The Artisan's Journey: Crafting Tin-Lined Copper Cookware

The connection between craftsmanship and cooking runs deep. Both require patience, precision, and respect for materials. Both transform raw elements into something greater than the sum of their parts. In the forge, like the kitchen, I found myself working with elemental forces—fire, metal, and human ingenuity—to create something both beautiful and functional.

I've always loved to cook. Starting from the age of three, I was in the kitchen with my family in Munich watching my parents chop away at vegetables and making all of my favorite foods growing up. As I got a bit older, they started to teach me basic knife skills, how to brown onions and garlic, and what types of oils to use for different foods so that they always tasted their best.

These early lessons formed the foundation of my culinary perspective. I learned that cooking was not merely about following recipes but understanding how ingredients transform under heat and how proper technique can elevate simple foods to extraordinary experiences. The sizzle of garlic hitting hot oil, the gentle browning of onions releasing their sweetness, and the transformation of raw ingredients into nourishing meals became the backdrop of my childhood.

All these lessons stuck with me, and when I decided to pursue blacksmithing as a career, I returned to my love of food. I'm a firm believer that better tools lead to better meals. 

I wanted to learn how to make the best possible kitchen tools so people would have the best possible experience in their kitchens. I'm not implying that you can't make wonderful foods with cheap or lower-quality tools, but it makes it a bit trickier. Knives that crush tomatoes or split through carrots, pans that have cheap linings, cutting boards that leave bits of plastic in your food—all contribute to a worse experience in the kitchen.

About a year and a half ago, I wanted to pursue creating frying pans because I wasn't satisfied with what was available to me at the time. Cast iron pans are heavy and rust very easily. People say they are non-stick when they are seasoned correctly, but I find that unless you're using a ton of oil (which would make any pan non-stick), they don't really do the job very well.

Carbon steel pans are very popular, but I've never really enjoyed cooking in them. They have the same problems that cast iron pans have: they rust easily, they leave foods like eggs with a strange grey hue, and generally make food taste metallic and rusty. I tried following all the different guides online for how to season and best maintain a carbon steel pan, but whenever I tried to make a tomato sauce, all that seasoning was stripped away in minutes. I actually ended up finding an online list of things you're not supposed to cook in carbon steel or cast iron pans. This list included: tomatoes, berries, wine, and vinegar, and it recommended that people avoid using it to cook stocks, soups, or braised dishes. 

I don't know about you, but when I spend a bunch of money on a pan, I prefer not to be limited to just a few dishes.

Teflon-lined pans seem really cheap and potentially toxic, and I've never liked how easily bits of the lining flake off if you scratch the bottom. That was immediately a no-go for me.

Stainless steel pans are actually pretty good, in my opinion. They aren't limited as far as ingredients or uses go, they're tough as nails, not super expensive, and they’re aesthetically pleasing. I didn't really think there was much left to be done with the design, but they do have a habit of being really 'sticky' if you aren't careful. I've shredded enough proteins and all too often I have accidentally ended up with mediocre scrambled eggs when I wanted an omelet, so I didn't really want to get too involved in that world. Another thing I noticed about stainless steel pans is that they are very susceptible to 'hot spots'—areas of the cooking surface that heat up faster than other parts of the pan. That differential in heating can lead to inconsistent browning or uneven cooking, which is no fun.

In early 2023, I stumbled across tin-lined copper pans. I didn't really know why people used to cook in them, but I knew that they carried a high level of prestige among those who used them, so I started digging.

I quickly learned that copper is an excellent conductor of heat, which eliminates the concern for hotspots. The tin lining is exceptionally resistant to acids, which means you aren't limited to cooking without wine, vinegar, berries, or anything else. Tin doesn't need to be seasoned before you get a non-stick effect, and the lining is not toxic like Teflon. 

The more I read, the more I realized that tin-lined copper pans were precisely what I had been looking for in a frying pan. They're durable, heat extremely evenly, aren't susceptible to rust or stripped seasoning, they're gorgeous, and best of all, they make food taste better.

Eggs cooked in tin-lined copper are a transformative experience. They seem to take on a light, pure flavor that I didn't know I was missing until I tried it for the first time. The way copper conducts heat means that temperature adjustments are nearly instantaneous—turn down the heat, and the pan responds immediately, giving you unprecedented control over delicate cooking processes.

Tin-lined copper pans are a very old cooking vessel. Some of the early copper pans date from before the 1600s, and the designs really haven't changed all that much over the centuries. The originals were hammered out from sheets of copper and then fitted with heavy iron handles before being lined by tinsmiths. The European culinary tradition has long relied on  these pans—from the royal kitchens of France to the humble hearths of country homes.

