I was cleaning out one of my ‘junk drawers’ yesterday and I stumbled across one of my past projects, a tuna can oil lamp. I made this about, I’d say, two years ago because I wanted a flame for melting wax and just burning stuff. I really wanted a bunsen burner but, like a lot of things, I didn’t really want to spend my money on it.
Since I built this a few years ago, I will just tell how it’s constructed and not too, too much about the step-by-step process of how I built it.
So the main construction of this lamp is made from a tuna can and a Ball mason jar lid. I took the mason jar lid and band and stuck them on top of the tuna can and used a generous amount of JB Weld to adhere the lid assembly to the tuna can. I had to fill in the little bit of a gap that was between the tuna can outside wall and the lid band inside wall because I didn’t want any of the oil leaking when I used the lamp.
For the wick adjustment assembly I took a piece of sheet metal and made the housing for the spindle that raises and lowers the wick. After cutting a hole in the lid of the lamp I riveted the adjustment spindle housing to the lamp’s lid. I also used some JB Weld here too because I didn’t want the adjustment housing to come off, and it also covered some of the sharp corners of the sheet metal.
I used an 1/8″ steel rod for the actual spindle of the wick adjustment assembly. To make the ‘star’ shaped piece that grabs the wick and actually raises it up and down I used a dime. I took the dime and drilled a 1/8″ hole in the center with a drill press and then took my Dremel and cut out some of the metal to make a four point ‘star’ shape. I used JB Weld to adhere the star to the spindle. For the turn-knob I used a penny! (Yes, I used JB Weld to glue the penny to the spindle).
After all the JB Weld was dry, I poured in some lamp oil, stuck in a wick, and lit it. It worked great! I could adjust the flame size with my spindle and the oil lasted for a very long time! A few things I would change . . . . If I built this again, I would totally make the adjustment spindle stick out farther so when I adjust the flame I don’t burn my self (Ha!) and I would not have spray painted it silver. After finishing it up, I though “hmm, this would look pretty cool if I painted it silver” – it didn’t. So that’s why it looks pretty bad. . . . Never the less, I leave you with pictures. . . . . . .
