Tinsmithing Festive Pierced Lantern – 2 Day Course
Tinsmithing Festive Pierced Lantern – Two-Day Course
Make winter evenings brighter by making your own traditional pierced candle lantern from tinplate.
On this two-day course at the beautiful Stanwick Lakes, you will learn how to pierce patterns into tinplate, form it into shape and use various joining methods to create your own traditional tinplate lantern. These traditional lanterns give a bright light when the door is open, and cast decorative patterns onto the wall through the piercings.
The course will start with an introduction to the tools and methods used in traditional tin-smithing. On the first morning you will learn by practising cutting with tin snips, using dividers, and marking gauges. To introduce forming shapes in the tinplate you will make wall hanging candle sconce. During the first afternoon we will learn piercing and discuss designs. You will then make the pierced barrel and cone top for your lantern. At the end of day one you will understand the methods and tools used in traditional tin-smithing.
Day two starts with finishing off any piercing and then cutting out all the other tinplate parts required to construction your own pierced lantern. You will form the shape of the lantern using traditional stake tools, mallets and your hands. As you progress through the stages of constructing your lantern you will learn how to solder tinplate using traditional fluxes.
At all times during these processes your tutor will be available to help or advise. At the end of day two you will have your own tinplate pierced lantern with your own design of piercing and a hanging wall sconce.
The course takes place in a purpose-built oak framed craft barn at Stanwick Lakes, a protected Nature Reserve and Wetland of International Importance covering 750 acres.
Your tutor is John Wills, one of the last three professional tinsmiths in Britain. In 2022, as part of a Heritage Crafts Association project to rescue tinsmithing, he trained under master tinsmith Karl Schmidt (Dakota Tinworks, USA) and subsequently built a new tinman & brazier workshop to keep the craft alive. He is a Yeoman of the Worshipful Company of Tinplate Workers Alias Wire Workers of the City of London.