Beer Bottle Candle Holder

For as long as I can remember my dad has used beer bottles to hold candles. While it looks cool and works pretty well, it's not the safest thing to do. When you add a 10" candle to a 9" tall empty bottle it gets pretty unstable. I decided to make him some candle holders that have the same spirit as a beer bottle but aren't likely to tip over and burn the house down.

- Multiple beer bottles

- Sandpaper

- Blowtorch

- Glass scoring tool

- Eye protection and heat resistant gloves

- There are a lot of different ways to do this; this step and the next outline the method I used, but if you prefer another one, use it.

- Clamp the glass scoring tool in a vise. You want to make the cut in the bottle just below where neck starts to slope. You might have to place the bottle on top of something to get the scoring tool at the desired height.

- Press the bottle against the scoring tool and (with constant pressure on the top of the bottle) rotate the bottle, scoring a line around the bottle.

- Fill a container with cold water.

- Place the blowtorch on a stable, non-flammable surface and light it.

- Hold the bottle with one hand on the neck and the other on the base.

- Position the bottle so the tip of the flame comes into contact with the scored line and rotate the bottle at a constant speed for about 10 seconds. Then dunk the bottle in the cold water. Continue alternating between the blowtorch and water until the bottle breaks apart; you should hear a cracking sound.

- Hopefully the bottle will have broken cleanly into two pieces: the neck and the body. If it hasn't, keep trying! It will likely take several tries to get this right; I went through 9 bottles to make 2 candle holders.

- Use the sandpaper to smooth the cut edge. Continue sanding until the neck doesn't wobble when placed on a flat surface.

- When burning the candle I placed the candle holder on a bar coaster to protect the surface below from any dripping wax.