When I began this journey, I discovered that copper cookware wasn't just about functionality but about preserving a dying craft. Very few producers remain, and the number continues to shrink every year.  Each pan is not merely a cooking tool but a piece of living history, connecting modern cooks to centuries of culinary tradition. In our era of mass production and planned obsolescence, these pans represent something timeless and authentic—cookware that improves with age and can be passed down through generations.

I had made several copper bowls and other little vessels in the past, so I figured I'd buy some copper and give it a try. While I love many aspects of traditional tin lined copper pans, there are a few tweaks I wanted to make to the design. 

I decided that I didn't like cast iron handles because they seemed clunky, super heavy, and quickly rust when you don’t dry them off immediately after use. Also,  copper pans are heavy, so adding a few pounds of steel was unappealing to me.

A traditional handle alternative to carbon steel is brass. My problem with brass is that it's made from around 70 percent copper and 30 percent zinc. That means the handles would get nearly as hot as the pan does, and that isn't pleasant when you try to move the pan around the stove.

Instead, I opted to use stainless steel. Plain stainless steel has a sterile, almost surgical look to it, but I sought a way to match the texture and color of stainless with the aesthetics (but not the weight) of cast iron. After some experimentation, I developed a method to forge stainless steel that achieved this goal. This marriage of traditional form with modern materials represents my philosophy as a craftsman—honoring historical techniques while embracing innovations that improve functionality.

Lining and polishing tin-lined copper is an art in and of itself, so I found a few experts with whom I could collaborate(Donn at Northcoast copper, and the lovely folks at Normandy kitchen copper to name a few). They would handle the lining and polishing, and I would handle the pan's construction. This collaborative approach allowed me to focus on my strengths while ensuring that every aspect of the finished product met the highest quality standards.

Hand-raising pans requires a lot of very exacting and highly  physical tasks. I start with a disk of copper about 2.3mm thick (based on my research, 2.3mm is a really nice middle ground as far as thickness for copper goes, balancing even heating and weight). After marking the center, I draw a series of concentric circles radiating from the desired cooking surface in the middle of the pan. Next, I hammer along those lines to start curling up the walls of the pan. After I go around in a circle, I end up with kind of a wonky bowl-shaped form.

 Next, I set the curvature of the walls by carefully hammering the inside of the pan until the transition from the cooking surface to the walls of the pan is a shallow curve. That shallow curve allows for easier flipping of omelets or other delicate foods and better access under ingredients with a spatula. I repeat this process until the walls of the pan are about 40mm high. That's a nice height that allows for easy flipping and an aesthetically proportionate form.

Each hammer blow leaves a subtle mark, a signature that cannot be replicated by machine. Unlike the uniform, artificial dimples found on mass-produced Moscow Mule mugs or budget cookware from IKEA—poor imitations attempting to mimic artisanal character—true hand-hammered textures possess a natural variance and organic rhythm. The seemingly random pattern tells the story of the metal's transformation, with each indentation recording a moment of focused craftsmanship. These hammer marks aren't merely decorative—they work-harden the copper, creating a stronger, more durable cooking surface while improving heat distribution across the pan's base.

I lose track of time in the workshop, wholly absorbed in the gradual transformation of flat metal into functional art. There's something meditative about the rhythm of hammering: strike, turn, strike, turn….

The process requires not just physical strength but patience and precision. Too much force in the wrong place can thin the copper unevenly; too little won't shape the metal properly. As with cooking, it's about feeling and intuition as much as technique. After thousands of hammer strikes, my hands have developed a memory for the right amount of force needed for each stage of the process.

Many mass produced frying pans treat the handles almost as an afterthought. They are usually made in one of two ways, either they bend a piece of flat barstock and rivet or weld it onto the body of the pan, or they use ultra thin sheet metal rolled into a tube to serve as the handle. 

With my pans, the handle isn't merely an afterthought—it's an integral part of the pan's design and functionality. Its weight, balance, and ergonomics affect how the cook interacts with the food. A properly designed handle becomes an extension of the cook's arm, allowing for precise movements and control. I spend quite a long time perfecting the handles so they do justice to the pans themselves. Many mass produced pans treat the handles as an afterthought, I think that’s a real shame because they can do so much to contribute not only to the aesthetics of the pan, but also to the functionality. 

After cutting the handles out of stainless steel, I drill holes for the rivets (it is much easier to do this on a flat piece of metal than a curved one). I forge a concave section into the widest part of the handle; this allows for a comfortable spot to rest your thumb while you move the pan around. This concave section also allows me to use thinner, lighter stainless steel while maintaining the strength required to hold a 2-kilo piece of copper.

