Old Trades - Candlemaking

transcribed at

Old Trades - Candlemaking  [duchas:4891049]

When our parents were our age they had no lamps for doing their home lessons but candles which were always made at home from the fat or tallow got from a cow which they usually killed at the beginning of winter.  In every farmers house there was a mould for making candles.  It was like a bicycle pump in appearance but had a cone at one end.  Five or six cotton threads were put together for a wick.: then it was put through the mould and held at one end.  You then fill the other end with melted tallow and put the mould by to cool off and harden.  When the contents of the mould became solid you had a candle in the mould.  One had to draw out this candle while it was yet warm or it could not be drawn out at all.  The older people knew exactly the time to take the candle out.  Then the candle was put by to harden and this was how people supplied themselves with light.  Up to this

Old Trades - Candlemaking  [duchas:4891050]

time splinters were what people used.  Sometimes people drew out the candle too soon, that is before it was hard enough to hold.  Sometimes too, they did not draw it out soon enough and then the mould had to be held over the fire and warmed until the tallow next to it had melted a little when the candle would slip out easily by pulling the wick, from the end that was not conical.  Sometimes it happened that the wick was not centre-ways.  This was caused by not holding the wick in the centre of the mould while the melted tallow was being poured in.  A candle with the wick 'sideways in it' was not much use although it was always used.  The candles made from the tallow of one cow would do a household for a whole winter but those tallow candles were not good and the light given by them was poor and people thought the manufactured candle a great improvement on the home made one.  They were much more expensive though.  Before moulds were used the people peeled rushes and when they had the soft woolly centre they dipped it in melted tallow and then allowed it to dry.  They repeated this again and again until they had some kind of a candle.