Spark Plug Lights The Darkness

When you have an idea, just go build it. That’s the approach that [GordsGarage] takes with most of his projects, and he’s back in the machine shop again. This time it’s with a rather unique oil candle that uses a spark plug as inspiration. We have to say, the results are on fire.

thumbThe spark plug candle was fashioned out of a single piece of 6061 aluminum. To create the scale model, first the stock metal hit the lathe to create the “insulator” section of the plug. From there, he milled in the hex bolt section, then it hit the lathe again to create the threaded section. The inside was bored out to create space for the wick and oil, and then the electrode was installed just above the flame.

This is a pretty impressive scale model and has a great finished look. The only thing that isn’t to scale is the gap for the electrode which is completely necessary to keep the candle from getting smothered. It’s an interesting, unique idea too, which is something that [GordsGarage] excels at. And, if you want to scale his model up a little bit, perhaps you can find some inspiration from this other candle.

14 thoughts on “Spark Plug Lights The Darkness

  1. V2.0 – do the spark gap to scale and rework the electrode to run the wick up and through. Drill a hole down from the top face of the electrode that meets the wick tube at 90 degrees and the flame will appear to be sitting on top of plug.

    Too bad you couldn’t use a grill ignitor to light the oiled wick. (No way a simple spark could touch the oil off, right?)

    1. Don’t think a spark would do it, it takes a little bit of heat to get the first bit of oil to vapourise. From there on, the burning oil provides the heat to vapourise the next bit. Sparks are hot, but quick, lots of temperature, not enough heat.

  2. electric igniton spark plug lamp. It is entirely possible, I thought the wick was a wire, but that’s what you do: use wick as wire insulation, near the tip of your copper wire, weld something more resistive. actually discharge electricity to ignite the wick. Here’s a simple equation to help guide you along your quest.: Coil+Wick+electricity= fire. electricity also feeds the fire, especially when you have liquid fuel wicking into a wick which is wrapped with a coil of resistance wire(heating element) heating a coil has lots of benefits. the coil acts as a ‘heat capacitor’ of sorts, and heating lowers the viscosity of the fuel in the wicking, but if you want to put some serious watts to it without it melting, i don’t know what wire to recommend, if all you need is small flame ignition and modulation, kanthal is fine, and 12v is more than enough.

Leave a Reply to nraynaudCancel reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.