Post #302482 by LavaLounger on Sat, Apr 28, 2007 11:00 AM

Wow......you guys have such great ideas......and I stole a couple! Well, thought I should "give back" a little and share a couple of my cheapie ideas. My rule of thumb is, "never throw any of my tiki junk out, even if it's broken". So I have boxes of busted up stuff or crap that I'm tired of...and I try to find new ways to use it.

So here's a standing torch, doesn't look so great in the daylight photo, but looks awesome at night.....the only "technical" thing that might be tough for some, is that I have a very long drill bit......48" long to be exact to drill out the membranes in the bamboo stalk. You can get them at Home Depot for about $15/$20. Maybe you could beat the membranes out with a long sharp stick if you don't have a big drill.

PARTS: You need an old clay flower pot, about a gallon of concrete mix, old piece of bamboo for a stalk the height you want, old broken bamboo tabletop torch, 2 left over kiddie hula skirts, some twine or sisal rope, glue gun, piece of speaker wire and hopefully a soldering gun, or leave that to someone with a little electrical know-how.

First, if you want, you turn the clay pot upside down and find a piece of bamboo that'll fit in the hole. I used a 1.5" hole bit and made the hole bigger to suit my bamboo piece. Next, turn the pot back upright and get an old papertowel tube and fit it in the hole so the tube sticks out of the top and bottom of the pot hole. Try to center the tube as best you can. Mix up the concrete and fill in around the tube. When it sets a little, you can wiggle the tube loose and make sure the bamboo stalk will still fit in the hole and tamp down the concrete so the stalk is straight, when it begins to set, take the bamboo out and let the concrete set and dry overnight. If there are some snags in the concrete, dig it out before the concrete sets too hard. Voila, the base.

I painted mine, but you probably don't need to.

Next, drill out the membranes in the bamboo. Run a big chunk of speaker wire through it with at least 2-ft sticking out both ends, tie it on to the plug end of the torch and pull it through the bamboo stalk, leave about 2 ft of the plug end of the torch wire hanging out the top.

Turn the pot upside down and stick the bamboo stalk in, make sure wire is hanging out the bottom still and that plug end of wire is sticking out the top of the bamboo stalk.

Next, crack a few slits in the top edge of the big bamboo stalk, then grab that old table top torch, take the wrapping off the torch end and jam it upside down in the top of the bamboo stalk, pull the plug end of the wire out the top again and lay it aside. Secure by wrapping some of the twine tightly around the bamboo.

Get the torch bowl.....you can paint that also on the outside, but you have to take it apart and just paint the bowl as you don't want paint gumming up the fan mechanism, then re-assemble, set aside. Using some twine and the glue gun, wrap the tabletop torch in the bamboo so it's steady. Glue it down. Then plop the torch bowl onto the upside down feet of the tabletop torch that you jammed down into the bamboo torch. I left my torch bowl loose, but you can either use small guage wire or the glue gun to secure it to the upside down base of the table top torch.

Glue kiddie hula skirt to the rim of the torchbowl to hide all the junk, and glue one around the bottom to hide the upsidedown pot. Decorate to suit your needs, plug in and go.

THEN, once you have the decorating part down, you can use the same torch bowls to make fake-flame tiki torches to hang around by gluing kiddie hula skirts to the edges, and replacing the chain hangers with twine or rope or something.

de-light-ful, eh?

I know it seems complicated, but the results are pretty cool.

Have fun,
LavaLounger sitting in the glow of the fake flames.