This candle holder stands almost 10 inches tall. It gets the candle up off the table making the candle stand out. It stands securely because of the three leg design minimizing the chance of tipping.This project was made from maple for the legs and cherry for the shelf. I wanted the shelf to stand out from the legs and the cherry is still a little light but I know cherry darkens with age.
All the pieces are 1/2" thick, There are no interior cuts so it's accessible for those with pin end saws also.
This project looks simple but there are a couple things that add a bit of challenge. The curves of the legs and the circular shelf need to be cut very precisely. The eye will immediately pick out flaws in the curves. This will be good practice for cutting curves.
To cut effective circles you need to establish a pivot point with your strong hand and guide the wood with your weak hand. You will reestablish the pivot point as you go but you want a consistent and smooth turn rate.
Look at the figure below. The red ticks represent the blade from the top. When cutting pattern lines you should be able to cut inside the pattern line, split the line and cut outside the line. You need to practice until your margin of error is the width of the blade. By this I mean if you are trying to split the pattern line your cut should not vary more than an outside the line cut or inside the line cut. You don't want to see white paper between the blade and the pattern line. I know what your thinking, "That won't happen". Your probably right but make it the goal and you will improve your cutting.
That's the goal but don't beat yourself up if you miss. Luckily in the 13th century the Chinese invented a mistake eraser called sand paper. If you can fix a mistake it never happened in woodworking. For most scroll saw projects these flaws will hardly ever be noticed and you can let them go. In a project like this that is geometric in design the flaws will jump out so you need to think about precision.Here is another tip that sounds like an insignificant detail but makes a difference. When you have legs like in a project like this slightly bevel all the feet edges of all three legs. This does a couple things. Aesthetically it adds a shadow line that separates the feet from the table which looks nicer than flat feet. The bevels also make the piece move easily over a table cloth without snagging and possible tipping over. On a small set of legs like this you can do the bevel with sand paper. On larger projects a bevel router bit works best.
