Triangle Tea Lights
A Pictorial Article by Bob Hamilton
A turner named Horst Hohoff from Germany posted a picture in the Sawmill Creek turning forum of what he called a Nussecke in December of 2006. It was a triangular candle holder that used a glass insert to hold the candle. It stuck in my mind and I finally decided to try turning a triangle. These ones are quite a bit smaller than Horst’s and just use an ordinary tea light candle. This is the way I did mine which is not intended to imply that it is the only way or even the right way.
I started out by cutting a couple of triangles from a piece of red oak that was laying around. It was about 4” wide and 1 ¾” thick. I cut them on the mitre saw with an angle setting of 30 degrees to produce two equilateral triangles.
Photo
#1: End of stock cut to 30 degrees. Photo
#2: Preparing to cut the first triangle.
Once I had my triangles cut I marked the mid point of all three sides and then used a square to extend the line in to the middle of the triangles. The intersection of the three lines is the center of the triangle. I bored a 1” hole in each triangle to use to mount them on the lathe using the step jaws on my Oneway chuck.
With the blank mounted on the lathe I started by taking a few light passes across the face to true it up. I then cut a tenon in the middle to use to mount the blank with the other face out.
Photo #5: Blank mounted using expanding mode. Photo #6: Tenon cut on bottom of blank.