Swedish Candelabras

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A modest Swedish house in Skalo, Poldi’s ancestral home. Nearly all the houses are in this traditional red color with white trim.
A close up shows the candelabras in the windows, a wintertime custom here.

While in Sweden over the Christmas season, we noticed the popularity of candelabras placed in the windows of people’s homes.  In these northern latitudes where the darkness of the winter night dominates the few hours of daylight, the distinctive chevron of lights provided a cheery greeting from the windows of the traditional-styled Swedish houses.  

I thought it would be a nice accent to our own home with its not-so-traditional windows cut into a mansard roof.  Surely Ikea would have such an item, with some suitable unpronounceable name, but I was disappointed.  Perhaps I needed to shop the Ikea stores in Sweden rather than our Americanized versions of them.

I did finally locate a candelabra, one with electric candles.  It was imported, as indicated by the European plug; it came with an adapter, and a set of bulbs that would work at US voltages.  It was nice enough, and semi-affordable, but it just didn’t have quite the look and feel I was hoping for.   

I wondered if I could fabricate my own.  It could use modern LED candles and I could shape it to my liking.  I could use the surplus hard maple from a previous project, and I could make one for each of our windows.  

I started this project before the arrival of the corona virus and I acquired most of my supplies and tools before the lockdown.  The construction was more complicated than I expected, (which I should have expected), and I had to revise my plans and figure out the fabrication steps and the best use of my various tools. 

And as with any good project, it required a new tool, in this case an “oscillating spindle sander”. I have currently completed the woodworking portion of the project and about to embark on the candle assembly and wiring. Here are some pictures I took while enjoying this challenge over the last few weeks.

The original plan was to make a rough cut with the bandsaw, then use the router to shape the pieces to a template. I ran into problems when my bandsaw blade charred the wood. I was advised to replace it with a blade having a lower tooth count.

The router method resulted in the cusps breaking off and flying across the shop. So an alternate method was used– the rotary sander. Initially I used a sanding drum in a drill press, but this was not very efficient or accurate, so I acquired a machine for this exact purpose, the oscillating spindle sander. And one of its spindles had the exact radius to match my template! I created a jig for drilling the wire access holes, and drilled the candle cups to match.
My assembled and varnished set of candelabras, sans feet, ready for the next step of fabrication: candles and wiring.

see also: Swedish Candelabras – Finis

3 thoughts on “Swedish Candelabras”

  1. Pingback: Swedish Candelabras – Finis | Thor's Life-Notes

  2. where can I get replacement bulbs for the candlebra please? 17 volts 3 watts type f bulb

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