Making a Gothic Candle Stand

Make a Gothic Candle Stand

A nice candle holder or two should be on every blacksmith's bucket list. Here is a fancy one that takes two to three days to build.

Materials 3 pieces of 1/2" diameter mild steel, 42" long (for stand) 20 pieces of 1/4" square mild steel rod, 3 1/4" long (for round chain links) 18 pieces of 1/2" square mild steel, 2" long (for tetrahedral chain links) 2 pieces of 1/4" diameter mild steel, 21" long (for wraps) 1 piece of mild steel sheet, 1/8" thick, 12" x 12" (for leaf cradle) 1 piece of 2" black iron pipe, 1.5" long

Tools

big B stake angle grinder with wire brush wheel hot cut chisel 1.5 lb cross peen hammer files gas forge chasing fuller for veins coke forge thin flat fuller 3/8" square drift large twisting wrench 5/16" square punch vise "V" jaw tongs for 1/2" square bar cone/saddle/ball stake "V" jaw tongs for 1/4" square bar scrolling tongs 1.5" wide flat bar tongs Oxy-fuel torch drill press arc welder anvil

This project is done in three stages, each stage including multiple steps:

Stage 1: Form the leaf cradle: 1. Draw out leaf 2. Cut 3. Fuller the veins 4. Shape the cradle 5. Fit to glass bowl

Stage 2: Make the chains and sliding ring 1. Make sliding ring 2. Form the ring links for the chains 3. Form the tetrahedral links for the chains 4. Assemble the chains by forge welding 5. Assemble sliding ring to chains by forge welding

Stage 3: Make the tripod stand: 1. Taper one end of the long rods 2. Weld the long rods together 3. Twist the bundle 4. Shape the arms 5. Put the sliding ring and chains on the rod bundle 6. Open the legs 7. Shape the feet of the stand 8. Form the wraps 9. Do final shaping on the arm ends 10. Position the leaf cradle 11. Weld the leaf cradle to the arms

Stage 4: Final fitting, cleanup and finish

OK, here we go:

Form the Leaf Cradle

Draw a leaf on the 12" x 12", 8" thick piece of sheet iron, using talc. I used this pattern:

I use a plasma cutter to cut out the leaf, but it can be done using a cold chisel and pliers. If you use the latter method, be sure to put a protective plate of aluminum or soft mild steel on the anvil face to protect your anvil.

Clean up the edges as needed by grinding and filing.

Roll up the stem of the leaf.

Start the roll by fullering into a suitable swage:

Then finish on the anvil face:

Tip: You can put a piece of kaowool, or a layer of coke, on top of the metal piece as insulation on a coke fire to help it heat more quickly.

Put veins in the leaf using a thin fuller or a blunt chisel. Heat each portion of the leaf as you're about to work on it. This leaf is a bit large for my gas forge, so I use a coal/coke forge to heat it.

After you get the veins formed initially, form the leaf into a deep "V" cross section along each vein, using the same fuller and a suitable swage. This is a clumsy process. One person can do it, but an assistant makes it much easier! Veining and the deep V cross section curls the leaf dramatically.

Shape the leaf into a deep bowl form, so that it can sit in the arms of the stand, and so that it can cradle a glass bowl snugly and securely.

You can't safely put the glass bowl in contact with hot metal, so this requires some estimation. If necessary, cool the leaf cradle and see if it fits the glass bowl, then re-heat and tweak it. I like to make it a bit too tight, then bend the leaf stem out just a little bit to make room to fit the bowl into the cradle.

Make the chains I first saw this chain design on a drawbridge in Budapest. It's actually only a little more work than a standard chain.

First make the sliding ring that will hold the bottom ends of the chains in the finished stand. Do this by first drilling three 7/16" holes in a 2" I.D. pipe, 1.5" long. Then grind or file away excess metal, leaving three loops.

Finish by heating, then bending the loops out. Finally, remove any distortions in the ring by heating it, putting it over the end of your anvil horn, and using a section of pipe to tap the ring, forcing it to conform to the round cross section of the horn.

Now make open loops that will become the round links.

Cut twenty 3.25 inch long pieces of 1/4" square mild steel bar. You only need eighteen, but will probably mess up at least two while you're making the chain, so a couple extra doesn't hurt.

Scarf the ends of the 3.25" pieces. I do each scarf in five (or four) steps: 1. half-faced blow on the near edge of the anvil to put a "lip" on the end. 2. taper the "lip" sideways 3. draw out the tip of the lip on the near radiused edge of the anvil 4. square the sides so the "lip" is nowhere wider than 1/4" 5. Think of the "lip" as a cupped hand. Bend the "wrist" so that the palm of the hand is about even with the top surface of the piece.

With a bit of practice, you will learn to tilt your hammer in the first step to pre-bend the "wrist", in order to skip last step.

This is a pretty good scarf:

The second scarf is on the other end of the piece, and is upside-down relative to the first scarf.

