What Happened Here?

[Quentin]

Someone out there knows what this is, I'm certain. Digging through my box of failed candles I grabbed this one and started to break it for use in another project. First thing I found was the empty cavity around the wick. Not too surprising! I stopped burning it months ago because it had no decent throw, hot or cold. Tossed it in the junk bin. I wanted to see just how big the cavity was and the candle split apart and I saw this blue stuff. The red wax was hard, but the blue stuff was so brittle that it only took a toothpick to break it. What is it? Could this be my fragrance? Maybe added at the wrong temperature or something? This was back when I took very poor notes so I can't tell you much about it. I did find one page that had this color wax spilled all over it. I think this may have been my first and last attempt with CBL-141. 

 

[Quentin]

No ideas from anyone? Surely someone has seen this problem before.

[Pam W]

Not being familiar with your particular type of wax(and it really doesn't matter),,,,,,,as a general rule, if you get that hole around the wick it is because there was an air bubble there.  While the candle is cooling, poke holes around the wick...this will allow for any captured air bubbles to escape.  I tend to poke holes around the wick and with my fingers, move the wick around in circular motion..this does release any captured air bubbles.

 

This is one of the most common defects in Newbie candles.........not a real issue and one that can be overcome by simply poking relief holes as the candle cools.....after you poke the relief holes and wiggle the wick around, after some cooling you will start to see the shrinkage around the wick....this tells you that you will need to do a 2nd pour to fill in that cavity

So don't overthink the situation.......you have done everything right up to the point of pouring the  wax

You have done nothing WRONG...........it is all a learning experience.

 

Now something that I want to add as a safety feature:  If a candle is burned and reaches this type of cavity, the wick flame could become a fire danger.... that is why we candle makers take extra precautions to make sure there are no '''''''holes'''''' down and around the wick 

 

Quentin;  if you stay with us, we will help you to become a Master Candle Maker..which I do believe is in your future.    A little hit here and there and you will be on your way and we all will be proud that we contributed to your success.    

[TallTayl]

Not sure about the color change. Could be from the uneven mixing or temps as it cooled. 

 

The cavity, though, is a biggie. Pouring too hot creates those in many soy waxes. It causes melt pools to drain into the hole, the wick to flare momentarily, then the candle snuffs itself out. 

 

The solution for many soy wax blends is to pour much cooler. Poking relief holes while cooling “can” help, but often those cavities still appear around the wick until the candle totally cools. The top of the wax cools before the inside, forcing the wax to suck air as the inside shrinks. The wick is the simplest area for the air to flow to equalize the difference in pressure. I’ve had to fill cavities multiple times in beeswax, 444 and C3 blends throughout the process until I learned to pour much, much cooler. 

[Quentin]

5 hours ago, TallTayl said:

Not sure about the color change. Could be from the uneven mixing or temps as it cooled. 

 

The cavity, though, is a biggie. Pouring too hot creates those in many soy waxes. It causes melt pools to drain into the hole, the wick to flare momentarily, then the candle snuffs itself out. 

 

The solution for many soy wax blends is to pour much cooler. Poking relief holes while cooling “can” help, but often those cavities still appear around the wick until the candle totally cools. The top of the wax cools before the inside, forcing the wax to suck air as the inside shrinks. The wick is the simplest area for the air to flow to equalize the difference in pressure. I’ve had to fill cavities multiple times in beeswax, 444 and C3 blends throughout the process until I learned to pour much, much cooler. 

I've been poking 3 or more holes around the wick using a barbecue skewer with a rubber band wrapped around it.  I position the rubber band so that I don't go too deep and damage the section that will end up being the top. Then I twist it. When I pull the skewer (which is about 1/4 inch diameter) out, it brings some wax with it. I put that back in the pot for my 2nd pour. When I punch my second or third hole, many times some wax pops out of the other holes. Then I keep repeating this until the wax I pull out starts to become more solid and the holes don't close up anymore. That's the point where I do my second pour. 

