How to Make a Lampada using household items

Today, let’s learn how to make a lampada. I first wanted to make one when learning how to set up a prayer corner. Not to get into too much detail, but whole room electric lighting is loud. I know that might not make much sense. It drowns things out. Sometimes you only need a little bit of light; natural light. Electric lighting, in all forms, is a good imitation but it’s just not the real thing.

Safety note: I am not a firefighter and I am not a lawyer. This is just my personal experience of having a lampada. Similar to a candle, don’t leave it where it can start a fire. Don’t stick your hand on top of a flame. Don’t drink the oil in the lamp. When trimming your lampada, it’s possible to burn your fingers. It happens to me almost daily. I’m not telling you to burn yourself or to practice improper fire safety. If you’ve never used a candle before, please contact either your parents or your local fire department. For additional details on candle safety, please read this guide by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).

Especially during prayer, I find it distracting. Believe it or not, in the Bible, you learn all sorts of little things about incense, oil lamps and other things we’ve written off as too inefficient or laborious.

Now, let’s get started. You’ll need four things. You probably have them lying around in your home right now.

• A vessel: This can be made of glass, ceramic or metal. Don’t use plastic. I used an 8oz cocktail “rock” glass. I really like the way the light shines through the clear glass. I also like the effect of the gold colored oil on the room.
• Oil: This is the lamp’s fuel. Most other tutorials recommend using refined olive oil or vegetable oil. However, Scripture calls for olive oil. The ancients had extremely archaic refining methods. I used virgin olive oil from the start. I haven’t noticed any smoking or other issues.
• Cotton twine: I use simple cotton butcher’s twine. Most importantly, do not use any sort of synthetic fibers. Synthetics usually contain plastics and can create toxic fumes when burning.
• Wine cork: I’m not a wine drinker. This is the thing that took me longest to acquire. I have a friend who drinks wine. Eventually, I just took one of her old corks from a bottle she finished.

I also recommend having a knife and a toothpick on hand. These aren’t part of the lampada. They make the process much easier.

Making a lampada

It’s a pretty simple setup. We’ll walk through one step at a time with lots of pictures.

Filling the vessel

You can start by adding some oil to your vessel.

Making a cork disc

This is the most difficult part. I used my dad’s old swiss army knife. However, any knife with a sharp blade and a decent tip will work. Begin by slicing a small disc from the side of your wine cork. It doesn’t need to be perfect. It needs to be able to float.

Making the float

Now, we need to “drill” a hole in the cork. Most tutorials I’ve read use that exact terminology. Honestly, this is a bit of an exaggeration. I inserted the knife tip at the center of the cork. Then I rotated it a few times until there was a decent hole.

This hole should be large enough to fit your wick but small enough that it still holds the wick.

Take a small amount of aluminum foil and use it to wrap the cork. I learned this the hard way at first. Without a foil barrier, my first cork float burned up.

This small barrier prevents your cork from catching fire and burning up.

Next, you need to poke a hole in the foil. I find that a toothpick works perfectly for this. Try to put the toothpick straight through the hole you already made in the disc.

Running the wick

This is the most tedious part of the process. If your hole is large enough for the wick but small enough to hold the wick, feeding it with your fingers is nearly impossible. I found it was much easier to press the twine through using the toothpick.

You may need to move the toothpick around to increase the size of the hole.

Once you’ve gotten the tip through, you can pull the wick to your desired length.

Lighting the wick

Now, you can simply set the wick down into the oil. It will just sit there floating comfortably.

Simply wait for the wick to saturate. The threads in the twine act as capillaries, feeding the oil upward to the tip of the wick. When it’s ready, your wick will be visibly wet.

That’s it!

Once the wick is saturated, it’s ready to light. I don’t have any special setup or utensil for this. I simply used a lighter. However, I prefer to keep the lamp going day and night, so I added a second float. When I trim the wick, I light the second wick and then extinguish the first. When I’m done, I relight the first wick and extinguish the second.

I’ve found that aside from natural light, this also provides me with a small thing to take care of throughout the day. Your first attempt likely won’t be perfect. The first trim is often messy. That’s the point.

Routine maintenance can be frustrating. Sometimes I burn my hand. I usually don’t trim the wick properly on the first try. If you’re impatient, this is frustrating.

When I get frustrated, I say the Jesus Prayer and continue.