Ramr

Lots to think about here and I suppose as Laura C has said, if I fill it with candles at least it will smell like candles, and not mothballs. I got the suitcase from an elderly friend. They had all sorts of amazing vintage stuff in pristine condition from back in their youth from the 40s right to the 70s. All of it in perfect condition and all of it stinking to high heaven of mothballs. Some things have literally taken YEARS to air out. Some things never did. I soaked a lot of vintage clothing, often for several days, in a product called OxiClean. Got out the yellow stains and the stank. Obviously cannot use it on a paper lined suitcase. For all I know the suitcase itself is made of cardboard and might disintegrate if wet. I think I might just take the leap and fill it with candles. Right now the candles are in a big, black box that work boots came in. Not very cute.

I have not tried charcoal in the suitcase. I have tried charcoal in other applications and it is very fluffy, very BLACK, very fine stuff. So I would have to find it in some confined form rather than loose. Loose charcoal is a whole other problem! But good thinking!

I have all these votives I've been making and I want to store them in this funky, vintage suitcase I have. However the former owners of the ancient suitcase were big into mothballs. I have tried everything known to man over the last two years to get the stank of mothballs out of this suitcase, but no luck. It is a hard suitcase and the interior is paper, not fabric. I have sprayed it with vinegar. I have sprinkled it with coffee grounds, I have stored it with tea bags, I have left it in the sun, I performed a few magic incantations while dancing and waving tree branches. That smell DOES NOT COME OUT! It has lightened up in the past two years. But still, if it is closed for any length of time and you open it, wow, mothballs! The question is, will my candles smell like that if I store them in the suitcase? Each batch of candles is in plastic bags. I don't think they're great plastic bags as you can smell the candle scent right through them. So the candles are not individually wrapped, but each type wrapped in a bag and all stored with the others. In a big box. That smells like heaven right now! Will the stink of mothballs permeate my votives? IT's bad enough that they are incorrectly wicked and many have no throw, but to also have them smelling like mothballs? That would be too much!

In my box of acquired candle paraphernalia is a bag of white granular stuff the label says Sheen-Tex wax hardener and conditioner. I have Googled and come up empty handed as to what this stuff is. Is it stearic acid? Is it Vybar or Polybar? I did find one article that mentions it, written in 1972 for Mother Earth News and they mention the cost of wax being a whopping 15 - 17 CENTS per pound. Scandalous! This article says it is a wax hardener and that it is very costly and that stearic acid is a more reasonably priced alternative. Has anyone heard of Sheen Tex and what do you know about it?

All excited to make my first candles I watched one lousy Youtube video, melted some wax, tossed in not enough FO, plunked some wicks in the votive molds, poured the wax to the top and went to bed. As you all know the next morning revealed votives with deep sink holes and wicks that were NOT where I had placed them! Who knew that wax could yank a wick around like that?! I tried various things to prop the wicks up but nothing was working the way I wanted. I thought about buying some of those nifty metal ones but nah, I'm too cheap and pretty soon I will no longer be making candles so I didn't really want to amass too much 'stuff'. But I needed something...so this is what I came up with. It is pretty goofy and only practical for one pound pours. I don't see this working on a large scale. So I give you my sad wick holders and maybe someone else on a budget will find this useful. You will need A PIPE CLEANER cut in half, a STIR STICK or pair of small scissors. Now wrap the pipe cleaner around the stir stick or end of the scissor blade. Not super tight, but do get a nice bend in it. Wrap one end one way and one end the other way and I realize that makes no sense. Maybe a picture will help. Slide it off the stir stick or scissors and slip a wick through the opening. Set the wick into your chosen mold, fiddle until it's well centered. Then bend the arms sharply over the mold. Without removing the pipe cleaner from the mold, dab melted wax onto the bent area where it bends over the mold. Dab the top and sides and all around. Saturate the fuzz really well. This makes the bend more rigid, less likely shift out of shape and it makes a grippy notchy that holds the mold and does not slide around when cooling wax puts force on a wick. The next picture is supposed to show the wax on the bent area, but it doesn't show up all that well. This is a batch of holders in use. You have to be careful with them because you can bend them out of shape. But if you take care setting them up, they do a pretty good job of keeping a wick centered. And because you wrapped them around something that has a little width to it, you can wiggle that wick a hair one way or the other in the little slot to get it right in the middle. The one thing to avoid though is pouring wax over them or so full that it touches them because once that fuzz gets waxed on to something, you WILL NOT pull it off! So DO NOT dump wax on them as you pour and DO NOT make your mold so full that the wax touches the holder. I have used mine for many batches and they are doing fine. I know...pretty low tech. But it works for me!

Flannel made me think of things that are soft and cozy. Fall, but you don't want seasonal words. Maybe' Fuzzy Fall' or 'Fuzzy Breeze'. 'Fuzzy Feels' I like odd names. In my own recent blends I have one called Fresh Pony, Fuzz Valley and Lick Me.

I am reading all this with a sinking feeling of dread. I have all these mini mason jars I bought because they were super cute. I boiled up some paraffin, eye of newt and wing of bat, poured it in these little jars, jammed in wicks I had made myself, stir sticks in various size or crochet cotton dipped in wax, and I was so pleased with myself for making all these fabulous gifts to give at Christmas. And they are all going to suck? I have made hateful gifts? I am MORTIFIED! (laying on floor on face) THIS IS TOO HARD!

I would never light a candle like that. Too pretty!

