Part way through the production of his second finale blade (the first one broke under a stress test on a log) the hydraulic line on his press broke, which was his primary way of extruding his material to create his blades. This forced him to give it one more shot, which he hoped would go smoothly.

During the episode, Kerley seemed happy just to have a product to turn in.

Similar to the first half of the show, the two final blades were put through a series of tests. The first was the “kill test.”

“To find out what kind of lethal damage your weapon will do, I will inflict lethal cuts and thrusts on both of these ballistic (dummies),” judge Doug Marcaida said. The head on the dummy fell off after the test — a good sign to be sure.

A look of relief and excitement came over Kerley when it was announced he had be deemed the winner.

“This is like the proudest moment of my entire life,” he said at the end of his episode.

“I’m just the this crazy guy with a weird nickname from the middle of nowhere, but I did it,” Kerley said in a post-episode interview.

This all happened in May, and Kerley said the hardest part was hiding how it all turned out until earlier this month.