Wooden Wine light by Jeppe

STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS:

1. With this project you can easily use any kind of bottle. I have used a wine bottle since it was what I just had in my house. Of course it is important that the diameter of the inside bottle is bigger than your tea light, otherwise you will get a little problem 
2. After the cut and separation of the two bottle parts you can put the parts away for a while. Do not trash the lower part, we will use it one more time later on for measuring the height of the wooden part.
3. Now it’s time to turn the wood that will replace the lower bottle part. Put your special chosen piece of wood into your lathe. Turn the piece nice and round and make sure that the diameter is the same as you chosen bottle when you are finish (after sanding). As you can see in one of the pictures, I didn’t have one piece of wood, so I have glued two parts together. Works great.

4.  The top of the bottle needs something to rest on, therefore, you need to measure the thickness of the bottle from the inside to the outside. Some bottles are not measuring the same the whole way around. So with a caliper measure where the bottle are thickest. With your best-chosen turning tool, remove the part where the bottle need to fit on the wooden part. If the bottle are, let’s say 4 mm. thick, you have to make the “platform” on the top of the wooden part 4 mm. “deep” as well, so that he wine top fits perfectly down on the wooden part. I think the platform could be done with a router as well.

5.  If you don’t have a wood lathe, you can go to your local carpenter and buy a custom made wooden cylinder. It’s important that the diameter of the wood is exactly the same as the bottle. The height is not important, since you always can cut some of the bottom. But the piece should not be smaller than the lower bottle part.

6.  Now it’s time to cut out the hole for the tea light. Since I do not have a router I used a hole saw, and afterwards drilled the part out in small pieces with a 8 mm. drill bit. The finish is not nice, but hey, you put a tea light in the hole anyway, so no one will ever see the inside finish.

7.  Now the only thing you need is to find the lower glass part. Measure the height from your table to the top of the bottle, where you have cut it. The wooden part has to be exactly the same height from the table to the platform, so cut of the rest.

8.  Now you can put in your tea light, light it up and put the glass part on the wooden part. The final product should now have the same height as the bottle had before the cutting.

Note: Candles needs air to light. Some bottles with a very thin bottleneck will kill the tea light because of missing air inside the bottle. You can simply drill a hole or two in the “back” of the wooden part, so that there will be a stream of fresh air inside the bottle.

MATERIALS REQUIRED:

1. A wine bottle
2. A piece of wood
3. A Kinkajou Bottle Cutter and Included Accessories
4. Sand Paper (Finishing Kit)
5. A wood turning lathe and included tools
6. A caliper
7. A drill, drill bit and hole saw
8. Tea light