Incandescent Ironworks Ltd. © 2014 Steve McGrew www.incandescent-iron.com 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 1 Incandescent Ironworks Ltd. © 2014 Steve McGrew www.incandescent-iron.com 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. 2 Incandescent Ironworks Ltd. © 2014 Steve McGrew www.incandescent-iron.com 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. 3 Incandescent Ironworks Ltd. © 2014 Steve McGrew www.incandescent-iron.com 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. 4 Incandescent Ironworks Ltd. © 2014 Steve McGrew www.incandescent-iron.com 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. 5 Incandescent Ironworks Ltd. © 2014 Steve McGrew www.incandescent-iron.com 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 6 Incandescent Ironworks Ltd. © 2014 Steve McGrew www.incandescent-iron.com 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. 7 Incandescent Ironworks Ltd. © 2014 Steve McGrew www.incandescent-iron.com “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.