I was hesitant to do this, because I knew that there was a medium to high probability that I would snap the blade when trying to forcibly bend it back to straight. I struggled with grinding the warps out of my knife before finally deciding to correct the warps with a torch. I had to find out how deep the cracks went, luckily for me, the cracks didn’t run all the way through the steel! Damn but was I happy to see that. I was eating through that steel like a hot knife through butter. I started crushing through 36grit ceramic belts.

I also thought that I was getting 3 hours.not 2.Guess I haven't watched the show in a while! I knew that if the blade wasn't cracked the whole way through I had a puncher's chance of making it to the finals.

Going into the second round, I knew that I had A LOT of work to do. I was happy that I was able to help Justin, but wished I had thought of that for myself sooner!! So the thought didn't even cross my mind that I was helping a competitor. He then struggled with forge welding it, so he just decided to mig weld it on there! A bit unconventional, but it worked! I have been explaining to those who ask about the show that I never felt like I was competing against the other smiths, I felt like I was only competing against the clock. He looked lost! I walked up to him and he is mumbling to himself about how he can’t get his knife to harden! His canister failed so he just made his second attempt out of the spit bar (which was mild steel!) So we walk over to the BBQ and I tell him, use some of this high carbon steel and forge weld it onto the edge of your knife! That would give him a soft blade, but a hard edge! He is an excellent smith and had a hardened edge forged out of carbon steel in no time. But as I'm working on my piece, I look up and see Justin just turning around in circles. My billet was just a cracked lump of steel in what could only generously be called a knife shape. I then popped my canister open and was feeling pretty good! It looked great on the inside. I only pressed it into the preliminary stage, never really getting a good compress. After what felt like forever (20-25 min) I pulled it out and pressed it, but unbeknownst to me, the press had two stages: a a preliminary press, then a primary press of the material. After welding the canister closed, I stuck it in the forge and waited for it to get up to heat. So I put the BBQ steel in the 'back' of the canister, knowing that I would use that end as the handle of my knife and keep it away from the cutting edge. But I did know that the powdered steel I was using in my canister was good steel. I didn’t know what was high carbon (good steel) and what was mild (shitty steel). I began filling my can with whiteout and harvesting steel from the BBQ. That would have been too easy! So, canister damascus seemed to be the best route.

Upon seeing the BBQ, my first thought was, 'Damn I really hope that spit bar is high carbon, I could easily take that 1/2' round and make a great knife out of it.' Of course it wasn't.

Forged in fire season 6 episode 30