Candles and Lantern Mock 1
(Pictures to follow)
Historic Overview
Firelight, hanging oil lamps, rushlights, candles and resin torches were the principal lighting sources of Medieval Europe. [1] Both beeswax and tallow candles can be dated back to the Romans. [2] Wax candle makers -or chandlers- were usually organized in separate guilds from tallow chandlers, as wax candles were far more expensive than tallow candles in period. A statute in 1433 England ordered that candles made of wax were worth no more than six pence a pound, while tallow candles were only a penny per pound in 1468. [3] This is probably due to the relative availability of tallow to wax; their smell (both in preparation and use) and because tallow tends to sputter whereas wax burns cleanly.
Lanterns for both candles and oil have been depicted in countless period images. The one I choose to try to emulate (a bit simplified) was found in the London Digs and shown in Egan. [4]
The Candle
The Wick
The wick is the second most important component of candles and oil lamps (the wax being first, of course). By the thirteenth century prepared wicks made of twisted cotton were sold commercially by the pound. [5] So much cotton was used in candle-making that in Genoa, the wax chandlers united with the cotton cloth producers in the fifteenth century. [6]All wicks were twisted until 1820, when a Frenchman by the name of Cambaceres discovered that braiding wicks made them “self-snuffing”. [7] For the ease of use, I choose to go with the post-period wick, unless you are really close up most cannot tell the difference.
The Process
Candles can be dipped, poured or molded. I chose to dip mine. Poured candles are a more exacting process, needing more equipment and are inherently messy. Most of the documentation I found for molded candles start around the mid-sixteen hundreds and doesn’t work well with straight beeswax (it’s too sticky). Also, I just like the look of dipped tapers, and thought it would be fun to learn how to make them.
There are two things that determine candle size for dipped candles. The first is the width of the wick. If the wick is too narrow the candle will leave a ring of wax, creating a puddle in the middle, which is death for a spun wick. If the wick is too thick, the candle will burn too quickly and too hot. The height of the candle is determined not only by the length of the wick, but by how deep the pot is in which the wax is heated. The taller the container-the taller the candle.
Beeswax has a low melting point, melting between 143º and 151º Fahrenheit. Its flashpoint is between 490-525º, and is undoubtedly a flammable material. [8] Because the idea of dipped candles is to build up layers of wax, not to melt them, it is best to keep the molten wax at as low a temperature as will keep it molten. To do this, I used a deep fryer that had an adjustable temperature gauge, two tall fruit juice cans, and some clear glass “pebbles”. This allowed me to heat the wax up without subjecting it to open flame or worry about drippage. I first heated up the wax in the fryer itself. Since the fryer is as wide as it is tall, this would only allow for three-inch tall candles and called for much more wax than I had. So I transferred the wax to two tall juice cans. One of the cans was used as the dip vat; the other was for reserve hot wax. It is important to keep the dip vat close to full. If one doesn’t, the wax become shallower as the candle grows and the candle resembles a carrot. To keep the full cans from moving and allow the most free water flow around and under them, I put a layer of glass pebbles under the two cans, stabilizing the cans with more pebbles around the sides, and filled the fryer with water. I then turned the fryer on to 200º and waited.
I started with semi-processed beeswax from a beekeeper that comes to our Farmers’ Market. It was separated from the honey and melted into a block. As it wasn’t strained, there was still bee detritus (including wing bits) still in the wax. At first I thought I would need to strain the wax while hot, but I found that the detritus simply sank to the bottom of the pot. When I transferred the hot wax to the two tall narrow cans, all of the dirt ended up not even fitting into the cans and was easy to separate. Since the beeswax I purchased was harvested at different times of the year, the two batches were slightly different colors (probably because the wax, like the honey, takes on characteristics of the pollen available to the bees).
I found that I needed to order cotton fiber for spinning, so I did some preliminary practice runs with commercially available woven wicks graded for candles between one and two inches in diameter. I used a dipping method suggested in Lighting the Primitive Camp. Trimming off the extra drip of beeswax that occurs with each dip, I first straightened the wick until the candle is too thick to straighten by hand. At that point, I rolled the candles on a cool marble slab after each dipping to continue shaping them. I found it was far more efficient and effective to make batches of candles, rather than making one candle at a time. This allowed them to cool sufficiently between each step.
The Lantern
The Lantern is, I think, me biting off more than I could chew. Although it is mostly made of pre-fabricated copper pieces (two post caps and a sheet of copper) that I needed to cut down, I have never dealt with fabricating anything from metal before. I had originally intended in making horn doors for the lantern, but I could not get the horn to flatten out after over eight hours of boiling it in water with hard wood ash (which is a light lye solution). More experimentation on the horn front is called for. I had also forgotten that I used to use a large floor-model guillotine for cutting sheets of metal in college print shop for copper engraving, so instead of being able to cut the sheet into the proper sizes inside of a half hour I hand-sawed the pieces (the Dremel was just chewing the metal up for most of the cuts). Hand sawing does mean that the lines are not as straight as I’d like. Having never dealt with rivets, I also had quite a bit of problem with those as well.