 

This one was made back when I was barely taking any notes. "Who needs notes, right? I'll remember all this, right?"  WRONG! Now, I spend more time taking notes and writing comments than I do actually making the candles! Matter of fact, I think I remember @Pam W and you were some of the first ones on the forum that jumped my case for not taking good notes.    The CBL-141 instructions clearly say that you will be doing a lot of 2nd, 3rd pouring and topping off. I just wasn't paying attention back then. Thanks to all. Had I not found this forum, I would probably have gotten discouraged and walked away from candle making.

[Quentin]

15 hours ago, Pam W said:

So don't overthink the situation.......

I'm the master of overthinking things.

[Hopie]

Quentin, that was how I walked away some years ago, purely out of frustration! That was before I found this forum, and rekindled a desire to make lovely candles  I'm taking it a lot slower and methodically this go 'round, and having a lot more fun with it. Keep on truckin', you'll be successful sooner or later! 

[Quentin]

1 hour ago, Hopie said:

 I'm taking it a lot slower and methodically this go 'round, and having a lot more fun with it.

That's the way I'm trying to approach it. I have times that I walk away mad to another room, plop down in front of the TV or the computer, pout and beat myself up. After about 10 minutes or so of that, I'm right back out there in the shop. It's a compulsion or something.

[Hopie]

20 hours ago, Quentin said:

That's the way I'm trying to approach it. I have times that I walk away mad to another room, plop down in front of the TV or the computer, pout and beat myself up. After about 10 minutes or so of that, I'm right back out there in the shop. It's a compulsion or something.

 

YES, it's a compulsive addiction! I made a few more molded candles lately, and my saguaro cactus simply "bent over" from the heat when we left and had the air off in here, LOL! I should post it here, it's all too funny! Had to order vybar and UV stuff to change the way this basic paraffin I bought behaves, so we'll see how that goes.  Back to dipping incense, it's all I can do in this extreme heat.

[Pam W]

On 9/6/2018 at 4:16 PM, Quentin said:

That's the way I'm trying to approach it. I have times that I walk away mad to another room, plop down in front of the TV or the computer, pout and beat myself up. After about 10 minutes or so of that, I'm right back out there in the shop. It's a compulsion or something.

Heck, if it only takes 10 minutes or so to get a grip........then you are ahead of me....lol.

[Pam W]

On 9/7/2018 at 1:18 PM, Hopie said:

 

YES, it's a compulsive addiction! I made a few more molded candles lately, and my saguaro cactus simply "bent over" from the heat when we left and had the air off in here, LOL! I should post it here, it's all too funny! Had to order vybar and UV stuff to change the way this basic paraffin I bought behaves, so we'll see how that goes.  Back to dipping incense, it's all I can do in this extreme heat.

Hopie, go easy on the vybar because it can lock up the FO throw....just saying :-)

Extreme heat....the AZ heat should be subsiding soon.......the monsoons are past for the most part so all we AZ Natives have to do is wait for the weather to stabilize.....  

[Pam W]

On 9/6/2018 at 12:52 PM, Quentin said:

I'm the master of overthinking things.

Hey, I have a degree in overthinking....the CPA I worked with for 20+ yrs always told me that I was overthinking an issue......but I have to say that over-thinking is far more productive than under-thinking..kwim?

[Quentin]

17 hours ago, Pam W said:

Hey, I have a degree in overthinking....the CPA I worked with for 20+ yrs always told me that I was overthinking an issue......but I have to say that over-thinking is far more productive than under-thinking..kwim?

That's funny. Just the way I would expect a CPA to think. No offense intended to any CPAs out there

[Quentin]

Just now, Quentin said:

..kwim?

Oh yeah. What does kwim mean? You can tell me by private message if you can't post it here. 

[TallTayl]

48 minutes ago, Quentin said:

Oh yeah. What does kwim mean? You can tell me by private message if you can't post it here. 

