In a recent episode of the History Channel’s Forged in Fire, Lowell’s Allen Newberry offered a glimpse into the potential celebration if he won the show’s $10,000 prize.
“My family would go crazy,” he told the camera. “They’d love it. There would probably be cake.”
And he did win, forging a knife and a spear that withstood the judges’ tests and bested the episode’s three other bladesmiths.
So there was indeed cake. Naturally, it was decorated to look like a knife, and Newberry cut into it with his own forged blades after watching the Oct. 4 episode with friends and family.
He had to keep his victory a secret after he got back from filming it in early July, so the watch party was the first time his loved ones found out that he’d won. Most of his loved ones, anyway.
“My wife figured it out pretty quick, but I wouldn’t let anyone else know,” said Newberry, who’s lived his entire life in Northwest Arkansas.
On Forged in Fire, the bladesmiths have the first two rounds — a total of six hours, 10 minutes — to design and create a knife using the available materials. Newberry, 37, and the three other contestants had to craft their blades using carbon steel and the metal from a medieval suit of armor.
Newberry, a bladesmith and a stay-at-home father of three, chose to make a brute de forge knife, working up until the very last second of both rounds.
Creating a comparable knife usually takes a couple days, Newberry said, and the unfamiliar equipment added to the suspense.
“I was very close on both of the [rounds],” he said. “There was really not as much time as I would’ve liked.”
For the final challenge, he and the other finalist, Clayton Cowart of Arizona, had five days to create a boar spear at their home forges.
For Newberry, who had never before made a boar spear, there wasn’t much of a home-field advantage. His power hammer acted up, and his forge blower, which keeps air moving into the forge to fuel the fire, quit working on Day 3. The camera showed Newberry running to his car to go find a replacement.
“The real drama was at home,” he said.
Newberry actually made two spears, and when the backup spear looked to be more complete, he called an audible. He added heavier wings to the leaf-shaped blade to meet the weight requirement and slashed through a model boar — a watermelon disguised as a hog by his kids — to test it.
He had some qualms about the spear’s appearance, namely its crooked shaft, but Newberry knew it would perform. It stabbed and sliced through a real-life boar carcass on the show, cutting deep enough to win the $10,000.
Winning the show has led to increased interest in Newberry’s custom-made knife business, he said, and he’s using what remains of the winnings to purchase forging press from a De Queen company. As for the winning knife and spear, they were turned over to the show.
“In my case I was compensated for it,” he said. “The other guys, not so much.”