Since it is my first attempt at metal fabrication, I decided to simplify the overall design and remove the straps that one can see on the original lantern. I also decided to put fewer holes in the top since we plan on swapping out the beeswax candle for an electric one so we can leave it on in front of our pavilion when we are not there.
Bibliography
Caspall, John: Fire and Light in the home pre-1820; Antique Collectors’ Club, Ltd.; Suffolk, England; 1987
Egan, Geoff: Medieval Finds From Excavations in London: 6 The Medieval Household Daily Living c.1150 - c.1450; Museum of London; Norwich, England; 1998
Glenn, George: Lighting the Primitive Camp, Muzzleloader Magazine’s The Book of Buckskinning IV; Scurlock, William H., editor: Scurlock Publishing Inc.; Texarkana, Texas; 1987
http://www.honeystonecandles.com/beeswaxfacts.htm
Mazzaoui, Maureen: The Italian Cotton Industry in The Later Middle Ages, 1100-1600; Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, Massachusetts; 1981
[1] Mazzaoui, Maureen: The Italian Cotton Industry in The Later Middle Ages, 1100-1600; Cambridge University Press; 1981; page 102
[2] Mazzaoui, page 102
[3] Egan, Geoff: Medieval Finds From Excavations in London: 6 The Medieval Household Daily Living c.1150 - c.1450; Museum of London; Norwich, England; 1998; page 134, figure 118 Lantern only
[4] Egan, pages 150-151
[5] Mazzaoui, page 102
[6] Mazzaoui, page 103
[7] “As a twisted wick burns, it becomes longer and will cause the candle (especially tallow) to begin to sputter and dim. To keep a strong flame going, one must snuff or trim the wick regularly. A braided wick curls as it burns, moving itself out of the direct flame and allows the flame to stay strong throughout its burning. This seems to matter far more with tallow candles than with beeswax ones.”
Glenn, George: Lighting the Primitive Camp, Muzzleloader Magazine’s The Book of Buckskinning IV; Scurlock, William H., editor: Scurlock Publishing Inc.; 1987; page 198
[8] http://www.honeystonecandles.com/beeswaxfacts.htm
Historic Overview
Firelight, hanging oil lamps, rushlights, candles and resin torches were the principal lighting sources of Medieval Europe. [1] Both beeswax and tallow candles can be dated back to the Romans. [2] Wax candle makers -or chandlers- were usually organized in separate guilds from tallow chandlers, as wax candles were far more expensive than tallow candles in period. A statute in 1433 England ordered that candles made of wax were worth no more than six pence a pound, while tallow candles were only a penny per pound in 1468. [3] This is probably due to the relative availability of tallow to wax; their smell (both in preparation and use) and because tallow tends to sputter whereas wax burns cleanly.
Lanterns for both candles and oil have been depicted in countless period images. The one I choose to try to emulate (a bit simplified) was found in the London Digs and shown in Egan. [4]
The Candle
The Wick
The wick is the second most important component of candles and oil lamps (the wax being first, of course). By the thirteenth century prepared wicks made of twisted cotton were sold commercially by the pound. [5] So much cotton was used in candle-making that in Genoa, the wax chandlers united with the cotton cloth producers in the fifteenth century. [6]All wicks were twisted until 1820, when a Frenchman by the name of Cambaceres discovered that braiding wicks made them “self-snuffing”. [7] For the ease of use, I choose to go with the post-period wick, unless you are really close up most cannot tell the difference.
The Process
Candles can be dipped, poured or molded. I chose to dip mine. Poured candles are a more exacting process, needing more equipment and are inherently messy. Most of the documentation I found for molded candles start around the mid-sixteen hundreds and doesn’t work well with straight beeswax (it’s too sticky). Also, I just like the look of dipped tapers, and thought it would be fun to learn how to make them.
There are two things that determine candle size for dipped candles. The first is the width of the wick. If the wick is too narrow the candle will leave a ring of wax, creating a puddle in the middle, which is death for a spun wick. If the wick is too thick, the candle will burn too quickly and too hot. The height of the candle is determined not only by the length of the wick, but by how deep the pot is in which the wax is heated. The taller the container-the taller the candle.
