As December rolled in, the holiday spirit hit, and I decided to try something I had never done before: making gifts with my own two hands for our neighbours.

My daughter and I spent a day driving around checking nearby business parks to see if we could forage any reclaimed or free wood. To my surprise, we hit the jackpot and secured a genuinely massive piece of timber—the perfect chunky pine stock to bring my candle holder idea to life. It was quite later I realised that this was construction lumber.

Back in the workshop, I broke down the timber and tackled the project, which gave me my very first real hands-on experience using the Electric planer & Forstner bits. Drilling out those crisp, clean recesses for the tea lights went smoothly and was deeply satisfying. After a bit of steady shaping, careful sanding, and finishing, I had a neat little batch of warm, rustic candle holders ready to go.

It was a relatively simple job compared to complex joinery, but the process of turning raw timber into finished, functional pieces felt like a quiet milestone.

The best part? Our neighbors absolutely loved them.

There’s a unique kind of joy in handing someone a gift and saying, “I made this for you on my workbench.” It was a modest project, but it proved to me that even simple woodwork can bring real warmth to the people around you.

Lessons Learnt

First Time with a Forstner Bit : Key takeaways

For this project, I purchased few Forstner bits for the very first time. Naturally, taking a massive cutting head to a solid block of wood proved to be a real eye-opener, claiming a few sacrificial test pieces along the way before I got the hang of it.

First off, I discovered that Forstner bits leave a distinct centre spur hole at the bottom of the blind recess. While it gets completely covered once the tea light sits inside, I’m personally not a fan of that little centre dimple – though if you’re drilling all the way through a board, these bits are absolute perfection for crisp, clean holes.

The biggest lesson, thought? Patience is mandatory. You must clamp your work item down tight, or that bill will grab the wood and send you for a wild, dangerous spin. Going full “fast and furious” is a guaranteed way to ruin your stock. But once you slow down, clear the waste in steady, controlled passes, and watch those smooth wood ribbons curl out of the hole, it’s remarkably satisfying. A drill-press with speed-control works better and easier than a hand-drill.

Quick Discovery:

Forstner bits were patented way back in 1874 by Benjamin Forstner (images below), it’s designed to shear wood from the outside edge inward and patented as an improvement to in Augers. Because it doesn’t depend on a center pilot point to stay steady, you can even use it to bore angled holes or slice half-holes directly on the edge of a board!

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