Beautiful Wine Bottle Tiki Torches

Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com. You know, sometimes there's some great ideas that float around on Pinterest and other posting sites like that. And recently, I saw the Wine Bottle Tiki Torch. Well, does it live up to the hype? Stay tuned and I'll tell you all about it. Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com. Well, we love to add things to our yardscape that are clever, inexpensive, add a little bit of whimsy. And I thought this was a good candidate, it is the Wine Bottle Tiki Torch. Now, I've seen these all over and decided to give it a shot to see if it really works. The bottom line is, you can see it works and it wasn't that much of a problem to make them. I'm gonna walk you through the parts that it takes, the tools, the process, and then you'll see in the description below that there's a Bitly link that'll take you to a parts list and where you can buy these and so you're welcome to do that. So let's go ahead and get started. You know, but I have a confession to make, this kind of reminds me of the revolutionary tool, the Malta Cocktail. Just sand, but obviously we're using it for peaceful purposes. And it is a very serene light source. And as you can see, it's a citronella type of thing that's thrown off a little bit of smoke. So it really helps repel the insects on a nice evening when you've got these lit. Now we're showing you the model that is actually mounted on a bracket and a piece of threaded rod, but with a little bit of weighting, like let's say glass beads, aquarium rocks, some nice colorful gravel in the bottle itself, you could just put these on the table or along railings where they're more center, or excuse me, bottom weighted, and a little bit more stable. In this particular version, we're actually using some plumbing parts to build this. Well, what are you gonna need to build each one of your wine bottle or your other favorite beverage, Tiki Torch? Well, first thing you're gonna need is to get some wicks. And these wicks are fiberglass, are generally nine to 10 inches long. And the wicks never get consumed. They don't burn down. They are simply a conduit in which it does what its name, it lives up to what its name is. It wicks up the fluid or the fuel up to where the ignition is, and therefore you get this nice flame. But the wick itself never really burns. It just stays in place. And so it's kind of like a one-time investment. You need some kind of tube. In this case, it's half inch copper tubing in which these are gonna fit inside of. You also need a coupling to put on the top and a washer that's gonna fit and be soldered onto it that allow this to be suspended down in the beverage container. Then you'll also need some threaded rod, a base plate, and then also a clasp. These are all plumbing parts right here that allow you to mount them either on the side of a post, different posts that are along the yard. These would be a really nice meandering path accent. Even though we haven't installed any of our yard scape yet, I went ahead and put one together here to demonstrate what it would look like. And it's just real clean, nice. And you also will need a 3 1⁄4 inch cap, which is usually used for soldering on that'll literally just drop over afterwards as a snuffer. Now, one thing we didn't do because I found, I was trying to find this in time to do this video, is a little piece of chain that I could solder to this and then attach it down to the clasp over here so that it always was with it. And I couldn't find the right chain. So I hope you'll forgive me and you'll use your own imagination to see what that would look like. That piece of chain's probably three to four inches long. One loop will go through the screw end over here. The other one gets attached to the top of this with a screw and then this dangles. But when you're ready to extinguish it, you simply pick it up, put it over the top and extinguish the flame. So those are the parts you need on this side. And then, of course, your beverage containers. Now, here you'll see that I took these beverage containers and I put them in a tub of soapy water, let them start soaking. And just within a short period of time, the labels started to loosen. I was able to take a scraper as well as a scrub brush and within a short period of time, all in about 15 minutes, loosen the labels, get them washed, and then invert it on a branch or a twig or a nail to let them completely dry. And now you have a variety. And I think the variety is nice. If you're one of those OCD people, and we need you just as much as every other type of people, so no insult, but if you're an OCD person and you like everything the same, then you can collect all the bottles that you like that are the same so they're uniform and they all look the same. If you like a little bit more variety, and these are typically wine bottles you're gonna find are green. This is a beer bottle. One of my sons is a beer brewer and ends up with a lot of different bottles like this. And so this is one from his collection, but there's various colors and shapes. All are fair game for this treatment. So you can do these types of things. I'll use about what's called a three quarter clasp up here and it'll work very well. Okay, so the first thing you're gonna need is some copper tubing. And this is rigid copper, and I cut these into about 10 inch lengths right there. And as you can see here, that suspends into about a couple inches in in this kind of bottle, but that's more than enough to wick. And it also allows you if you want to, to put items in here such as aquarium stones or glass beads, which will help displace the fluid and put it up higher here, the fuel here. So here you've got 10 inch. The first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna drill some holes in this so that it helps saturate the wick faster. Let's get to work. All right, the next thing we're gonna do is go ahead and drill some holes into the side of this. And the reason we're doing that is to allow the fuel to get to the wick faster instead of only up through the bottom. The dimension of the drill bit or the diameter of the drill bit is not critical. This is probably about a five 30 seconds drill bit. I'm gonna be using the drill press using a V block. And the way that I'm gonna make sure it hits the top is I'll line up just this V block that I made by running through the table saw to 45 opposing cuts. To create a V, I'll just lower the bit to the center. And that'll make sure that when I lower the bit, it's hitting the center of the pipe. All right, now when you're drilling something like metal like this and it's round, it'll have a tendency to deflect. So what I'm gonna do is go ahead and get this going at a moderate speed. I'm gonna come on down and kind of hit a quick fast boom to get that started so it doesn't wander off the side. And now we'll go ahead and press her on through, go down to the bottom, do the same. Now we have a through hole. We're just gonna come up here. Again, bring the bit down here and kind of do a fast tap to help it get a dimple started. And once it does, it won't wander as much. All right, you'll notice