Walnut Tealight Holder

Still horrendous at making things with my hands but will keep trying! This is a tealight holder that is basically three bits of wood, two drill holes and glue.

• Band Saw
• Pillar Drilling Machine
• 1 1/2" Forstner Bit
• Sand Paper
• Wood Glue
• Circular Saw

Lessons learnt

Buying Wood

• Walnut is a beautiful dark hardwood
• Walnut is expensive
• A DIY Store will sell wood at fixed lengths, but will cut it into pieces for you.
• My car can fit about 10feet of wood just!

Prepping

• Make a detailed plan beforehand.
• If it doesn’t work on paper it won’t work in the shop (this applies to coding too btw). Draw out everything to scale.
• Use SketchUp or some other CAD software if you want to have reusable plans.
• Itemize the equipment you’ll need. Nothing more frustrating than being halfway through and realising you don’t have any sanding paper!
• Use Painters Tape or Super77 glue to stick your paper plans onto real wood.

In the Shop

• Sanding concave curves is hard without a spindle sander
• Always sand with the grain
• Wood Glue needs clamps and needs to sit clamped for at least 30mins
• Have a Pencil and a backup!