" because he lost his voice just before the taping and was talking in a whisper the whole time.

 

How did he do Wayne? I watched some of last nights and fell asleep. Not even sure which episode I saw.

 

He lost out. Partly because they dinged him on the knife he made. I missed a lot of it myself because my box kept having to reset which for some reason takes longer when you are trying to watch the show.