6

I have many a childhood memory of "helping" to make a chanukiyah out of a block of wood and eight hex nuts glued down to it (often with 2 more stacked in the center for shamash); each hex nut was supposed to hold a candle, but with the standard size chanukah candles, you always had to force the candle or whittle away some of the wax and often the candle got broken in the process.

Is there a readily-available size of standard hex nut that will accommodate a standard sized chanukah candle? (And if so, why didn't any of my Judaica arts-and-crafts teachers think of that?) Is there a size that would fit a big white shabbos candle?

Improve this question
  • 3
    I would avoid using big white Shabbos candles on a wood block. Once, on a Friday afternoon in college, I did just that, having melted the bottoms of the candles onto the tops of the hex nuts. My window happened to be near a radiator, so the heat of the radiator plus the heat of the flames made the candles melt down to encase the wood block. The result was a metacandle with the wood block as wick. Since it was Shabbat, and it was on foil, so it wasn't posing an imminent threat, I had to just watch it burn until a non-Jewish neighbor opened the window, and the wind put it out. – Isaac Moses♦ Dec 1 '10 at 16:45
  • 1
    My memory tells me the hex nuts we used as children were the perfect size. I will have to examine a specimen this week. – WAF Dec 1 '10 at 22:19
3

Perhaps a 3/8 - 0.3750 finished hex nut or a 3/8 heavy hex nut?

Improve this answer
  • shabbos_upvoter, Welcome to mi.yodeya, and thanks very much for this bit of research! I look forward to seeing you around. Unfortunately, the tables you linked to don't provide internal dimensions for the nuts. Any idea what those are? If we can get that, we can try to compare to the cross-sectional diameter of the standard candle. – Isaac Moses♦ Dec 9 '10 at 19:40
  • @Isaac: 3/8 is the internal dimension. – Chanoch Dec 9 '10 at 19:42
  • Ah. I see. Well, according to (dimensionsguide.com/hanukkah-candles-sizes), the candles are 3/8", too. So, I guess it should be possible to screw them into a 3/8" nut. – Isaac Moses♦ Dec 9 '10 at 19:45
  • Isn't there a Gemara about how you can't fit an item of width X into an item with exact opening width X? If the candles are 3/8" and nuts are 3/8", I'm guessing something had to get squeezed a bit. I think the candles are also wider at the base. – Shalom Dec 9 '10 at 20:54
  • I'm not sure you need a Gemara for that observation! :) The wax is soft enough that if you screw it in, I think the nut's threads will bite in. Someone ought to do the experiment, though. – Isaac Moses♦ Dec 9 '10 at 22:42
2

A 3/8" hex nut fits a 3/8" bolt, making the hole in the nut slightly larger than the bolt which would be about the size of a 3/8"candle. Now, if the candle does no fit into 3/8" nut or is a little bigger, then you could use a 7/16" hex nut. Avrohom Horowitz

Improve this answer
0

3/8" is the size for the inside of the hex nut, however I have learned that the hex nut refers to its outside size, which would be 5/8"
check with Home Depot if you need more confirmation on that.

Improve this answer
  • Just to make sure, take a chanukah candle with you and use the Home Depot sizing board to verify what size you need. – sabbahillel Oct 24 '17 at 17:54

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .