LRC06301983

So jealous. I'm still waiting to upgrade to a turkey boiler... lol.

could I interest you in making a...3 foot tall hurricane? I hear they are becoming all the rage... Imagine the carvings you could put in that baby! Yeah I'm shameless. -Luke-

I Pm'd you Nan. It is a very generous offer to go pick this stuff up. Where are you located at? I would be more than happy to reimburse you and take care of shipping etc.. Where is it you go to get this wood? Do you use it for another hobby or basket making? BTW: I had considered wicker like what they use for baskets...would that maybe work?

I looked at that sample pack and I think I will pick one up sometime. Great idea MargMom. I think I will try varying lengths of 1/16 width pieces of wood. That is the width that Michael estimated the wick in the candle to be. Michael, is the wood in the Old virginia candles a balsa wood? Where would one find bamboo slivers at? Some people here had suggested it and I think balsa and possbily if I can find some bamboo I will experiment with that. I am going to pour a candle using one of my wife's clarinet reeds as wekk cause I'm having trouble tracking reeds down.

yeah I had read the earlier thread where they discussed wood wicks and that is what prompted this thread. BUT I had forgotten all about the Dana candles... Good eye Ginger. Actually i'm glad you've mentioned the Daya Decker thing a bunch of times because I went back and looked at the website again. I hadn't noticed but it appears that she uses wood wicks in her Parafin votives and smaller candles and uses a type of oil well in her bigger candles. They are really expensive, but I really need to figure out this wood wick idea. I might cough up the $52 to buy one of the small votives... I would buy one of the Old virginia ones but Michael is giving us so much good information about them. I've successfully made a couple candles that burn nicely, but the melt pool gets large so they are only suitable as container candles at this stage of testing. I am eons away from being able to wood wick a pillar. lol

this isn't really funny, but I had one of my over sized homemade hurricane molds malfunction, yeah I and the kitchen were covered in 20 lbs. of melted wax. Thank God I was pouring cold. lol Don't even ask me about cleanup, I still have night-terrors completely unrelated, I now have a facination with aloe plants and keep a lot of them growing in the windowsills around the house...

what is the melt pool like on the old virginia Candles you have? Does it completely liquify the top of the candle (hence they only sell container candles and we aren't seeing any freetsanding pillars etc...) or does it have a reasonable melt pool on top? Thanks for all the suggestions so far everybody. I'm searching for a place to get wood wicks at. I'll keep everyone updated. FYI: Michaels right, from what I've been able to fabricate myself, they do smoke a lot, not so much during burn, but especially when being blown out. My wife hates smoke of any kind so she really doesn't like these candles. I enjoy a little smoke so it doesn't bother me, but be forewarned when you start sizing for wicks and stuff...your house can get a little cloudy...

I don't know about free, I'm sure some do, but usually a wax distributor will sell a one pound bag of a type of wax for a dollar-ish so you can make a couple of sample votives to try it out...

Those are good points Vicky. No one wants a lawsuit, espcially me. lol. The guy I am working on this with, his father is a copyright lawyer. I'll run this past him and make sure there isn't anything in existence. GingerKay: Yeah those Dayna decker ones are nice. I was with Sara the moderator and a couple others who thought that it was hard navigating the website. Do they burn off of oil or parafin?

I have the U.S. patent site in my favorites. There are some patents for it, but the concept can't be patented. Just the specifications of what they use. i.e. you can patents a certain type of candle that is a specific color with a specific pour temp with a specific company name...but you can't actually patent the concept of making a candle. likewise, it would be extreemly difficult for someone to put a blanket patent on using wood as a wick. just a certain type of wood, or a certain size of wick.. I really think it is that its really difficult to make and get it right and its not as clean as a normal cloth wick.

I said blowout, but it was more of a: wick was too large, heat was too intense, burned down pretty far and then one side started melting fast and wax spilled over the lip of one side etc... Actualy probably went for 45 minutes before this happened. It goes for a lot longer if I blow it out and let the wax cool every 30 minutes. I dunno something like that. It wasn't a true blow out, but I wasn't sure the exact term for it and loosely it was a blowout. dowel rods are too big, toothpicks are too small, popsicle sticks are alright if you split them etc... I'm gonna try to get a hold of some of the model boat making basal wood or something equivalent if I can find it. I still need to figure out what veneer is. You almost need to custom make wicks and that requires a planer and other wood woring equipment that costs more money. lol.

