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An undated photo of Perry native Isaac Gardner, a two-time champion on History's "Forged in Fire."

Photo supplied

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An undated photo of Perry native Isaac Gardner, a two-time champion on History's "Forged in Fire." Gardner is currently working on becoming a flight instructor.

Photo supplied

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A blade crafted by Perry native and two-time "Forged in Fire" champion Isaac Gardner.

Photo supplied

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A blade crafted by Perry native and two-time "Forged in Fire" champion Isaac Gardner.

Photo supplied

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A blade crafted by Perry native and two-time "Forged in Fire" champion Isaac Gardner.

Photo supplied

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BRIGHAM CITY — Local bladesmith Isaac Gardner made his second appearance on the History reality series “Forged in Fire” on Aug. 13, joining two other past competition winners in a Champion’s Cup event. And, for the second time, the Perry native’s appearance proved fruitful, as he bested John McNerney and Chad Kennedy to emerge as a two-time champion.

Gardner was awarded $10,000 for the win and his name was etched on the aforementioned cup. However, he couldn’t celebrate his big win publicly for more than three years — the episode was shot way back in 2022.

“The first episode, we filmed it [in 2021] and then it aired five or six weeks later,” Gardner explained to the Standard-Examiner. “I was expecting about the same amount of wait the second time around. I kept it a secret from my extended family. My wife and kids knew, but the rest of my family — all my siblings, my parents, my in-laws — we kept it a secret from them because we were like, ‘Won’t that be fun in a few weeks? I’ll say, “Hey, I was on another episode. You’ll never guess what happened.”‘

“Then a year goes by, and another year goes by, and another year goes by. I’m like, ‘I don’t think this thing’s ever coming out.'”

Gardner’s first win was a boon for his exploits as a bladesmith; the $10,000 check he received then was used to build a workshop at his Brigham City home.

“For the first episode, I was in my grandma’s garage,” Gardner said. “For the second episode, I was in my own shop at my house. That was really good.”

The exposure helped attract clients and instill confidence in his work, too. His hobby — the seeds of which were planted when, as a tween, he saw a blacksmith demonstrating his skills at an art fair — evolved into a growing business. It was a validating chain of events for someone who had honed his skills through self-teaching, trial and error, video tutorials on YouTube and tricks he picked up working at Ogden’s Belliston Jewelry.

“There, I learned goldsmithing, stone setting, hand engraving, design of jewelry … and that has helped me along the way to becoming a skilled bladesmith. Any metalworking, there’s transfer between the two skills,” Gardner said.

When his second “Forged in Fire” episode was filmed, Gardner said that he would use his winnings for home renovations. In the interim, though, he had begun exploring another longtime passion in aviation.

“The last year and a half, 100% of my free time has been doing flight training. I’m now a certified flight instructor,” Gardner said. “It took so long, by the time we finally got the cash, I suddenly had a huge student loan for flight training.”

Now, with aviation school under his belt, Gardner has designs on teaching others how to fly, a job change that he hopes will free up time for his wife, two children and his other great love.

“My passion, my obsession is still making swords,” Gardner said. “I’m interested in airplanes, and airplanes are awesome — but that’s my chosen career path. I’ll keep the hobby going forever. There are so many cool things that I want to make.

“I’m willing to put that on hold for a little while until I can start teaching more bladesmithing classes or doing more custom work or experimenting in the forge doing new Damascus pattern welding, creating new steel patterns and designs and just having a grand old time experimenting with that.”

To view a gallery of Gardner’s work and for other information, go to https://gardblades.com/.