Aesthetic Cement Candle

This cement candle is a simple and aesthetic project. It serves as a great gift, as well as a functional candle.

Disclaimer:don't throw it at an Ostrich, that would be mean

Materials:

• Portland Cement
• Wax
• String
• Plywood
• Thin, flexible plastic

Tools:

• Laser Cutter
• Hot Glue Gun

I apologize that I no longer have the file, but it's pretty easy to draw yourself. All you need is two cylinders with wood end caps covered in plastic. It also helps to have wood supports on the outside of the plastic cylinder.

1. Assemble both cylinders
2. Glue the smaller cylinder into the larger one
3. Glue the supports onto the outside

Put cement into a bucket. Then slowly mix water into it until you have a nice consistency. You don't want it to be too wet or dry. The next step is to put it into the mold. Start with a small amount around the inner cylinder. Use a stick to push it around and shake it to remove bubbles. Then continue filling. You need to vibrate it a lot to remove bubbles. I put a bolt in my wireless drill and taped on a washer. Then I flipped over the drill and put the mold on the batter. When you spin the drill on high speed it vibrates a lot.

1. Cut off the excess plastic on the top
2. Chip the cement off the bottom
3. Drill a hole or two in the exposed wood
4. Use pliers to remove the wood disc

Take one of the wood discs that you laser cut earlier and epoxy it onto the bottom of the cement. It will reduce the chance of scratching things.

1. Melt the wax. I used plumbing candles because they were cheap.
2. If melting candles, remove the string from the melted wax
3. Secure string in the center of the cement hole.
4. Pour cement into the hole.
5. Pour the extra wax into some sort of mold
6. When the candle has hardened, move on to step 7.
7. Melt more wax
8. Pour more wax into the candle.

I did a pretty good job of pouring the wax. Just not exclusively into the cement hole. A lot the wax ended up on the counter and on the edge of the cement. Remove the wax with a razor blade. Then sand the whole candle. You can start with a pretty high grit. I think I started with 220, then moved straight to 400.

Now that you are done, do something with it. Use it as an apparatus to increase romance, use it as a gift, light it to read by, or simply throw it at an Ostrich.