Well I wouldn't suggest wood as wicks, because sizing on it is every bit as specific for a wood wick as it is for a cloth wick and its a lot harder to find wood that is thin enough or the perfect size etc.. Sharon, the wood wicks up wax everybit as efficiently as a cotton wax. it is simply another medium. tends to smoke a little bit more. The Old Virginia Candle Company is the only place I have found that markets a candle with a wood wick (and trust me I've looked) I'll try the balsa wood and possibly a popsicle stick. Where does your husband get his model wood for his ships? I have sucessfully made a votive with a wood wick that burns for thirty minutes before it has a blow out. Like I said I wouldn't recommend it, but for my project I was forced to explore other wick ideas and this was one that worked for now. I just was having trouble finding thin wood like 1/16th thickness at my local lowes. Where do you get this hobby wood at? Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. and btw, the popsicle stick might actually be the right size in a 4" candle. I dunno. I will keep everyone posted on how it goes. Please keep the suggestions for a wicks coming. What is veneer?

The only thing I can say for now and even this is pushing it...is that I'm working very closely with a good friend of mine who is a chemist. Guesses are welcome.

yep. this is exactly what I am talking about. I am working on a an idea for some candles (another outlandish candle idea) and I need to try it with a wood wick to see if that is the key that will make it work. I'm having trouble manufacturing wicks that are thin and the right size, out of what type of material...etc... should I use a reed? or thin particle board? etc... I need Michael the Texas Dean to help me here. there was a thread about these candles that he posted a lot of info in but it was mostly about burn length and melt pools etc... Michael how wide were the wics in those candles you bought? length and breadth? How big was the wic for what diameter and height of candle. I don't need it to be exactly scientific I just need crude figures for the time being. I could order a candle of my own but I thought I would ask you first to see how far that gets me. was it an inch long and 1/8th in wide? or was it thinner than that because that is pretty thick. Should I peel some wicks off a bamboo shoot...I dunno...I'm open to suggestions. I'm at a standstill in a project I'm working on. Thanks for your help!

did anyone here do any more experimentation with wood wic's? I was looking into making a candle like this and was hoping for some suggestions on where to begin. thanks a lot! -Luke- UPDATE: I changed the heading of the thread to flag your attention Michael because in another thread you posted that you had bought some. But anyone can post a suggestion if they have it. I need some suggestions on making my own wicks based upon your observation of the candles you bought.

Yeah she is an alien. I actually completely ripped that saying off of an apron I saw the other day. lol. long live plagurism. Actually I leave all the wicking to the rest of you candle geniuses. I just make the hurricane shells, that most chandlers are afraid to... I can say in all humility...I and parafin bravely go where no candle maker has ever been... Actually I'm working on another project deep in the bowels of of my candle laboratory that I'm sure the world will be as jealous of as they are of my hurricane's size... and my really cool toolbelt bucket...

Speaking of a "round tool caddy" (way off topic now) I got one of those tool belts that goes around the top of a 5 gallon bucket...and its got a holder inside for a cordless drill etc... I keep all my knives and scrapers and screws and even differnt size wics in little plastic baggies and everything else in the little pockets outside...inside a I have my blowtorch stuff and hammer and large chisel etc... and I have my heat gun in the drill holder slot... every candle maker should have one. I am so organized. Women want me, Martha Stewart fears me. BTW: the hurricane is really cool. I can make them really big, but I'm still working on making them pretty like the rest of you.

I'm really new here so you will have to wait for some of the old guard to really tell you what you are screwing up because honestly I'm sure it could be a million things but... I have been working on my own time a little with using my brass initial seal and some different types of wax for another project (kind of a mini-version of what you are doing) and I have found that if I leave the brass seal stamped into the wax until the wax fully hardens and cools it sticks to the brass seal. Even if I ice down the seal, or rub pam or oil on it, there is a very specific point and length of time where you should press the seal in and then pull the seal back up off the wax (you just kind of have to get a feel for it) You don't really see any candle molds made of brass so there might be something inheriently flawed with using brass. Does that make sense? Is the brass plate something you could heat up (or you could heat up the candle) after the candle is finnished and you could press it into the candle and kind of brand it? You know do it after the candle has hardened and just reheat stuff... How big is this brass plate? does it stretch the entire length of the mold? Hope this helped a tiny bit. -Luke-

I have a 4" x 4 1/4" mold that I am going to use. It is a three wic mold and I am using a very basic Soy wax (no blend) but I don't remember the exact type. I know I will have to test extensively, but can someone recommend where I should start as far as a suitable type of wic and size? I looked at the reference charts for recommended wics with wax types etc... But I didn't see something that was about having three wics in the same candle. I would assume that I would use a smaller wic since there are three... and yes I'm new to making small candles so feel free to giggle all you want at my question. -Luke-

My mom has a parafin bath. She puts cream on her hands and then dips them into this little pot of heated candle wax (with a very low MP) and then slips her hands into oven mits and lets them sit for a while. It apparently really moisturizez your hands...you can use it for feet too. Something about the heat from the wax, and the oils in the wax, and you can scent the wax etc... you can use it on your feet as well. I dipped my face in it once and them used a pencil to poke breath holes for my nose...I did it over and over a bunch of times and actually have a wax cast of my face... yes I am proud... No my mother still doesn't know that I did it. this might be what you are hearing about...I'm sure they could do it with a low MP soy wax as well...maybe...

I found some at a site called GENWAX. are they legit? http://candles.genwax.com/candle_scent/___0___a_amaretto.htm But the problem is (and I hope this makes sense) GENWAX has a FO that smells like 'Amaretto liquor'. I don't necessarily want something that smells like amaretto liquor. I want something that smells like amaretto and/or the way it tastes. see the difference... I dunno maybe there isn't a different, but in reality, something can smell good, but taste terrible, or smell terrible and taste good. The two are not necessarily linked.

You know the flavor Amaretto. Some people make it by combining cherry and almond but I dunno if that is exactly it. 2Part question... Does anyone know what flavors are mixed to form amaretto... And is there a FO that smells like the taste of amaretto... I know they have an Almond scent which one or two sites have claimed to be "amaretto/almond", but amaretto is't just almond. What FO's could I combine to get this scent? Hope that made sense. I haven't used FO a lot so I am sure its out there somewhere, I just didn't see it at a couple of the places I usually get wax and other supplies from.

The link for making a wax seal out of a button was a really original idea. Something like that might work. I'd have to find a button I liked though. But I find that i'm typically a person who likes buttons (I'm not fond of zippers, I always jam them) so I probably wouldn't be too hard. I wonder if they make large buttons with initials on them...something to check out. candleman I'm glad you posted that site becaue it was where I looked originally but I'm in ohio, its in the UK and I wasn't sure if it was reliable. I mean it looked like it, but if something goes wrong, its a little harder to call and ship stuff overseas. Again good suggestions. I'll have to take a look at those. Thanks guys.

Uh...I really have no response to this. Craig it is nice to meet you. I will umm have to tell uhh Michael all about this funny little incident when I actually uhh...meet him. lol. I've lost my mind. Btw. I did call Michaels Craig, (I'm just practicing getting names straight now) and honestly Craig they carry some of the little penny sized seals but that is all. Too bad. I like Michaels, but it was worth a try eh Craig.

I actually have a seal that I have occasionally used on letters so I guess I have the hang of doing it as well as anyone else to some extent...so we will see how I do with a larger stamper. Michael thank you for the search suggestion "Photo engraving." I wasn't even sure where to begin my search and I was just looking for "wax seals" and "stationary" wasn't coming up with much. lol. thank you very much for the suggestions. I'll go check the yellow pages for this and search the net. Carol that website is amazing. the only place that I had found that does custom only made them a quarter size at the most, but these people will make them as large as you would like or so they claim. Thank you very much for the reference.