With the Jewish Diwali aka Hanukkah well nigh upon us, I was looking to provide my 7 year old son Uriel with a maker angle on the central artifact of the holiday, the Menorah. The Maccabees had hastily hacked together their Menorah by using hollow iron spearheads and I also wanted to capture this improvisational aspect of making the Menorah. Inspired by Joe Grand’s Pipe Menorah we set off to the nearest hardware store to make one of our own. The guys at the store were kind enough to let us putter around gathering the parts we needed and try them out together.

Very quickly, we had used 1/2 inch steel pipes and connectors to make a Menorah that was able to stand up without tipping over by it’s own weight (we had to replace the round base we used initially as it was too unstable). We then assembled a tripod base which proved to be quite solid. Interestingly, the base for the original Menorah in the Jerusalem temple might have also been a tripod.

Brass connectors for the candletops and cheap Chinese toy finger LEDs as the “candles” completed the build. Uriel was so proud of his handiwork!

At home I took everything apart and let Uriel build up the pipe Menorah again by himself while oiling and tightening up the parts.

We then had an evening photo shoot with Uriel’s sister Rachela who proved herself quite the DJ!

Have fun making your own version — this craziness is sure to make your local hardware store VERY happy☺

Wishing you a happy festival of lights!