What was telling (about equipment the competitors have at home) was that FIF had a couple TW90's for a WHILE before anyone ever used the horizontal tilt feature... Most never knew it could do that! Blew my mind lol
Well, I don't expect them to come on the show having all the same equipment. When they go back to their home forges and they have no power hammer, and just a brake drum or satellite dish for a firebox with their charcoal briquette forge, they are at quite the disadvantage. They are not coming back with a 200 layer feather pattern Damascus Claymore. You will be getting something fashioned from a leaf spring they pulled out of the scrap yard ... and it will still "Kill."
Although, I don't know how it is covered by the rules, I am still waiting to see a guy that grabs his two kids/neighbors and hands them each a sledge hammer and uses them as his power hammer while he tongs the steel around.
I am not sure who came up with the design or the studio/forge but I would hope that whatever it is is what David Baker uses to make the example weapon they are recreating.
They do love throwing monkey-wrenches at them. Hey, let's do this with coal forges!! or Let's do it outside where you can't tell what color anything is. I think the worst was having the 24-hour cure epoxy available on the shelf. The shows are so much more entertaining when they are evenly matched. It's great to see people solve problems on their toes, overcome some twist. But when you see some of them that are clearly out of their league with their competitors, it really takes away from it.
Still waiting to see them have them all make switch blades in the Frank Beltrame style. I loved when they made the Navaja, but that was the closest, they got to it, or perhaps the friction folder. Hell, I would love to see them try and figure the mechanics of an OTF action, even if they provided them the springs. Can it be done without a milling machine?
Or make a whole kitchen cutlery set and judge on the consistency between the steak knives. Anyone can make one knife, and with the butterfly swords, they did have to match them, but how a 4 or 8 place setting, and the chef's pieces to go with it.. But no one asked me