{"id":1422,"date":"2010-11-20T17:26:05","date_gmt":"2010-11-20T23:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dmentd.com\/?p=1422"},"modified":"2010-11-20T17:26:53","modified_gmt":"2010-11-20T23:26:53","slug":"wine-bottle-lamps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wine-bottle-lamps","title":{"rendered":"Wine Bottle Lamps."},"content":{"rendered":"

I frequently run across things while surfing on the web, and say to myself “Self, wouldn’t it be cool to make that?”<\/em> and that’s about where it ends.\u00a0 Don’t get me wrong… I like making things, often in spite of the time and money involved versus just going out and buying something similar — it’s the ‘figuring’, you see… I like to know how something works, and what better way than to make it yourself, and even see if you can improve on a design someone else has come up with.<\/p>\n

Recently, a project did catch my eye — something that struck chord in my brain upon first sight.\u00a0 I stumbled upon THIS<\/strong><\/a> page on how to build an oil lamp from an empty wine bottle.\u00a0 I thought it was elegant, and would work fantastically well to replace the old (and leaky in one case) tiki-style torches I have on the patio, and wouldn’t cost too terribly much to do.\u00a0 Here’s the basics of what you’ll need (the image and list are blatantly “borrowed” from the original project site):<\/p>\n

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  1. 1)<\/strong> Empty Wine Bottle (You can use any bottle you like as long as it\u2019s glass and the neck is 1\u201d in diameter. Be clever!)<\/li>\n
  2. 2) <\/strong>Teflon Tape \u00bd\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. 3)<\/strong> Copper Top Plate Connector (threaded for \u215c\u201d-16 thread rod)<\/li>\n
  4. 4)<\/strong> 1\u201d Split Ring Hanger (threaded for \u215c\u201d-16 thread rod)<\/li>\n
  5. 5)<\/strong> \u00bd\u201d x \u215c\u201d Copper Coupling<\/li>\n
  6. 6)<\/strong> \u00bd\u201d Copper Cap<\/li>\n
  7. 7)<\/strong> Two Hex Nuts (threaded for \u215c\u201d-16 thread rod)<\/li>\n
  8. 8 )<\/strong> Two #10 x 1\u201d Zinc Plated Wood Screws (if your mounting it to wood)<\/li>\n
  9. 9)<\/strong> \u215c\u201d-16 Zinc Plated Threaded Rod (I bought a 3\u2019 rod and cut it down to 8, 4\u00bd\u201d rods with a hacksaw.)<\/li>\n
  10. 10)<\/strong> Tiki Replacement Wick<\/li>\n
  11. 11)<\/strong> Torch Fuel (For safety reasons, only use fuel made specifically for outdoor torches. i.e. Tiki brand)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Starting with that page and its core concept, I started gathering my materials.\u00a0 I liked the look of the blue bottle, especially against the copper.\u00a0 I gathered up some bottles from the homebrew store that suited my needs, and a stop at Lowes and Home Depot netted me most of the rest of the hardware.\u00a0 No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find anyone local who had the tiki-torch wicks (this late in the season, with autumn upon us already), or the copper flanges in stock.\u00a0 I turned to my trusty pal, Amazon.com, and ordered what I needed.\u00a0 The flanges, while being copper colored, are just powder-coated cast metal, and not even copper plated.\u00a0 If you look at the pieces on the picture above, you’ll notice they are too… but! my split ring hangers are copper plated, and will age nicely with the rest of the holders (except the flange… oh well).<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    I made a few improvements to the overall design.\u00a0 First, rather than leave a plain ol’ threaded (non copper colored!) rod out in plain sight I sleeved it with a length of \u00bd” copper pipe that tied the whole design together.\u00a0 The hex huts actually make a nice accent color amongst all the copper and cover the open ends of the copper pipe perfectly.\u00a0 Second, I soldered a length of copper chain to the cap so it won’t get lost, and put a copper clasp on the other end to easily fasten it around the neck of the bottle.\u00a0 Lastly, I drilled through the \u00bd\u201d x \u215c\u201d copper coupling and put a 2″ copper pin through it and the wick to keep the wick from slipping down into the bottle accidentally — I found that the wicks were just a hair narrower than they needed to be to actually stay put in the coupler by themselves.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    That addressed the lamps I wanted to mount to the house around the perimeter of the patio, but I still wanted one out on the corner by the yard.\u00a0 With nothing to mount it to, I set out to build a stand.\u00a0 Keeping with the copper theme, I used \u215c\u201d copper tubing to build the holder cage, flattening the tube in a vice to make the flat pieces where needed, and \u00bd\u201d copper pipe and fittings to make the stake from.\u00a0 I even built in a cross-piece at the bottom so I could use my foot the help sink the stake into the ground.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    Filled with a Citronella lamp fuel (which is yellow, and is what is making the blue bottles look a little green) they make a nice attractive addition to the patio, and will help fend off flying critters as well.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    Also, as a bonus, the same concept can be applied to making attractive wall hanging flower vases.\u00a0 Check out the how-to HERE<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I frequently run across things while surfing on the web, and say to myself “Self, wouldn’t it be cool to make that?” and that’s about where it ends.\u00a0 Don’t get me wrong… I like making things, often in spite of the time and money involved versus just going out and buying something similar — it’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,7,3,23],"tags":[53,54,40,52,55,51],"class_list":["post-1422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-domestica","category-house","category-links","category-pictures","tag-copper","tag-make","tag-obsession","tag-oil-lamp","tag-project","tag-wine-bottle-lamp"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1422"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1440,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422\/revisions\/1440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}