Justin Laabs, “New Approach to Pattern Making With Damascus Steel”
Mentor: Adam Hawk, Art & Design
Poster #175

Damascus Steel has been a traditional forging technique used throughout history for blade and ornamental blacksmithing. However, the traditional technique has not varied or improved much with our technological advancements. We aimed to explore whether 3D printing technologies can be used to create patterns with more sharpness and complexity. Our methods included adjusting 3D printer settings to print shells of a pattern which we could then fill with multiple powdered steel alloys. The multiple steel alloys are what allows the visual of the pattern to show up once etched. These powders were then fused together through the traditional cannister Damascus method. Fusing the powders creates a solid ingot that retains the pattern throughout the length of the ingot. To determine whether the ingot was a success, a slice of it was then sawed off and sanded to a proper finish and then etched to reveal the pattern. The resulting ingots when etched showed successful patterning although some patterns warped throughout the forging process. Our study yielded five successful ingots with the patterns throughout using the 3D printing technologies in tandem with traditional Damascus techniques. We conclude that 3D printing technologies can be used in combination with the traditional techniques used to pattern Damascus steel. This discovery opens avenues for more complicated and sharper patterns to be used and developed for more contemporary Damascus patterns. It also will cause more techniques to develop over time and have a large effect on how the aesthetics of Damascus can look in the future.