Next, I forge the attachment plate to match the curvature of the body of the pan so that the copper is nicely supported by the handle's attachment point. After texturing the handle and making sure the coloration from the forge is consistent, I wire brush the whole thing to make sure there aren't any sharp edges. This also leaves the handle with a really pleasant silky matte finish that doesn't just wash off like paint or other coatings would.

Next comes drilling the body of the copper pan to allow for rivets. This step can be a bit tricky — if I make a mistake, the handle won't be properly aligned, and I'll have to start from scratch. Mass produced pans often have handles that aren’t properly aligned which can lead to lopsided weight distribution as well as a really sloppy looking finished product.  

I use three rivets and an extra wide attachment point in my pans to ensure a secure fit. Two rivets in a line means that every time you lift the pan up by the handle, the weight of the pan pulls away from the attachment point, and after some time, the copper rivets can deform, and the handle will loosen., The same issue occurs even with three rivets whose attachment points are too close together. 

Three rivets set up in a triangular arrangement means that the torque is evenly distributed, and the handle will stay secured longer. I also make sure to leave a bit of extra length on the rivets on the outside of the handle so that if it ever does get loose, tightening the rivets is no problem.

After I drill the first hole in the copper, I place a rivet through both the body of the pan and the handle. But before I actually drill the next two holes, I tighten the handle to the pan with a little clamp and make sure the alignment is just right. After some adjustment, I mark the copper in the spots where the next two rivets will go, and only then move on to drilling the next two holes in the copper.

After the holes are drilled comes one of my favorite parts: actually riveting the whole thing together. This is when the parts all come together and actually become a copper pan. It's immensely satisfying to see all the little parts that I’ve toiled over come together and become the object I had in my mind.

The sound of the hammer striking copper rivets resonates throughout my workshop—a metallic symphony that culminates in a finished piece. There's a moment when the final rivet is set, and the pan transforms from components to a unified whole. That moment never fails to bring a smile to my face, regardless of how many pans I've made.

I'm one of the only people in Europe still hand-raising copper pans. Hand-raising means the quality is higher, but it's just really difficult to make a commercially viable product that way.  Copper pans are expensive to begin with, often many times more expensive than high-end stainless steel or carbon steel pans. Hand-raised pans are even more so.

In a world increasingly dominated by automation and mass production, there's something exciting about dedicating oneself to such a labor-intensive craft. Each hand-raised pan represents approximately 15-20 hours of focused work—a commitment to craftsmanship, and to quality over quantity that runs counter to modern manufacturing and business ethics. 

But this investment of time and skill results in cookware that will last for generations, making it not just a purchase but an heirloom.

Each hand-raised pan I make is unique. I and many other aficionados believe hand-raised pans are better than their spun counterparts. The hammering work-hardens the base, which leads to even more consistent browning; the aesthetics are more interesting than spun (hammer marked texture is particularly sought after), and there's an unmistakable character that hand-raised pans have that can only be achieved from someone actually hammering each one out on an anvil.

To popularize copper pans, though, the price must be reduced. I wanted to make copper pans more accessible to people, and spinning them allows me to bring the price down a bit while maintaining a lot of the features I love about copper pans. So, in recent months, I've introduced a separate line of spun pans. 

There's nothing wrong with a spun pan; they're lovely looking, non-stick, and evenly- heating -- and I've integrated the same forged type of stainless steel handle that I use on my most exclusive hand-raised pans to them that my hand-raised line of pans feature.

This dual approach allows me to serve different markets—those who value the artisanal qualities and unique character of hand-raised pans, and those who appreciate the functionality of copper cookware but want to get it at a more accessible price point. Both lines embody my commitment to quality, craftsmanship, and thoughtful design.

I've fallen in love with the way tin-lined copper pans work and the results they produce, and I want to share that with as many people as I can. 

When someone cooks with one of my pans for the first time, there's often a moment of revelation—a realization that cookware can be more than just a tool but a partner in the cooking process. Foods taste cleaner, more distinct. Heat distribution is so even that browning becomes almost effortless. The responsiveness of copper means that temperature adjustments are immediate, giving unprecedented control over delicate processes.

There's something deeply satisfying about creating tools that enhance daily life. Each pan that leaves my workshop carries a piece of my passion for both metalwork and cooking. In bridging these two worlds, I hope to enrich both—elevating the cooking experience through thoughtful craftsmanship and preserving traditional metalworking techniques by making them relevant to contemporary kitchens.

In the end, my work is about connection—connecting cooks with their ingredients through superior tools, connecting modern kitchens with centuries of culinary tradition, and connecting my own love of food with my skills as a metalworker. Through these handcrafted copper pans, these connections become tangible, useful, and beautiful objects that will hopefully be treasured and used for generations to come.