I’ve been experimenting with the LEDs and some candles to try to make these look realistic. I’ve made some candles out of wax and from silicone. The silicone one hasn’t set all the way through yet and I’m not sure that it will. I made a wax one using a cut up toilet roll and some tin-foil. (very technical) and poured the molten wax in. The beauty of this is that if it goes wrong,it can be re-melted and I’ve ordered some wax dye so I can make it look like the tallow candle. So I think that wax might be the answer. We’ll see if the silicone ever dries….
I let it dry overnight then bored a hole right the way through it. This is so that I can mount the LEDs at the base and the light can travel up the hole an in to the “flame”. It also means that by the time it gets there, the colours should have mixed.
I tried this with the three LEDs:
This worked quite well but the whole candle is lit which looks rather unrealistic so i tried using a plastic tube inside the hole. Unfortunately, the only tube I had was blue but I think it gives an idea of how well a black one would work.
There’s something quite nice about the blue but I don’t think it would fit Shakespeare’s stage….
I experimented making some flame shapes out of silicone and hot glue. The silicone was much easier to use the the glue settled too much and wouldn’t keep the shape, even when i tried to build it up slowly. The pictures of the candles on this page all have silicone flames. They look ok, not perfect but it’s certainly a back-up plan that’s cheap and easy to make.
This is the final lantern. It is an outdoor candle lantern typically sold in a garden centre and has been modified slightly. The original came with red glass inserts so I have taken half out and painted the rest with a copper colour. The shape of the lantern is authentic to Jacobean lanterns and is great because it’s just off the shelf with a little modification.
This circuit diagram is for the cressets. The lanterns are the same except they don’t need the transistors.
I’ll add pics of it lit when I get the electronics completed…
