Blacksmithed Candle Holder

Concept

Key to this design was the need for a unique gift. I run a gas forge for Blacksmithing as a hobby and decided that a hand forged piece was the ideal gift for such an occasion. For the designs, I experimented around, however, I decided to focus the design around a candle. After suitable iterations I decided to use a flower shape in order to reflect the light, whilst also creating a beautiful flower shaped shadow.

Materials

Steel was to be a key component, and I selected 303 stainless steel in order to help prevent rust. There would also be a beeswax coating to help this further. However, a monochrome finish did not seem appropriate so I settled on making the inner leaves out of copper. This posed a unique challenge from a manufacturing standpoint, as copper can be melted by burning propane, whereas steel cannot.

Manufacture

In order to ensure a quick process, I ordered 2 steel sheets and 2 copper sheets sized to what I need to create the petals, rather than shaping the leaves from a bar. This meant a more uniform shape, which was practical. However, in order to ensure it still looked handmade, I textured the leaves with a ball peen hammer before shaping them.

Final Design

Below is the final design, rendered into several scenarios.