Beeswax has a low melting point, melting between 143º and 151º Fahrenheit. Its flashpoint is between 490-525º, and is undoubtedly a flammable material. [8] Because the idea of dipped candles is to build up layers of wax, not to melt them, it is best to keep the molten wax at as low a temperature as will keep it molten. To do this, I used a deep fryer that had an adjustable temperature gauge, two tall fruit juice cans, and some clear glass “pebbles”. This allowed me to heat the wax up without subjecting it to open flame or worry about drippage. I first heated up the wax in the fryer itself. Since the fryer is as wide as it is tall, this would only allow for three-inch tall candles and called for much more wax than I had. So I transferred the wax to two tall juice cans. One of the cans was used as the dip vat; the other was for reserve hot wax. It is important to keep the dip vat close to full. If one doesn’t, the wax become shallower as the candle grows and the candle resembles a carrot. To keep the full cans from moving and allow the most free water flow around and under them, I put a layer of glass pebbles under the two cans, stabilizing the cans with more pebbles around the sides, and filled the fryer with water. I then turned the fryer on to 200º and waited.
I started with semi-processed beeswax from a beekeeper that comes to our Farmers’ Market. It was separated from the honey and melted into a block. As it wasn’t strained, there was still bee detritus (including wing bits) still in the wax. At first I thought I would need to strain the wax while hot, but I found that the detritus simply sank to the bottom of the pot. When I transferred the hot wax to the two tall narrow cans, all of the dirt ended up not even fitting into the cans and was easy to separate. Since the beeswax I purchased was harvested at different times of the year, the two batches were slightly different colors (probably because the wax, like the honey, takes on characteristics of the pollen available to the bees).
I found that I needed to order cotton fiber for spinning, so I did some preliminary practice runs with commercially available woven wicks graded for candles between one and two inches in diameter. I used a dipping method suggested in Lighting the Primitive Camp. Trimming off the extra drip of beeswax that occurs with each dip, I first straightened the wick until the candle is too thick to straighten by hand. At that point, I rolled the candles on a cool marble slab after each dipping to continue shaping them. I found it was far more efficient and effective to make batches of candles, rather than making one candle at a time. This allowed them to cool sufficiently between each step.
The Lantern
The Lantern is, I think, me biting off more than I could chew. Although it is mostly made of pre-fabricated copper pieces (two post caps and a sheet of copper) that I needed to cut down, I have never dealt with fabricating anything from metal before. I had originally intended in making horn doors for the lantern, but I could not get the horn to flatten out after over eight hours of boiling it in water with hard wood ash (which is a light lye solution). More experimentation on the horn front is called for. I had also forgotten that I used to use a large floor-model guillotine for cutting sheets of metal in college print shop for copper engraving, so instead of being able to cut the sheet into the proper sizes inside of a half hour I hand-sawed the pieces (the Dremel was just chewing the metal up for most of the cuts). Hand sawing does mean that the lines are not as straight as I’d like. Having never dealt with rivets, I also had quite a bit of problem with those as well.
Since it is my first attempt at metal fabrication, I decided to simplify the overall design and remove the straps that one can see on the original lantern. I also decided to put fewer holes in the top since we plan on swapping out the beeswax candle for an electric one so we can leave it on in front of our pavilion when we are not there.
Bibliography
Caspall, John: Fire and Light in the home pre-1820; Antique Collectors’ Club, Ltd.; Suffolk, England; 1987
Egan, Geoff: Medieval Finds From Excavations in London: 6 The Medieval Household Daily Living c.1150 - c.1450; Museum of London; Norwich, England; 1998
Glenn, George: Lighting the Primitive Camp, Muzzleloader Magazine’s The Book of Buckskinning IV; Scurlock, William H., editor: Scurlock Publishing Inc.; Texarkana, Texas; 1987
http://www.honeystonecandles.com/beeswaxfacts.htm
Mazzaoui, Maureen: The Italian Cotton Industry in The Later Middle Ages, 1100-1600; Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, Massachusetts; 1981
[1] Mazzaoui, Maureen: The Italian Cotton Industry in The Later Middle Ages, 1100-1600; Cambridge University Press; 1981; page 102
[2] Mazzaoui, page 102
[3] Egan, Geoff: Medieval Finds From Excavations in London: 6 The Medieval Household Daily Living c.1150 - c.1450; Museum of London; Norwich, England; 1998; page 134, figure 118 Lantern only
[4] Egan, pages 150-151
[5] Mazzaoui, page 102
[6] Mazzaoui, page 103
[7] “As a twisted wick burns, it becomes longer and will cause the candle (especially tallow) to begin to sputter and dim. To keep a strong flame going, one must snuff or trim the wick regularly. A braided wick curls as it burns, moving itself out of the direct flame and allows the flame to stay strong throughout its burning. This seems to matter far more with tallow candles than with beeswax ones.”
Glenn, George: Lighting the Primitive Camp, Muzzleloader Magazine’s The Book of Buckskinning IV; Scurlock, William H., editor: Scurlock Publishing Inc.; 1987; page 198
[8] http://www.honeystonecandles.com/beeswaxfacts.htm