I watched two episodes that had women contestants. In both episodes one of the other contestant knife under performs in strength, slicing test. The women knives aren't great but they do pass the tests.They still get eliminated for some random flaw the judges pick.
shareWell in the second one that was just last night the two knives on the bottom both had flaws. The one the female contestant made not only didn't do quite as well in the stabbing because she ground away her tip, but I just don't think they could get over her handle.
The other guy's did better in the stabbing and horrible in the slicing but he created a better overall knife.
It be's racism!
Shoot him, cut out his tongue, then shoot his tongue.
no it's called sexism.
shareNo... EVERYTHING is "racism" these days... EVERYTHING. It's because the limp-wristed left thinks that by calling everything racist, they will get more attention to their cause(s). I'll illustrate.
Donald Trump said:
"The largest suppliers of heroin, cocaine and other illicit drugs are Mexican cartels that arrange to have Mexican immigrants trying to cross the borders and smuggle in the drugs. The Border Patrol knows this," Trump wrote. "Likewise, tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border. The United States has become a dumping ground for Mexico and, in fact, for many other parts of the world."
Cuba did the same thing in 1980, BEFORE Reagan came to power, KNOWING Carter would let them in. They were also multi-racial, so if you said "Cubans" you can't be accused of being racist, because "Cuba" is not a one-race country either.
Find ONE word about "race" in that quote. "Mexico", or even "Mexican", is not a "race". I am part Hispanic, but I've never BEEN to Mexico. Mexico is made up of more than ONE race. What's even funnier about people saying that if you talk about "Mexicans", you're being a racist, is that they never realize that there ARE more races than one, and that White SPANIARDS run the country, not someone who's like Pancho Villa.
There HAVE been "indigenous" Presidents...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/Naucalpan_Benito_Ju%C3%A1rez.jpg/800px-Naucalpan_Benito_Ju%C3%A1rez.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/General_Porfirio_D%C3%ADaz.JPG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexicans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexicans#European_Mexicans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexicans#Arab_Mexicans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexicans#Afro-Mexicans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexicans#Asian_Mexicans
tl dr.
Had a male contestant made that knife instead of a woman, I bet they would not have been eliminated
shareyes they would, a bad handle is still bad handle.
And the judges have picked up on the flaws in a handle quite a lot in the show, because it's both dangerous to them and the blades can't be used properly.
In the 'Championship' episode, S3E1, the breaking of the handle did eliminate a contestant. So, you are, as we know, correct.
BOHICA America!
If the tip of the blade had come off during the first round of the competition, the blade would have made it through because she would have had a chance to grind a new tip. But this was the second round. The blade needed to be fully functional. It needed to have a tip, and it needed to have a handle with a guard that was balanced to the blade. That's not what she produced.
shareWhen saying it was not a completed blade because of the handle then why did they perform the tests? From past episode's if a blade has been deemed incomplete or unsafe to test then they wont test it. Jason (who deservedly won) did not have a guard so they used a clamp on guard, just the same for Kelly.
The tip of her blade snapped but it performed well and completed both challenges while Joshes' blade DID NOT cut.
Final thought: If the blade and handle was not deemed as meeting the requirements then it should not have been tested. She was robbed of a place in the final.
Well the recent winner Kelly had the weakest field to beat. All her competitors would probably have been round 1 losers on most other episodes. I think the producers deliberately picked a weaker field to try to give her the best chance at winning so they could finally have a woman champion. The dumbass she competed against instead of adding ornamentation like her horse's head had a sharp hooked end on the handle of his falcata which could have easily cut into the wielder's hand, as long as her blade held up without snapping in half she was going to win just for that.
shareNo offense, I think you're exaggerating here. Granted I've only watched the first episode with a female contestant so far, but Kim's dismissal was warranted. Her blade did well, but the tang was flawed and a flawed tang is going to break sooner or later. She herself acknowledged that. It's sad to see a capable bladesmith be eliminated like that over a fault they basically knew was going to happen, but we have seen that many times before. The time pressure really gets into the contestants' heads, we've seen even master smiths and smithing instructors fail like Kim did.
Actually, I think it was good they cut her loose. Had they allowed her to go on with a bent tang everyone would've been like "Of course the woman gets a handicap!", and by her own words Kim would not have liked that.
I've watched the other episode now, the decision seemed just about right too.
Kelly did make a fine blade there, unfortunately the blade geometry wasn't very suited to the test and the tip broke. For a non-professional and a flyweight she showed incredible skills, strength and determination. She can be proud of herself.
Josh's blade didn't perform as well as hers in the sharpness test, in fact it didn't perform well at all, but a dull edge is something that can be fixed.
Having said that, I think that episode was kinda unfair. Yes, contrary to a bowie knife or any other "omnitool" knife a dagger has a narrower field of application, but they should've told the smiths what kind of tests awaited, like they did in the other episodes of season 2. A bowie is the knife you're going to use as a tool and do various things with; a dagger is not a blade that you're going to ram into a steel barell upside-down.
That they should've told them is further illustrated by the fact that only one of the finished weapons had a guard.
And now there's that Kelly from California, she won. And deservedly so.
shareDon't worry. That changes.
I don't trust people who don't like pets and I don't trust people who pets don't like.
I've never noticed contestants being treated any differently because they were female. Nor because of age or race.
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