In the bottom of the photo, two scarfs are nested together. Ideally, that is how scarfs fit together when they are forge welded. Each "palm" of a cupped hand fits over the "wrist" of the other scarf.

Tip: If you taper the tip of the scarf to a thin edge, it can form a seamless joint when it's forge welded. Leaving the tip square will result in a visible scar at the joint.

Now start forming the straight pieces into open loops that look like they have been cut out of a stretched coil spring. Grip the piece in a small pair of V-jaw tongs. Hold the piece so it extends just past the top of the tip of your anvil's horn (or, at a suitable position on a cone/saddle/ball stake1), and roll it a quarter turn relative to how you formed the scarf. Start the bend at one end and work it a bit past the middle in the first heat. In the second heat, work the other end to form a nearly closed loop. Tap as needed with your hammer to get the scarfs to align properly. Finally, clamp the resulting loop in your vise and use a suitable tool (my scrolling tongs work just fine) to open the loop sideways so it's like one full turn of an open coil.

Start the loop Complete the loop

Get scarfs aligned Open to form one turn of an open coil

Next, make the tetrahedral links. They might look difficult, but are really easy.

For each 2" piece of 1/2" square bar, heat to bright orange. Grip with V-jaw tongs and form a short one- sided taper. This will taper the piece in one axis and spread it in the other axis:

Heat it again. Grip the end worked in the previous step in your box-jaw tongs and do the same one-sided taper to the other end, rotated 90 degrees relative to the first end.

In the next heat, first round the corners at the ends slightly, then straighten and smooth the tapers on all faces.

Punch and drift holes in the tetrahedral pieces to form links.

I usually just judge the punch position by eye, but if you want the links to be highly uniform, it pays to mark the position first using a center punch.

Heat to bright orange, position the square punch, and give it two or three solid blows.

Extract the punch, quench it, quickly turn the workpiece over, position the punch precisely in the center of the "eye" on the back of the workpiece, and give the punch a solid blow. You should feel the biscuit break loose. (The biscuit is the little piece of metal removed by the punching process.) Move the punch and workpiece over to your anvil's pritchel hole, or to a bolster hole, and give the punch another whack or two until the biscuit2 drops out. Remove and quench your punch.

“eye” on the opposite side

Re-heat the workpiece and drive a 3/8" square drift through the hole over your anvil's pritchel hole or over a bolster.

Do this for both ends of the tetrahedral link. After you have drifted the holes in both ends of a link, straighten the link because it's almost certain to get bend during the punching and drifting processes.

Tip: Make your drifts and punches out of a red-hard steel like S-7, O-1, or 45WCrV73, so they won't mushroom and get stuck, or get bent or nicked.

Make eighteen of these tetrahedral links.

Now you have all the pieces ready that you need to make the chains. Each of the three chain sections consists of five tetrahedral links joined by rings, with an additional ring on each end.

Forge welding is done typically in a series of steps:

1. Scarfing 2. Mating or fitting 3. compacting 4. fluxing 5. welding 6. finishing the weld

We already did the scarfing.

Thread a scarfed, open ring through the holes in two tetrahedral links like this--

I use flat bar tongs because they can grip both tetrahedral links at once, holding them together. Turn the ring so that its opening is away from the two tetrahedral links.

Heat the ring to a dull orange and tap it closed, using a hammer and the anvil face. This is only for alignment and mating. At this temperature, mild steel cannot weld.

Inspect the mating of the scarfs and adjust as necessary. Here I am using a cone/saddle/ball stake to do the alignment. If the ring needs to be made a little bit smaller for proper mating, hold it edgewise on the anvil face and tap it gently with your hammer. If it needs to be made a bit larger, use a pair of scrolling tongs or a pair of spreading tongs to enlarge it.

When the scarfs are properly mated, re-heat the scarfs to a medium red and apply flux. You don't need a lot of flux; just enough to make sure there is a little bit everywhere along the edges of the joint. In my experience with mild steel, proper welding temperature means the metal is nearly white-hot and is fizzing slightly. If it's shooting out sparks it's probably overheated and ruined. Welding temperature is difficult to achieve in a typical gas forge, so I usually use a coal/coke forge for welding. A coal/ coke forge has the advantage that its heat is highly localized, so it's relatively easy to heat just the portion of the metal that you want to work on - which is especially important for forge welding.

Hold the pieces with your flat bar tongs while heating the joint for welding. In a coke or coal fire you can easily localize the heating so it's just on half of the loop. Watch for small white sparks to appear in the flame of your fire. Big fat exploding sparks mean that you have burned your piece and probably need to start over. As soon as the loop is at welding temperature, quickly move it to your anvil, lay the joint flat on the face of the anvil with the tetrahedral links just off the face, and tap once firmly but not hard. Sparks and liquid flux will spray out in all directions (an apron is a good idea!).

Flip the piece over and finish the weld on the other side with several taps, concentrating on the thin ends of the scarfs.

