Forged Bra?
David Weaver
maybe with rivets?
That may seem very star wars, though.
The thing that I may be uneducated about but that would concern me is that when someone makes a sword on the show, the guy testing the sword starts whacking away on anything and everything.
If the sword or chukri (not good with names) or whatever is being tested has a crack or forging fault, especially given that a lot of these guys don't look like they do much shaping with anything other than propane and power hammer, and thus crack things when they get more heat and start to get lazy.....at any rate, if those break, part of a sword will fly. those parts can fly far and bounce. And they are sharp, and even if they're not, they're heavy.
This will never happen in my shop, of course, as I can only make knives big enough to hide from my wife. Or if I can make a japanese style knife and let it corrode a little, I can claim that it came from an antique lot from buyee (i'm getting ideas as I type this).
The first episode of this that I watched (as I've got no power hammer) I wondered why guys were stretching metal with the flat face of a hammer (and girls) and the results looked terrible. I started thinking that I could probably line up for the show (especially given the handle proportions etc, that some of them come up with).
Then, when they got their home time project and were able to work their own shop equipment (especially the propane forge and power hammer), it became pretty clear that I'm 10 years from where most of them are and I should just stick with figuring out how to make a good slicing item and do an occasional nail cut test for thrills.
I'd much rather see a fully outfitted shop with a group of really good makers and three days to make something and then really serious testing. but I'm reminded by what George said to me about woodworking shows - something along the lines of the key to having a successful show with large viewership is to make the work look like something someone watching could do, not to show people who will do the work how to do it. People like to imagine they could do something a lot more than they like to seriously plan and think about the details and then execute, retry, etc.
He's right. Seems like old knowledge now.
(that's aside of the auto type shows where someone gets an old nova and puts $95,000 worth of sponsored parts in it and they go through them one by one as they put them on on the show as if they're a reasonable option for the average person.
"we're just going to get this crate motor from ___ - it's from gm's performance division and has 790 horsepower out of the box and comes tuned, and to handle this power, we're going to change the transmission and differential to this fully built setup from ____ that can handle future tunes up to 1500 horsepower. That'll give us room for improvement in the future without having to replace anything. These are bolt and go parts with good support and instruction and any shade tree mechanic will be able to install them".
Then, you go look up the crate engine and it's $29,000, who knows what the trans and differential are.
"you can save yourself a little bit of money with this setup by keeping your old engine to return as a core"
Then, the next show is some guy who finds an old ford body and they show him grinding the rust off of the sheet metal with a grinder (not all of it) and then sealing it and calling the car done, but they give you a link to some snake oils that'll "help you protect seals and gaskets on any car you find that may not have been running for the last three decades".
Nothing in between!!
If there was a one-year show of a guy actually doing stuff on a budget with skill, it would draw maybe a very dedicated audience, but not a very big one.
