Don't Call It A Comeback: An Interview with Forged In Fire's "Long Road to Redemption" Champion Matthew Berry

Matthew Berry is the bladesmith and owner of Hopkins Forge, located in Wolcott, Connecticut. He specializes in Viking Age and medieval blades and strives to deliver functional, artistic, and historically based blades for his clients.

A Forged in Fire champion, Matthew first appeared in season 5 of the show, where he fell short in the final after his Lion Spear suffered the dreaded catastrophic failure. Fortunately, he was asked back to the forge floor for the season 6 tournament Long Road to Redemption, where his choice of the Arming Sword ultimately won him the title of champion.

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This week, Matthew was gracious enough to take time out of his schedule to talk to us about his love of forging swords, how he became involved in Dragon’s Breath Forge and his experiences on the show.

Matthew Berry’s Blacksmithing Background

BRUTE de FORGE: Thank you, Matt, for chatting with us today! I always like to start at the beginning and everyone’s background. How did you get into forging and bladesmithing?

Matthew Berry: When I was younger, I liked to run around and hit people with sticks, and I decided I needed armor. First, I needed tools to make armor. I met Ken Lynch, who had a big collection of tools, and after I got out of college, I went to work for him on weekends, filling orders. This was back in the days before the internet when people had to send in a letter requesting what they wanted. Then I would go roaming through his warehouse, pick out the requested tools and mail them out to people. At that time, I got paid in tools.

“When I was younger, I liked to run around and hit people with sticks, and I decided I needed armor.”

So, that's how I got into forging because eventually, he paid me with a forge, then an anvil, and a whole bunch of hammers and tools like that. I had been looking for armoring stuff, but once I got the forge, I decided that forging swords was way more fun than armor.

BDF: How long would you say you've been forging, then?

MB: I started in 1987, and at that point, I was doing it as a hobby. My daughter was born in 1995, and that was the end of the hobby until around 2007. There was internet by then, and a friend told me there was a bladesmithing school on the internet. I thought that had to be a joke, but it turned out it was true. It was the New England School of Metalwork. I went there and took an intro knife class and learned all the things that I had been doing wrong. When I was forging something, I just had books to consult, and those had very few pictures. So, I had to interpret it as best as I could and go from there.

I took a lot of classes from 2007 onward and was doing it as a hobby again, and then I started selling stuff. Eventually, I built a shop in my backyard before I retired, which was about six years ago. I've been doing it as a hobby since then. Honestly, I ended up working more now than when I had a job! It just kept sucking me in.

I enjoy it, though. Bladesmithing is a nice mix of art and science. I like that you can engage both sides of your brain when you're doing it. And it's nice because you get to use your hands. I was a software developer before I retired, and that was a lot of sitting and pounding the keyboard. It’s all up here [points to his head].

Focusing on swords

BDF: Do you prefer forging swords or knives?

MB: They really are completely different. Swords are pretty much all I make now. The hard part with preferring swords is that you have to have a way to heat treat them properly. Most people don't, especially people just starting. But, also, I'm red-green colorblind, so I have trouble judging when something is “ready” by the color. I actually have a 50-inch kiln, and I can punch the temperature on the digital control and set it to hold there, so I don't have to judge the color. But things get bigger when you make swords, and you have to have a lot of patience because swords take forever.

“If you’re going to swing it all, it’s got to be light. So, that’s an engineering challenge.”

I like swords not only because they're a bigger canvas for art but because they're far more complex than knives. You never hear knife makers talking about how much their knife weighs, and with swords, that is incredibly important. If it weighs too much, it’s useless. Your arm will fall off. Most people don't realize that a one-handed sword shouldn't weigh more than three pounds. They're very light. Even two-handed swords should only weigh five or six pounds. But, if you're going to swing it all, it's got to be light. So, that's an engineering challenge. Then you need to figure out how to distribute the mass, which is also challenging. So, it's not just what it weighs, but where the weight is and making the handle in a way that you don't have to fight it to make the moves you want. It should naturally want to make those moves. There is an art to tuning swords, and that's really fun.

Matthew’s unique style, made-to-order

BDF: Would you say you have a your own style when it comes to your work?

MB: Right now, I'm making custom orders. I started with Viking swords just because I like a lot of the pre-Christian, Northern European art that goes into them. One of the nice things about swords is that swords are a much bigger platform to work with. With knives, the bolsters are pretty small, and the back end is pretty small. But sword fittings are much bigger, and the blades are much bigger, so you've got room to do compositions. As I said, I started with the Viking swords because they had the most elaborate stuff until you get into the 1700s. After that, they kind of got plain once Christianity hit those areas.

