Tealight Diorama on the Table Saw

You may know – since Mount Tealight – that I enjoy tealights, especially during the dark season.After making a test cut on my table saw I got the idea to make a simple yet appealing holder for one of those – a tealight mountainscape. Enjoy, and remember to be Inspired!

Tool Variations

This project is obviously based on something that I “discovered” or did on my table saw, That is why it is not easy to replace is with another tool, unless you want to use some of the alternative methods detailed below.

The best chance of replacing the table saw in this project is with a mitre saw, as long as it can be set to make dado cuts. The bandsaw might be able to achieve the desired result, too, but it is much harder to get cuts to the desired width.

The forstner bit is hard to replace, but in theory you could hog out the required hole from a ring of smaller holes and a chisel. Or you could just place the tealight on top of the base, even though it will not look as good if you do.

Other Methods

Like I said in the video, there are other ways to achieve a diorama-like effect. One would be to cut out several mountain silhouettes with a coping saw and glue them together with small spacers. Using thie technique, you could make room for the tealight easily by replacing the block to glue between back and front with two slats, allowing for enough space between them for the candle to fit inbetween.

Alternatively, you could use an appropriate saw – a table saw, a mitre saw, a bandsaw or a jigsaw – to cut thin slices from a beam and break them to shape. Then you could glue them up using spacers just like above. You could even use the breakoffs tas spacers here.

Of course you would glue endgrain to endgrain, but I do not expect the tealight holder to be the subject of intense force, so you should be fine with that. using this method you also have some additional controle over what your mountains will look like, since you can turn your pieces and even replace unwanted ones.

Thanks for reading and watching, and remember to be Inspired!