Steel Wire Candle Holder (fil De Fer)

Here is a small instructable on how to make a candle holder from steel wire! It is a good beginner project if your are curious to get started with steel wire craft and when you are done you will have a super cute candle holder!

You will need:

1. 7 pieces of traight steel wire, approximately 20-30cm long (8-11 inches). I used 2mm diameter (~14 SWG)
2. Thinner steel on spool, I used 0.7mm diamater (~22SWG)
3. Wire cutter
4. Big pliers
5. Needle nose pliers

Start by holding the thicker pieces together and start winding the thinner wire around them, a little to the left of the middle. Keep wrapping until you have got about 2-3 cm (1 inch) and then start bending the wires to your right outwards, this will soon be the legs which makes the base structure. Make sure you are content with the cone angle and also look from above and try to spread the base wires evenly.

Lay the wire on the outside of one leg and then wrap the wire around the leg once and then continue to the next leg and repeat this.

Try to have wire as taut ass possible in the wrapping motion and also try to have it as straight as possible in the section between the legs.

Continue until you have about 2-3cm (1 inch) left on each leg, then wrap the wire a couple of turns on the same spot and cut off the excess.

Take the needle nose pliers and grab the outermost part of each leg and bend upwards and continue the motion to make a small spiral at each leg. This will make sure that the pointy ends of the legs don't scrape the surface of wherever you put the small candelabrum.

Before we get to the actual candle holder we need to fix the middle section a bit. Cut off the leftover wire from where you started and the immediately next to it start to wind a new wire. Make a small overlap of a winding or two, this makes it easier to blend the separate wrappings into one continous wrapping, we will fix the overlap later.

Wrap upwards for about a centimeter (~1/2 inch) and the spread the top pieces (I will call them arms) almost perpendicular to the waist section and like before, make sure they are approximately even spread.

Now you will do almost as you did with the base section, wind once round the arm and then to ne next, but we will switch it up a litte and wrap on the inside this time (we did outside before). Do this for a little bit until you have a web a bit bigger than the base of your intended candle.

Then with your big pliers, bend the arms upwards, almost straight up bit still a little bit outwards, wrap a few turns then bend them again a little inwards.

Now is a good time to cut off the excess, leave about 5cm (2 inches) of the arms and keep winding.

When start nearing the ends of the arms, check with your candles if the top opening is tight enough, when you are done you should be able to slide the candle in the holder with a slight resistance, that's how you know that the candle will stand securely un the holder.

When you have reached a sufficiently tight diameter, coil the end of the wire 2 times around an arm and cut it off.

Remember the overlap we left at the waist section? I do!

Unwrap the start of the top winding until you have a small gap between them, cut off the excess and the tuck the end in so that it fills the gap and you will mimic a continous winding along the entire candle holder :)

The image is a still frame just before the tucking in of the wire.

Also stand the candle holder on a flat surface and see if all the feet are touching, chances are some will need a little adjusting with the pliers before you have all of them level.

Place a candle in the candle holder, to avoid acciedents, try to match the height of the candle to the stability of the holder.

If you have a broad base and a really taut holder section you can have a tall candle without risking it falling over easily, and if your candle holder have room for improvement in those aspect you can place a smaller candle in it and still enjoy it :)