“I do it because I like making them. That’s really it.”

I fiddle around with other periods, though. I make high medieval swords, too. I do whatever catches my eye. I'm doing a Celtic sword currently, and the Celtics have all sorts of crazy swords, which is just fun.

Admittedly, it's easier to make money on knives. The client base is bigger, and it's not such a big expense. But I'm retired, so I don't care! I do it because I like making them. That's really it.

Matthew’s Forged in Fire experience

BDF: So, you’ve been on Forged in Fire twice. How did you get to be on the show the first time?

MB: Before I was on it, somebody had said to me, “Hey, there's a TV show about making knives.” I didn’t believe them because I thought that would be the most boring thing in the world. But, of course, it turned out it was true. They contacted me and asked me if I wanted to be on the show. I think they had seen my Etsy store. But I had just retired, so I said yes. It's not like I had to worry about vacation days at that point.

The first time I was on, I remember I was getting ready to go to a conference, and they called me around 10 o'clock in the morning and said, “Hey, we're down to Stanford. Can you be down here in an hour and a half?” I guess one of the guys they scheduled for that episode got snowed in. His plane was grounded, he couldn't make it, and they were supposed to be shooting that day. So, I think they just went through the vetted list and said, “All right, who lives close enough to get here?” I'm only about an hour away.

Anyway, I already had my bags packed because I was going to a conference in Maryland, so I said, “All right, why not.” I was completely unprepared. I didn't even have the requisite clothing. You’re supposed to take three shirts that match with no writing and all of that stuff. They had to give me t-shirts and clothes to wear. They had to guide me there because most people come from a distance and get shuttled there. But since I was driving, I had trouble finding the place, and I was on the phone with the producer as he talked me through it. It’s hidden away and hard to find. I'm sure that's the way they want it.

BDF: I've been told that when you see it from the outside, it would surprise people to know it was the set. But you got there and competed, and you did well. You made it to the finals on your first go-around and had to make a spear. How was that?

MB: I did make it to the finals, which was good. I remember walking out to my shop for the finals and saying, “There are two ways I can go with this spear. I can make something sort of heavy and post-apocalyptic. Something indestructible. But I don't know how they're going to test it. If they're going to throw these things, I have to make it like a real spear you can throw.” So, I went that route. Then the first test they did was using it like a pole axe, and I knew I had made the wrong choice. I should have gone the other way and made something indestructible.

In the end, it worked out better. John, who is a really nice guy, was going to use the money to put a down payment on a house. I was going to go to Mexico and drink beer, so I was very happy John won. He was going to do something real with the money. Also, then, losing got me back on the second time,

BDF: Right, they called you back for the Long Road to Redemption tournament. How was that?

MB: (Laughing) That was long! I had a rough time. I had tendinitis in my arm for six months afterward. But yeah, it was cool, and I won twice as much money as I would have the first time!

Hurry up and wait

BDF: Were there any behind-the-scenes experiences or anything that surprised you about the show?

MB: What surprised me about the show was how much waiting around there was between filming. I've never been in the Army, but I have friends who were, and they say the Army is all about ‘hurry up and wait.’ It feels like you have to spend a lot of time standing at the anvil while they adjust the lights, and they're like, “All right, bladesmiths look to the left. Bladesmiths look to the right. Look down at your work.” There's a lot of time spent sitting around on the couches waiting while production is getting everything ready and set up. So that was kind of surprising.

The gratifying thing, I thought, was that when you're actively doing the competition, they're very serious about it. You really only have three hours. That's it. They might break for lunch in the middle of a round, but you put your stuff down, walk over to the table, eat lunch with the crew, and then you go right back and start where you left off. They were very scrupulous about everything being fair! One of the production people checked the tension on the ribs for the rib slice to ensure that each piece of meat was under the same amount of pressure. They don’t want anyone to get some little advantage. I was just impressed with that! So that was interesting.

“There’s a lot of time spent sitting around on the couches waiting while production is getting everything ready and set up. So that was kind of surprising.”

The other thing that amazed me about the show was how many hours of footage they shot to get one episode. If you think about it, there are four contestants, and in every round, a camera follows each contestant. Then there's a slow-motion camera, a camera on the judges, and a camera on the whole scene. So, that's like seven cameras times three hours. Then you have a forty-five-minute interview after each round. So, just the number of gigabytes of footage they have is insane.

