Candle Holders: Use Your Peen
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
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