Put the piece back in the fire, heat it again to welding temperature, and repeat the tapping, paying special attention to the thin ends of the scarfs.

Move the piece to the cone/saddle/ball stake (or to the tip of your anvil horn if it's got a sharp enough tip) and clean up the inner surface of the joint. Adjust the shape of the link as needed, making sure the ring is flat (can lie in a plane).

Using the same techniques, build the chain section until you have five tetrahedral links joined by four rings, with only one of the end tetrahedral links having a loose ring at the end. Repeat to make three separate chain sections. Each chain section will be five rings and five tetrahedral links.

Attach the sliding ring to the chain sections This next operation is slightly clumsy, but can be done with a bit of care and patience. This photo above shows how I held the pieces for forge welding the last of three tetrahedral links onto to the sliding ring loops. Here I built the chains starting at the sliding ring, but I think it's easier to pre-make the chain segments.

10 Incandescent Ironworks Ltd. © 2014 Steve McGrew www.incandescent-iron.com Attach the chain sections to the sliding ring loops one at a time. The sliding ring loops are thin, and can burn easily, so watch the fire very carefully to be sure the loops do not overheat. Only put the open ring link into the yellow part of your fire, and don't leave it there any longer than necessary.

When all three chain segments have been joined to the sliding ring, clean up any rough joints using a grinder. You can clean inside the ring links and inside the square holes using jeweler's files. Clean the chains and ring using a wire wheel on an angle grinder.

Here is the whole chain assembly after it's been cleaned up:

Make the tripod stand Begin by drawing one section of the stand on your floor, 1:1 scale, ignoring the twist:

Bend a piece of scrap rod or bar, fitted to your drawing, to serve as a template for the legs and arms.

Draw out one end of each 42" round rod to a smooth, round taper with blunt point a bit less than 1/8" diameter. Make sure all of the rods are drawn out to the same length (about 47").

Bundle the three rods together and wrap them tightly with tape or wire.

Decide where the wraps will be, then weld the rods together just in those places.

In your forge, heat the portion of the bundle between your welds. (This is much easier in a gas forge because you need to heat a long section uniformly.) Grip at one weld in your vise, and use a big twisting wrench (gripped at the other weld) to twist the bundle just between the welded sections.

Heat just the tapered arms and bend them outward in a graceful curve. You can bend all three arms in one heat. Don't worry about the tapered tips yet; you will use a torch to put hooks on the tips.

Slide the ring with its chains over the bundle, making sure it is oriented with "up" towards the spread-out arms.

Heat the legs and bend them out.

Heat each foot separately and flatten the feet, taking care to do each foot the same. You can use your forge or a torch to heat the feet individually. (Don't let this photo confuse you. Here, I didn't twist the bundle before working on the legs. The order of steps here can be reversed.)

The angle grinder with a wire brush wheel is possibly the most dangerous tool you will ever use in a blacksmith shop. It has tremendous torque, enough speed to throw wire needles across the room, and is inhabited by a demon whose sole desire is to shred your flesh. Loose sleeves are an invitation to disaster. Don't use an angle grinder around other people - it throws darts. ALWAYS use a face mask and breathing protection when doing this! I prefer a wire screen face mask because it doesn't get fogged or dirty.

Do the two wraps The wraps are decorative, and they cover up the welds that hold the bundle together.

Cut two pieces of 1/4" diameter rod 21" long. Taper the last 2" of each end, to a blunt point.

Clamp the bundle in your vise, with a welded section of the bundle sticking out each side of the vise. Arc weld the tip of a rod to each of the two welded portions of the bundle, then wrap. Use an oxy-fuel torch to heat the rod locally as you wrap it tightly around the bundle, covering the welded section of the bundle (and the welded tip of the rod).

Finish the wrap by using a light hammer to tap the final end of the rod close to the bundle.

Shape the ends of the arms

Using the oxy-fuel torch, heat the ends of the arms and bend them to the desired shape, so they match up with the template you made. The bends will be graceful if you take care to heat the entire portion that you want to bend, before you begin bending it.

Finish the arms by curling the tip back and then out and up:

Assemble, Clean up, and Finish

Hang the chains over the curled-up ends of the arms. Made sure the stand is on a level surface, then make whatever adjustments are necessary to get the chain to hang evenly.

Put the glass bowl into the leaf cradle, and set the cradle in the arms of the stand. Tilt and turn until the cradle is in the best position and orientation, then mark the arms and stand at the points of contact, using talc, a silver marking pen, or a black permanent marker.

Remove the bowl, position the leaf cradle carefully so the marks match up, and weld at the marks.

Wire brush any parts that still have scale. Warm the metal with a torch and paint it with a thin layer of Johnson's wax or carnuba wax. Warm it enough to completely liquify the wax, and wipe off all excess wax using paper towels.

Insert the glass bowl, put a candle in it, light the candle, and show it to the most important person in your life!