I was talking to the crew, and they said they all work around fourteen hours a day, seven days a week. They do that for about six months and then get the rest of the year off. So, they're either working, working, working, or getting a considerable amount of time off. I guess it's kind of like working on an oil rig.

It was fun, though! We had a lot of fun.

Matthew’s Dueling Forges

BDF: And now you not only have your own forge, but you are part of Dragon’s Breath Forge. Can you tell us about how you came to be a part of that? You are partnered with Jamie Lundell and Matt Parkinson, both of whom are also Forged in Fire champions, correct?

MB: Yes! The way it came about was that I was going to co-teach a course at Wesleyan, and there was going to be a morning lecture from the chair of the archaeology department first. Then, in the afternoon, we were going to make steel from ore. You know, primitive steel. Then we would forge that steel into blades in the afternoon.

Because I was going to have Wesleyan students on my property, I had to make sure all my insurance was lined up accordingly. In the end, there was no way for me to do the forging at my place legally. Basically, they have made it kind of illegal for blacksmiths to work inside because, according to building codes, you can't pump more than two psi of propane into a building, and the forges use five or six. So, the only way you can really forge is to have your shop in your garage, open the door, and forge outside. But I'm in New England and do most of my forging in the winter. That doesn't work well.

So, I ended up talking to the guys at Dragon's Breath Forge about working over there, and one thing led to another, and then I partnered with them. So now I'm part owner of the business. I forge my blades at Dragon's Breath Forge, and my shop here at home is all the finish work. It's nice because I have a semi-clean shop at my house and I have the dirty shop over at Wolcott!

The funny thing was when I talked to them, we talked about where we all lived, and Jamie's like, “I live in Middlefield.” It turns out he's basically on the other side of the block from me! I drove by his house every single day of my life, and we didn't know it. It works out well for Jamie because he's got a three-year-old, so on days when he's not forging, he can drive two minutes right around the block to my house and work in my shop.

BDF: Does Dragon's Breath Forge offer classes for bladesmiths?

MB: Yeah, we have a huge industrial building of about six thousand square feet, and we walled off about eight hundred square feet and made that a classroom. It has dedicated grinders and all the equipment for the classroom. It is only a classroom. We don’t use it for anything else.

I don't teach, but Matt and Jamie do. We are about halfway between Boston and New York, so our intro class is always packed. We cannot offer it enough! I'm trying to get them to offer more Friday classes because even those would fill up. But it's great because Matt and Jamie do this for a living. They're paying the bills, and so being able to fill classes like that, it's just awesome. We also do private lessons during the week, so it's really good for them. I don't teach because I don't need to teach. I want to make swords. I want to focus on that while I can.

“We have a huge industrial building of about six thousand square feet, and we walled off about eight hundred square feet and made that a classroom.”

Don’t quit your day job

BDF: Do you have any advice for aspiring bladesmiths?

MB: The advice I've been given by several Master smiths is don't quit your day job, and I would agree with that. You can't get a job as an apprentice bladesmith, so you've got to take classes, and you've got to teach yourself in a lot of ways. You’re better off doing that and setting aside part of your garage, wheeling out the forge on nice days, taking classes, and getting to the point where you can start to sell knives.

“Sometimes turning it into a business is a great way to make you hate knifemaking. ”

Then you can buy more equipment for your hobby and get into the cycle where you're selling more knives, buying more equipment, and building your skills. Once you've been around that racetrack a few thousand times, you can decide if you could actually make money at it. But it's not easy. You have to have a business plan. You have to sit down and say, “How much money do I need a year? How many knives do I have to sell to make that much money?” You have to factor in equipment costs, and it's incredible how much you end up spending. You have to be a business person, too, if you're going to do it full-time.

And remember, sometimes turning it into a business is a great way to make you hate knifemaking. You might like knifemaking because it's something very different and a relief from your regular life and job, but when it becomes the job, then what? It’s something to consider.

BDF: Thank you, Matt, for taking the time to talk to us today. We appreciate it!

MB: This was great. I appreciate you reaching out and talking swords with me!

To see more of Matthew Berry’s work, follow him on Instagram @hopkins_forge and shop at his Etsy store https://hopkinsforge.etsy.com . Also, check out Dragon’s Breath Forge (www.dragonsbreathforge.com) for information on their classes.