Forged in Fire returned for season 3. If you're not familiar, it's a History Channel reality competition show about bladesmithing. It's in a 3 round format: Round 1, 4 bladesmiths are presented with materials to work from in the forge workshop, given specifications the finished blade has to meet, 10 minutes to design, then 3 (or occasionally 4) hours to forge a blade. The worst blade, or one that doesn't meet the requirements, is eliminated. The remaining 3 smiths move to the next round, in which they have 3 hours to fix any issues noted on their blade, as well as craft a handle and finish the blade. It is then subjected to a variety of tests to measure the blade's strength, toughness, and edge retention - for example, being used to chop a block of ice, then slice tomatoes or a pork should or burlap sack. The worst performing, most unfinished, or, not infrequently, the blade that breaks during the testing, is eliminated. The 2 finalists are then given a historical weapon to produce, and are sent to their home forge with 5 days to craft one. They then return and have their weapons put to even more extreme tests. The winner is crowned "Forged in Fire Champion" and receives a check for $10,000. You genuinely learn a lot about the art of shaping steel and how different weapons perform.
Last night, Season 3 Episode 1, brought back 4 previous winners to compete. Naturally, the level of performance was extremely high. The historical weapon the two finalists were tasked with was a Scottish Claymore, which had previously been used as a final challenge where neither smith had crafted a good claymore. The first test in the previous instance was to cut through a suspended pig carcass. The first contestant's sword was swung, and *BWONG* went L-shaped, bending terribly. He turned to his competitor and said, "I guess this is congratulations." Then they tested the competitor's sword, and it *shattered* into a half-dozen pieces. Since the bent sword was still relatively intact, it was declared the winner. This time, both claymores were significantly better. The first test was to have a 9mm bullet fired from a benched pistol at the edge; both swords cut the bullet cleanly. The second test was to cut the front legs of a wooden horse, with bundles of sugar cane acting as the horse legs (sugar cane has a resistance roughly equivalent to muscle and bone), and third was, again, a pig carcass. The winning sword cut it like a laser - I mean it was nearly a perfect anime-style diagonal cut.