Well I've made knives sense the 80s. Started out doing it at work on surface grinders and hollow grinding the blades. The heat treat guy in the Tool Makers room would HT the blades. Then I started doing some Damascus knives. The American Bladesmith Society offers classes in hand forging and also making Damascus. So I took off work and went down and took both classes. Came home and made a forge, and bought the anvil, hammer and tongs, a heat treat oven, and a 35# Trip Hammer for making Damascus. The big thing I remember about knife making is heat treating the knife properly. It is the heart and sole of a knife. It must be done properly for a knife to hold an edge, not to chip, bend enough not to break, and be easy to resharpen. I never see anyone [ maybe once or twice ] draw the blade back after hardening it. It's brittle. Drop it and it can break in half. Get the Rockwell content too high and the edge will chip and just be awful to sharpen. And one of the judges is usually a Master Smith in the ABS and he never comments on the lack of drawing a blade back so it isn't brittle.
I think it's nice there is a show on forging knives, but their testing leaves a lot to be desired. To be a Journeymen Smith in the ABS the test consist of cutting the hair on your arm, chopping through two 2X4s and then cutting the hair on your arm again to prove the edge held up, cutting through a free hanging 1" rope, and then bending the blade 90 degrees without it breaking more than half way through. There are bladesmiths who can forge blades from 52100 ball bearing steel and bend it back and forth 90 degrees each way SIX times and it doesn't crack. It holds and edge. Now there's a blade properly heat treated, not some BS chop test they do.
After taking the classes I took the test and past, but there was a two year wait after you apply to make sure your business practices were up to snuff. I never went back down to take the test, to far to travel. But I did what I wanted - learn to forge and heat treat a knife, and make Damascus steel.
There, I finally got that off my chest. I've always wanted the opportunity to comment on that show. A good idea, just don't think it's done properly.