Frank Arnold
Instructions on How to Make a Wine Bottle Tiki Torch
This is one of those DIY projects that takes more time to gather all your materials than it does to do the project itself. Here’s all you’ll do…
• Prep Your Wine Bottle: At the very least you should wash out your wine bottle….and if you want a cleaner look, remove the label too. I’ve used Goo Gone followed by some sort of scraper, but that was still really messy and a pain to do. So I found this incredibly easy way to pull off labels by simply soaking the bottle in water and dish soap. Although the labels of some of my wine bottles still required a little bit of elbow grease, I’ll never do it any other way. Check it out on instructables.com.
• Add the Pea Gravel: Again, if you want to minimize the amount of fuel you’ll use, fill the wine bottle about ⅓ of the way up with pea gravel. Or if you want to be fancy, you could use marbles or crafting pebbles. I didn’t…I used white pea gravel. But fancy or not, it was definitely more convenient since I could just scoop some off the ground near our chicken coop.
• Wrap the Coupling: Insert the connector (or coupling) into the mouth of your wine bottle to see which end has the snuggest fit. Wrap that end with the thread sealant tape. Keep wrapping until the coupling is really snug when you stick it into the wine bottle. If you don’t…smoke could be drawn into your bottle…and you don’t want that.
• Fill the Wine Bottle with Fuel: Remove the wrapped coupling from the wine bottle and fill the bottle with fuel… just up to about where it narrows.
• Insert the Wick: Insert the wick into the wide end of the wrapped coupling. You may have to squeeze the end of the wick together and twist it a bit to get it through the narrow end. Pull about ¼” of the wick out of the coupling. Then simply insert the wick and coupling into your wine bottle….and let the wick soak up the fuel before lighting.
• Light ‘Er Up: Now all that’s left is to light your wine bottle tiki torch and watch those skeeters run for the hills…or at least away from where you’ll be hanging out.
This is one of those DIY projects that takes more time to gather all your materials than it does to do the project itself. Here’s all you’ll do…
• Prep Your Wine Bottle: At the very least you should wash out your wine bottle….and if you want a cleaner look, remove the label too. I’ve used Goo Gone followed by some sort of scraper, but that was still really messy and a pain to do. So I found this incredibly easy way to pull off labels by simply soaking the bottle in water and dish soap. Although the labels of some of my wine bottles still required a little bit of elbow grease, I’ll never do it any other way. Check it out on instructables.com.
• Add the Pea Gravel: Again, if you want to minimize the amount of fuel you’ll use, fill the wine bottle about ⅓ of the way up with pea gravel. Or if you want to be fancy, you could use marbles or crafting pebbles. I didn’t…I used white pea gravel. But fancy or not, it was definitely more convenient since I could just scoop some off the ground near our chicken coop.
• Wrap the Coupling: Insert the connector (or coupling) into the mouth of your wine bottle to see which end has the snuggest fit. Wrap that end with the thread sealant tape. Keep wrapping until the coupling is really snug when you stick it into the wine bottle. If you don’t…smoke could be drawn into your bottle…and you don’t want that.
• Fill the Wine Bottle with Fuel: Remove the wrapped coupling from the wine bottle and fill the bottle with fuel… just up to about where it narrows.
• Insert the Wick: Insert the wick into the wide end of the wrapped coupling. You may have to squeeze the end of the wick together and twist it a bit to get it through the narrow end. Pull about ¼” of the wick out of the coupling. Then simply insert the wick and coupling into your wine bottle….and let the wick soak up the fuel before lighting.
• Light ‘Er Up: Now all that’s left is to light your wine bottle tiki torch and watch those skeeters run for the hills…or at least away from where you’ll be hanging out.
