Candlestacks
The candlestacks started as a way to use all of the leftover ‘beads’ from the sculpture totem in the Creative Gambit show in July 2019. My favorite leftover bead was the teacup and saucer, turned off-center. For the show, I painted the teacup/saucer chartreuse, but these two are showing off the figure in the aspen. Each section of the stack is turned separately, and then the stack is joined together using a wooden dowel. The stacks are around 10″ tall. The top is sized to hold a 2″ diameter pillar candle, a large tealight, or a 3″ round candle. The one on the right also holds a 5″ coach candle with the taper-style base.
All wooden candlesticks are safer with the battery-operated lights. There is a reason we don’t find very many old wooden candlesticks.
Many famous woodturners (Michael Hosaluk, John Jordan) have turned teapots in varying degrees of functionality. It something of a modern standard that the spout is part of the original turning, and not added to the body, as it would be in a ceramic teapot. I decided to start with the basic shape as a bead for a candlestack. So it is solid, with a hole for the dowel, and a handle made of this amazing flexible wood. This one is quite a bit smaller than the two teacups in the photo above.
The use of a central dowel to connect parts comes from stacking toy blocks. I’ve also used a 2″ plastic pipe to build the hatstand. It allows me to make much taller turnings than I could fit on my shortbed Vicmark lathe.