as a result of drilling that the side that the drill bit went in is a little bit smoother than where it came out. And these things are really sharp. You don't want them around. You wanna deburr them, get them off there. So let's go clamp this in the vise, take a flat file and dress this up. All right, so we're just gonna go ahead and place the pipe in the vise, tight enough that it holds onto it, but doesn't crush it. Then we'll go ahead and use a flat file here and then just come straight across and work our way down on both sides. Okay, while we're at it, just to make sure the coupling slips on okay, I usually go ahead and just knock off the corners out here as well. Okay, we're now ready to go ahead and solder on the coupling, as well as the washer that'll hold this to suspend it down in the wine bottle. Now, just a little trick here. What I do is I move this out and only hold a limited amount in the vise. And the reason for that, I'm reducing the amount of heat that's gonna be wicked off into the mass of the vise. And copper's a pretty doggone good conductor of heat. So one of the best actually. So what we're gonna do here is put this coupling on. Let's go ahead and test fit it. Yes, indeed, really clean. Comes on and off just fine. And as you can see, the washer is sized to fit on the outside, but needs to be affixed to it. So let's go ahead and flux this right here. And what that does is, of course, move the solder into the joint when the right temperature is attained. So we'll go ahead and do that. We'll go ahead and slide on this. We're gonna go ahead and flux the outside because we're gonna go ahead and put the washer on it. And the washer is steel, so it'll have to be heated to a higher temperature. And I'm just placing it there. I have a little bit of aluminum flat stock right there that helps me to place here. I have a pair of needle nose pliers that later on I'll be able to pick this up. Some regular plumbing solder. This is just regular old lead-free solder. It doesn't have any flux core or anything like that. It's just solid, ready to go. And we're just gonna be using a regular old propane torch. So let's go ahead and get that started. All right, let's get this heating. You can see the kind of bronze color start to develop in the copper a little bit. And when you do, you're getting close to when you can actually melt some items there. You can see it just starting to melt. And the flux is actually sucking that into the joint. All right, there is a lot of heat in this. So we've got the solder to come through under the washer. All right, so there's a lot of heat in this right now. So you might be tempted to go, okay, everything's soldered in place. But the reality is it hasn't cooled down enough, especially with the mass of the washer to have that be solid. So what I do is just expedite a little bit by just starting to spritz just a little bit of water. You don't wanna do a lot of thermal shock. But what that does is start, the heat is wicked off through conversion into steam. And so you end up with it starting to solidify. Now, even when I do to this level though, there's still a lot of heat in this. So be very, very careful. You might consider even using leather gloves at this point. Now, let's just test to make sure that the washer's in place. Yep, it's solid, it's soldered, it'll hold. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go out and wash this. Be right back. All right, now you have a nice wick chamber and holder along with the access ports that allow the fuel to wick directly in it. As you can see, it fits just fine into that. But we're a little bit premature. We need to do a couple of other things. We can leave it just like that. And we'll be using this amber bottle. As you can see, it'll fit in there just very nicely. And we'll be able to, once this is filled up, it'll just work out just beautifully. But now about the mounting hardware. We're gonna get the piece of threaded rod that goes between here and here. Let's get that cut. I like to use four-inch. This is regular 3-eighths rod. You're gonna end up with different pieces that are different sizes, depending on the mounting brackets. But in my parts list, I'll give you, this is all 3-eighths. So do your best to cut nice and straight and even so you don't deform threads. All right, now that you have your threaded rod, before just putting it into this base, what you need to do is put a nut on it first. And the reason for that is, if you don't have something to counter-tighten, then this will simply rotate in and out freely and you won't end up with a good installation. So go ahead and put the nut on first. Go ahead and take that to about flush like that. That's good. And then we'll just hand-tighten that for right now. And you could actually throw a wrench. In this case, it's a 9-16th inch. We're just gonna go ahead and hand-tighten that. And there you go. That's nice and solid in there. Not gonna move. Let's do the same thing on the other end. Another item like this, another nut. Then you're gonna take the clasp and attach it as well. And of course, you want it to be horizontal. So what I do is approximate where it's gonna be and then tighten this other nut against it. Now there, that's an error you can do that I've done before. Don't allow that to protrude because that would end up crushing against the bottleneck and that'll be a problem. So make sure that you only leave that flush like that and then bring the nut up to it so that that's clear through there. Okay, I hold it a little bit to the left and then tighten into it that way. And now you have a bracket that is ready to go. All right, now you've got, here we go. All right, now you have the bracket here. You'll need to do some adjustment here to get it to where it is nice and straight. All right, once it's at that point, you're simply gonna open up the clasp, place it around the bottle, go ahead and reinsert. And this would be the place, if you did build a snuffer with a chain, it would go right around that before you tighten this down. And then you can tighten this and you don't need to cinch it down super strong, but you can tighten it down so it's pretty firm. And now you have this ready to be installed on a post, just like that one. Pretty simple, huh? But I like using industrial hardware that is used in other places for these new purposes. Kind of whimsical. Gets people to go, oh, that's cool. Oh, I like how that's made. It's a lot of fun and you can just assemble several of these at a time. And if we fill this up, light it, it's gonna behave just like that. Do you have a project like this you'd like to share with your fellow viewers? If you do, why don't you mention it in the comments below and we'll make sure to get the word out. Secondly, if you really liked the video, please indicate that you do by liking it and better yet, subscribing to our channel. And when you do, make sure to ring the bell so that you get notified immediately when a new episode comes out. Well, have fun out in your yard. Here's a great project that others will look at and go, that is really cool. Have fun. Until the next time, this is Dirt Farmer Jay from dirtfarmerjay.com.