Waxing Poetic In Sturbridge | Mole Hollow Candles keeps tradition alive in hand-made techniques
I visit a lot of machine shops and other heavy duty places for this column, so it was nice to have the opportunity recently to visit Mole Hollow Candles in Sturbridge.
Mole Hollow isn’t necessarily a candle manufacturer. It’s a craft place, according to owner Dave Dunn, much the same way a very small brewery can be called a craft brewery.
So, instead of the ragged din of CNC machines or plastic molding stations, Mole Hollow is quiet. Things are done by hand at almost every step of the candle making process and the company puts out a couple million candles every year.
Attention To Detail
It’s painstaking work, and Dunn said it requires a good mix of physical endurance and artistry.
The result is a line of well respected, sought after high-end candles made the old fashioned way. That’s not bad for a guy who ditched a career in the semiconductor industry to buy Mole Hollow.
Dunn and his wife purchased the 40-year-old company from its founders about six years ago. At the time, it was in Shelburne Falls. The Worcester residents moved the company to warehouse and distribution space on the westbound side of Route 20 in Sturbridge in January.
“It was an efficiency issue,” Dunn explained. “It was in an historic mill building on the Deerfield River. It was a beautiful spot, but we were working on four floors and we couldn’t bring in 18-wheelers. Customers are willing to pay a fair price for a quality product, but they’re not willing to pay for your inefficiency.”
The Dunns had a connection with Sturbridge, it’s where they bought their first house, plus Dunn said the community is a good place for craft-type businesses.
And when Mole Hollow says its candles are handmade, it’s true. The only somewhat mechanized equipment used in the entire facility is used only to melt and hold the wax used to make the candles.
Other than that, the candles themselves are all hand-dipped, hand-tapered and hand-finished.
And to accomplish that, Mole Hollow relies heavily on the skill of its employees.
“The outcome depends on their skill, their attention to detail and willingness to work in a craft that’s a lot of heavy lifting,” Dunn said.
Candle makers at Mole Hollow place a length of cotton wick material on a frame that holds probably two dozen candles. The frame is dipped in hot wax at varying depths in order to achieve the proper taper and then lifted out to dry. During my visit, a candle maker was setting up 15 frames that would be his day’s work.
Dunn said industry standards indicate that candle makers can hand-dip 200 candles every day, but he gives his guys a day off from that particular task out of concern for their physical condition.
A body that’s broken down is perhaps not the best place to keep a creative mind.
“There’s an artistic eye to what we do. Three of our candle dippers are musicians, they have a good touch for it and attention to detail. So, you need physical endurance, but you also need the artistic eye to say the shape’s right, the color’s right and the finish is right.”
Got news for our Industrial Strength column? E-mail WBJ Managing Editor Matthew L. Brown at mbrown@wbjournal.com.
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