Handmade Wooden Candle Sticks

I made some candlesticks recently.

I've been thinking about items I'd like to make to sell and these were my first candlestick prototypes, which was pretty instructive.

I started with an aged, scrap piece of douglas fir which I picked up for a song at a recycled building materials yard here in the city.

I used 3/4 inch copper sleeving (cut in half) to hold the candle and to act as a burn barrier for when the candle burns down very low (which seems to happen to me all the time). I played around with how high the copper should protrude. I then switched to 3/4 inch end caps, which looked more finished as they have a bottom.

  

Remember, the easiest, no-measure way to find the center of something for drilling is to draw an X from corner to corner.

This part of my process was very fast. I cross-cut a bunch of pieces, marked them and then drilled them on the drill press. After that I sanded the top end grain.

It was the painting process that took forever :/ which I will be rethinking for my next round.

I tried a variety of technique for painting. Some of these guys I painted freehand with no primer -I scribed a line with a razor as the guide line. Some I painted with tape and no primer and some I taped and sprayed. The whole point of using the recycled wood is to get a product that has patina so there was no other sanding involved except for the tops.

Theses are looking pretty Scandinavian, folk arty -especially against the christmas greenery. 

In this setting, they read a little differently. For sure the dark blue and black are less seasonal. I like them just as well without a candle in them.

All in all this was an enjoyable exercise. Next round I'm going to burn the graphics on.

Cheers and I'm always open to feedback, so do tell.