Here is an oil lamp that I have made from piece of sheet metal that was 4"x4" square which makes up the fuel reservoir. The swivel frame that the reservoir is attached to was a 3/4" strip that I had cut out with a chisel and filed square. The main swivel hook-link was made from a common duplex nail. The viewer may notice the fixturing method to join the two pieces together. The decision to reduce the amount of material I have to prepare to make this lead to clinched hooks. It holds well enough to keep the pieces together.

The chain is made up of annealed fence wire material that I bet and curled into hooped rings and was hammered square to not only make it look square and more visually appealing but to also strengthen it via work-hardening.
The hammer blows on the cold, dead-soft, mild steel made them a bit more rigid and less likely to warp while handling.

The long spike that driven into the wall was forged from a piece of square bar that measured 1/4th of an inch thick.
The hook was made by bending a corner and then flattening it on itself and forge welding the two pieces together before curling the hook over.

The chain is attached to a portion of the spike that has been punched, moving the material down and outward to make it thin like sheet metal. This allows more material to be around the hole which adds strength. If I were simply to just drill a hole, it would be too thin at the edges and would result in weakness.


Unfortunately I made a mistake and forged the whole hook and spike totally wrong. The spike works just fine to drive into a beam or post, but the hook is totally useless. All the weight of the spike points it downward, thus rotating the hook and making it easy to slip off of what ever I mount it to.

I will have to go about making that totally differently the next time.



Making this was a lot of fun and I am doing it because I actually enjoy working in flame light. I have recorded all of the measurements and steps I made up from scratch so I can make duplicates of this.

I will make about 3-4 more of them and I will use them when I'm in the shop in the later portion of the day.

A brief bit of history about these kinds of lamps, this one in particular is based on an late 1600's to mid 1700's example of a grease lamp that would be found in the home of a common American. Candles were expensive and most folk lit their homes with either rushlights (A pair of tongs on a tripod with one leg curled into a spiral to act as a weight) that had rush reeds soaked in greasy oils, or oil lamps. These are the iron variety of light fixtures, but a lot were clay (not the rushlight). Some could be cast from kupferous metals like bronze, copper, brass while some were forged from iron.

Any oil could be used to fuel the lamps and it was cheaper to use grease rather than buy oil dedicated to the lamp.
Homes had the incredibly lively fire place that did all sorts of tasks housed many wrought iron implements.
One of the appliances that would sit a the fire dogs and spits would be a grisset, a canoe shaped tray that would catch the grease and oil that dripped from the fatty meats that cooked by the fire. Rush would be laid in the grisset to soak, but it was also poured into the lamps.