Arts and Crafts VII: The Popkes Portable Hanukkah Menorah Kit

This one needs a little back story.

 

(Picture from here.)

 

In early 2023, I was on the phone with a very dear friend of mine from Kansas City. She is Jewish and some white supremacist groups were declaring a national Day of Hate specifically aimed at Jews. 

 

I was, of course, appalled.

 

The problem here is not a group declares hate at another group—that is a problem but not the problem I am talking about here. The problem is other non-Jews are stained with the same brush. You can see this a lot of time in the media. Often, when a person of color commits a crime, the coverage is different from when a white person commits a similar crime. 

 

There’s a well-known psychological trope (the name of which escapes me at the moment) stating that bad acts of your own group are viewed as aberrations while acts of other groups are viewed as examples of their group character. The same can be true in reverse. A member of a given group acting badly reflects that bad behavior across the group as a whole. 

 

This is what I felt when she was telling me about this. These white supremacists as non-Jews were besmirching my good name by what they were saying. It’s not a rational feeling but it’s the way I felt just the same. I felt compelled to do something about it.

 

I’m making this sound like an intellectual moral exercise. That’s not it at all. It was as if someone had decided to declare a day to hate musicians or bird watchers—people who were doing nothing but be who they were. My friend was hurt by these people and I had to do something about it.

 

I decided to make her a Hanukkah menorah. It took me close to two years.

 

Part of that were my own personal issues. I managed to get my parents into Arlington National Cemetery. I reduced my workload and that meant addressing the issue of free time. I had some health issues that needed to be addressed. All that.

 

In addition, there’s the problem I have in ongoing large projects: they get harder as they go along. In any given project a failure can have two outcomes: repair or start over. As a large project goes forward the opportunity to fix a failure via repair becomes less and less viable. This was very true in the case of my parents’ funeral urns. Each step had the potential for disaster and each step was closer and closer to the point where repair was untenable and restarting impossible. Consequently, the stress increased as the project went along. It felt like an ever-increasing headwind as the project proceeded. 

 

It’s a character flaw. I know. And it doesn’t happen with non-physical things. I’m perfectly willing to tear a novel down to bedrock if I see a fundamental flaw. Right up until release date—then, I feel I’m stuck.

 

A Hanukkah menorah holds nine candles. Eight candles represent the eight days of Hanukkah and the ninth candle (the shamash) is used to light the other eight. Often, the shamash holder has special prominence. 

 

My friend had several menorahs of ceramics or other material but none of wood so I decided to build it from wood.

 

My idea was to turn two pieces. One would be horizontal. That would hold the eight candles and the base would have the shamash. It would extend through the horizontal piece and be a little higher than the other candle holders.

 

My first attempt was to turn a cylinder with a thin strip of wood in the middle. The idea, here, is the cylinder would be cut cross ways through the strip. That would give a thin line into which I would drill the candle holders. I had a glue failure so that didn’t work.

 

 

 

I was just as glad. As I rethought it, I decided to put the candle cups into an inlaid piece of wood. I looked at a couple of mockups and came up with this image. 

Meanwhile, another good friend had lost his brother. He wanted to turn an urn for him and his lathe was not up to the task. So, he came down and we turned it together. His first attempt turned out to be too small. His second was beautiful. I inherited the too-small cylinder.

 

I had been thinking of the blonde wood base/redbud center. But working with David changed that. I became enamored of the walnut. So, when David gave me the discarded cylinder, I knew that was going to be what I would use.

 

I turned a narrow cylinder for the horizontal arm. Then, I cut it in half. I knew it would be cut down so I didn’t worry about the ends.

 

 

 

 

 

Then, I routed out a channel and glued in two pieces of redbud. After I’d sanded it down, it looked pretty good. 

Meanwhile, I took the remaining wood and turned out the base. The base had the protruding spire that would contain the shamash. I gouged out some rings on the base for decoration.

 

Turning my attention back to the horizontal arm, I cut a sacrificial holder for it on the table saw. This allowed me to handle it as if it had a flat bottom.

 

 

 

Allowing me to cut it and shape it with relative ease.  

 

The end product came out well. There was still some clean up yet to be done.

Now, we were ready for first assembly. 

Which came out rather well.

 

 

I wasn’t happy with the finish on the base and I knew I was using a different finish (waterlox) on the horizontal arm. So, I stripped the base and finished the two together.

I glued the arm and base together using Apoxie Sculpt black. I did this for a couple of reasons. For one, the material is easy to work with. It comes off when you need it to come off. Secondly, if the material came up through the cracks, I could make it look intentional. The final product worked out okay.

 

 

 

Then, it was a matter of packing up and sending it.

But I got the idea of making the packaging part of the product. I call this the Taymor rule, after Julie Taymor. The idea is to make necessary things part of the product. I.e., use it. Don’t try to make it disappear.

 

Thus, I came up with the Popkes Portable Hanukkah Menorah Kit.

 

The last step was to close the box and ship it.