October 24, 2025 - October 26, 2025(9am - 5pm)

Candle Holders: Use Your Peen

Taught by: Beth Holmberg

Workshop Fee: $495.00

Candle holders are classic blacksmithing projects!  But forging a candle cup from bar stock requires you to really know how to use your peen…  In this class, you’ll learn to forge some great candle holders, including wall-mounted and hanging designs.  But we’ll also work on building some serious skills, focused around using the cross-peen to thin and shape the metal, and controlled scrolling by hammer and eye.  We’ll forge lots of sockets- a skill that translates well to tool making (from chisels to spears) and anything circular (penannular cloak pins, perhaps?).

Our first project is a simple medieval candle stick- it was in fashion for at least half a millennium.   It’s a nice, forgiving project for skill-building as we learn to get comfortable using the peen accurately, and strive to scroll a cone with just a hammer and anvil (maybe…).  You can make a cool “candelabra” by putting several in a nice bit of driftwood, too!

The second project, a wall-mounted sconce with fishtail scroll finial, gives us a chance to use the peen a little differently to form a shapely fishtail taper.   It also gives us a chance to cover some fundamentals of hand-turned scrolls (one of my favorite blacksmithing skills).  Other skills hiding in the project include punched holes and a helpful trick for drawing metal down faster and more efficiently.

Our last project is a two-candle design that can be fashioned as either a hanging light (chandelier), or as a wall sconce.  It’ll demand some controlled upsets, and serve as a great introduction to a classic form of joinery: hot collars.  By this point, those tricky socket shapes should feel familiar and do-able, and the back end of your hammer a trusted friend!

This class is geared to students who’ve taken at least a couple of basic classes.  Minimally, you should be able to draw a controlled taper, S-O-R, scroll an eye, hot cut, and be able to avoid cold-shuts.

Skills and Techniques:

  • Controlled fullering with a cross-peen
  • Forming sockets with minimal tooling
  • Fishtail finials
  • Free-hand scrolling fundamentals
  • Paired fullers and mass isolation
  • Upsetting
  • Punching
  • Quick drawing-down tricks
  • Hot collars
  • Achieving better symmetry
  • Efficient and body-safe forging
  • Better coal-fire management

 

Materials Fee: included in cost of workshop

Special Tools or Equipment: The farm makes available to students eye and ear protection, gloves, and aprons. Comfortable closed toed shoes and street clothes are recommended.

Students are encouraged to bring their favorite PPE, a notebook, and any of the following you may have (don’t worry if you don’t!): cross peen hammer, measuring stick, center punch, round punch, scrolling tongs, paired fullers (spring or guillotine).

Workshop Policies: Please be sure to read our 2025 policies before you register for a workshop which can be found here Workshop Policies

4 in stock

(please choose all meals if you are staying on campus.)
We ask students to purchase a meal plan. Our chef can accommodate most dietary needs so please note any restrictions you want us to be aware of on the checkout page.