I love this show, but I wasn't entirely happy with the most recent episode- the Zulu short spear/sword thingy...
I thought the guy who was sent home first (Clarence?) got the shaft... yes, he did quench in water, but others have done that successfully before, and the "surface cracks" they showed looked more like rough spots that could be ground out than cracks. His blade shape was so much better than that silly wavy kris, and he seemed like a really good guy.
The "strength test" that broke Lyle's blade seemed silly (and a bit unfair too), given the difference in the shapes between the two tips. Lyle's blade ended in a graceful, continuous curve (like the exemplar they were supposed to be replicating), and the other guy's angled in over the last inch or so of the blade's length, so his tip had a huge mechanical advantage over Lyle's. After breaking off the tip, I bet Lyle could have re-ground the tip to be virtually identical to the other guy's shape.
I think that if the judges wanted to be fair they'd include the testing parameters in the weapon specs.
I'm not sure why I get worked up over this kind of thing- it is just TV.