KWIM = Know What I Mean.

[Quentin]

@TallTayl Ahhh. I get it now. KWIM?

[Hopie]

21 hours ago, Pam W said:

Hopie, go easy on the vybar because it can lock up the FO throw....just saying :-)

Extreme heat....the AZ heat should be subsiding soon.......the monsoons are past for the most part so all we AZ Natives have to do is wait for the weather to stabilize.....  

 

With the molded novelty figure candles, I don't use scent. I'm not using vybar in the jar or pyramid/pillar candles. So I'm glad you told me that, if I ever do use scent on the cute figure candles, I'll go lightly on the vybar. They seem to have a lot of bubbles in the wax I got, which was the 140, thus the vybar...that's what GenWax told me to do. Seems we returned to Havasu a little early...it was 113 degrees the other day, and 108 today...ugggh! 

[Quentin]

I've gotten lots of valuable advice since the time I started this topic.  I read all the posts again just now. I still don't know what that blue stuff is. Anyone have any ideas about what it could be? Any wild guesses? It was obviously a major mistake of some sort on my part. I most definitely can tell you that I didn't add anything blue. I just keep wondering if that was my fragrance that you see in the picture, pooled just outside the cavity. As I said, I stopped burning it because it had no throw, hot or cold. That's why I keep thinking that stuff might be my fragrance.

[Scented]

Without notes ... no. 

But you have a statement "I did find one page that had this color wax spilled all over it" so my question is were you melting several pots of wax and just grabbed the wrong one to make a second pour? 

If not, then your thought about the wax being the fragrance because you didn't mix it at a high enough temp might be plausible, except ... in my experience ... fragrance that doesn't bind with wax will ooze out in a nice, unexpected mess. It doesn't really set up. 

So then another thing that might be happening, but it would depend on your memory as to what color you used on the initial pour. Anyway, I make a great black and green candle for patchouli but the fragrance always forces the color of the candle to eventually give itself over to brown not matter what it seems. I need to run out of that patchouli to have a fighting chance to keep a black and green candle. So I was just thinking it might be color change. Off the wall thought. 

What I'd be inclined to do is just melt it down, let it harden and see if it mimics itself with that crystallized patch of white. In the off chance that it does, could be that an alien was working beside you and you didn't know. Seriously though is there a chance you used additives on this or blended another wax? 

 

[Quentin]

2 hours ago, Scented said:

my question is were you melting several pots of wax and just grabbed the wrong one to make a second pour? 

As early on in my candle making as that was, I wouldn't have been confident enough to try and work two colors at the same time.  Right now I've got my "notes" here and looking at them. The wax was CBL-141. I was using an LX 18 wick in a  3" diameter mold with a 6% frag. load. Added my dye at the beginning of the melt. Since then I've learned that is the wrong time to add the dye. 

 

2 hours ago, Scented said:

Seriously though is there a chance you used additives on this or blended another wax? 

 

Uh-oh. I see that I used Stearic at 7%  and Vybar at 1%. That's pretty embarrassing. I have no idea why I did that. I see that I had written down to pour at 175-185 as the manufacturer or Candle Science directed to do. I had written down a blank space to write down my actual pour temp, but never wrote it down.   As to the color, it was definitely redder than the picture shows. In the picture I can see that it looks like that blue may have been done in a second pour, but the bottom was red. I never saw the blue until I broke the candle a little more to see how big the cavity was. So, we may never know. I'm starting to like your alien theory.

[Pam W]

Going back to my 'early days' I can't even begin to explain the stupid stuff I did because I thought maybe that was the '''answer'''...but that said, it was because I was a Newbie and trying so hard to make everything right.......well, that just doesn't happen as easily as I thought.

13yrs later I'm still learning and thanks to this forum I can still move forward....learning new stuff every day without having daggers thrown at me for being confused on particular issues.

 

Love this forum