| Take a long strap or ribbon of iron, and if you
use soft enough piece you can cold-wrap it around your mandrel (use old piece of pipe
about diameter of your future candles…). At the base, angle-bend a length
outward and then shove that in the coke - take a heat - then quick snatch it out and
work it over your horn - neck it a bit - and cup or rat-tail end if you like. Next
make up your tripod legs from rodstock. Take care to get things "even" and
matched up … with these simple pieces its like Quaker furniture: so few details -
each must harmonize perfectly. The feet traditionally
want to terminate in "ha'penny" fashion: half-round little pads you got to learn
to do with one or two swats on your anvil. This detail "makes" your
repro. In 1770 hereabouts, George's lobsterbacks would have hauled you off to the
pokey for such effrontery as working your own native iron without paying George his tax on
same! Resist always central government, good buddies! It is a curse
upon freedom of the mind and spirit!
Lol
Finally - you got to forge up a little gizmo like a
"pan" or pad that supports base of your candle with little protruding handle on
it. In use, your candle rests in this base or cup and you raise it periodically
upward as the taper burns, by racking it along up the spiral ramp!
It is said Colonial fathers allowed so many turns up the ramp
in one evening for the rude rustics who would woo their daughters back then - then it was
time to go home! Lol. Well some things - even in "The Land of Steady
Habits" as the Nutmeg State was once known - do change and that's one of them! |
