BruceCarvesWax

I remember you! Ive been hit or miss for about the same amount of years. Good to see you back.

Candle Carving... oh I remember that stuff! Good luck. I find pretty much any 140-145 mp "taper dipping wax" works the best. Adding fragrance oil is like putting butter between the layers and they all separate which is bad, very bad. Your temps are right on par with what I use.

Hi! Not sure Im back... but I changed my email so I can get notices now i guess. lol Im having a good time looking up some old names from back in the day. Is there a link to the old candle tech gallery somewhere?

Not much candle making anymore Sabrina but I am cutting rocks and making incredible jewelry now! I always have to create. Look me up on facebook if you like Bruce Baur from Hannibal MO.

Hey Sabrina! Might be 3 more years when you notice this but Hi from Bruce! Meow! lol

Meow! Nice Candles!

30-60 hours is a pretty large window of burn time. How did they test burn? For over a pound of wax, I would hope they would burn much longer than that. Cool looking none the less. Bruce

Sure you can. You can find some small core molds at Peaks I think. My finished small candle is less than a half pound. If you just dip in clear wax to get use to the way the wax will cut you dont need any color, or just use one color and white. Melt that down and use it for cores and it will be a pastel of that color. Cores can be poured from your scrap wax. If you have lots of scrap the colors will blend together to make brown. The white pigment in the wax makes the brown look like a wood grain in the cores poured from scrap wax. Bruce

If you put lots of coats of wax on the candles they will be lumpy like that or it could be water drops that didn't drip off before the next coat was put on. You wouldn't have even noticed the lumps if the carving was all the way up to the top. Probably got a bit too hard to finish but that's normal starting out. After about 100 candles there's nothing to it. 34 years ago this month I started making them for a living. Always keep your first candle of any new thing you make. Looks like you have a good start. Bruce

I think yours would look better if your tops didnt show where you cut the strips of wax. I poured mine thin then folded them in half long ways then rolled them. The roll part is on top and what you see so no flat tops. The bottom of mine looked like the top of yours. A little powered brown dye and a heat gun, then some clear wax for glaze. Been maybe 8 years since I made them and never made them to sell just to play around and see how close to real I could make them. Bruce

13 pouring pitchers for a newbie! I think I would have spent more money on wax and paper towels and just a couple pitchers. Even when I was making 1200 jars a week I only used 2 pitchers. lol I found a pouring pitcher just like those at goodwill a couple weeks back for a buck. Still had wax film in it so i knew what it was right away.

I bought one of them and the tips of the points are very rounded... too much for me to use them as dip and carve. After you add 20 or more coats of wax to them you end up with just a round candle (almost) and not much of a point to carve on. More like a hump so no double cuts and its very easy to cut into the core too far. Bruce

#1 square braid would be what I would/do use on that size candle. No problem unless you add 5 pounds of wax to it. Bruce

If they are true hand dipped tapers and not made with a dipping frame there will be at least one inch of wax at the bottom of the candle past the wick that will stop the burning process. Just as when we dip for the star candles we have drips we have to cut off, just don't cut them off. I would say there would be almost 2 inch of wax without a wick at the bottom of them and that can be pressed into a glass taper holder to form a nice base. No extra trouble and no extra cost. Bruce

The thing i like best is the description of scent for each fragrance right on the label. Interesting and informative. Bruce