Wait! Wait! We can bring this wildly off topic thread back in line! Take your worn, not-fresh underwear, dip them in wax, roll them around a wick and sell them as candles. Claim they will release pheromones or some such nonsense when lit. They will need to carry a safety label: "WARNING only light these outdoors in a 45 gallon steel barrel, otherwise your house will burn down and the insurance people will not cover you if you lit some old, stinky, flammable panties on fire, you idiot! " What will we call them? Flannel Flames? Gaslight Gonch? Pyro-Panties? I think I've just found my get-rich-quick scheme. I claim all rights from now on until the end of the universe for this idea which no one can ever patent or copy, amen.

Sponiebr, my Hub grows increasingly alarmed at the things I am setting on fire. Nothing is safe from experimentation.

Sponiebr, I thought of you today as I lit some wood wick votives. Stir sticks split in half long ways. Don't burn worth a darn. Complete rubbish. Bliss me off! Yet others burn away merrily. Wood is evil. Also, burning 100% cotton denim pants is one thing. Burning cotton denim pants that have lycra or spandex in them is something different. I remember when we sat through our high school classes in blue jeans that had no give, no stretch. How in heaven's name did we not all suffer internal damage due to our guts being lacerated by those unyielding waistbands, that actually sat on our waist and not floating somewhere below navel. It was the dark ages of blue jeans. But THOSE jeans make superior wicks! No stretchy stuff in sight!

Trappeur, I suffer from an illness that I call, I Can Improve That. If this will work, then THIS will work better. Or differently. Or I don't have to wait 2 weeks for it to come in the mail. Or why buy wicks when I can burn micro-strips of old pants (no, you can't). I love a challenge and keep trying things often shuffling off in defeat. BUt at least I KNOW what will and won't work and as SarahS said, it makes you appreciate the science that goes into wicks, because those things didn't happen by accident, I can tell you! If I wasn't a dull old housewife, I might have been a mad scientist blowing things up in labs. Ooooh, that sounds like fun!

I used the search function to see if there were any threads on making wicks. Not with spooled wick that you purchase, but with other stuff you find laying around the house. The search function did not direct me to any discussions about people making their own wicks. So, in honour of my inner pyromaniac, I will share things that I have stuffed in a candle and lit on fire. Learn from my failures. Some of this was discussed in the wooden wick thread. First, youtube tells you to soak your wick material in a mixture of borax and salt then let it dry and blah, blah, blah. Forget that. Takes too long. No time. Want results NOW. All things I burned were prepped by being dipped in wax to make them stiff enough to handle. None of them had wick tabs either and I have puzzled over how to make those at home. I saved used ones and pried them open and re-used them but that is stupidly slow so forget that. More on making wick bottoms later. Back to things I have burned. Cotton butcher string I had in the kitchen junk drawer. At least I think it was cotton. It was supposed to be. It was flimsy and pathetic. When lit it frayed and flickered and was overall a very unruly burn. I think it was a low grade cotton with perhaps lots of ground up bits of bug bodies in it or something but it would flare up then die down randomly, flaming bug bits I think. I would not recommend this to anyone. DMC embroidery floss, all 6 strands together. This made a very teeny, thin wick. It is so soft and flexible when doing needlework but I was amazed at how it stiffened up when dipped in wax. It made a beautiful, steady little flame that did nothing weird or stupid. I was very surprised at how nicely it behaved. Only problem it really was too thin to make a melt pool in a votive. Close, but not quite. If you were making poured candles in shot glasses, this would be a perfect wick if you like small, civilized flames. I loved this flame. 100% combed cotton knitting yarn by Crème de la Crème, worsted weight 2.5 oz. I don't know if that refers to the size of the ply or the weight of the whole skein. It is slightly thicker than the butcher string and I didn't really expect much of a difference between this and the butcher stuff, but I was wrong. I suspect that this is a more pure cotton and does not get quite as flaring up or wobbling as the butcher string. It did not untwist and flare during burn. But this is a fairly large wick for a votive and makes a full melt pool very quickly, then will go on to liquefy the top inch of the candle! The flame is TALL and you have to really keep this wick trimmed to keep it civilized. I think this would work well in a small container candle. However, one will burn great and the next votive in the same batch will be lousy with this wick. When it's good, its' good and when it's bad, it's bad. I took an old pair of jeans and stitched a line straight down and straight back again. (Like 4 inches long) Then cut as close to that line of stitching on both sides as I could. I got in really, really close with my rotary cutter and my straight edge trimming as close as my old eyes would allow me to see. Dipped this incredibly thin piece of denim fabric in wax, insert in candle, light, HOLY CRAP! You can roast a wiener over that flame! This is a BAD idea! Do not do this is safety is a concern you have. Now, none of these wicks had a wick tab and as they got to the bottom bit of the candle they all fell over and snuffed out. Some of them did this with 1/2 inch of wax still in the candle and that upset me because I was like, awww, man, I could have burned that candle more, but no, because the stupid wick plopped over. I tried making wick tabs out of tinfoil. That never worked. I rummaged through Hub's collection of itty bitty nuts and tried jamming wicks in those, but apparently he had plans for those itty bitty nuts and was not happy that they were being lost forever in the bottom of a candle. I thought maybe I could affix them somehow to tiny bits of wood, but having a floating, flammable hunk of wood in a pool of molten wax just sounded like a bad idea (sort of like my wood wick experiments!). However, I did devise some sort of bottom that I have inserted in candles but no burn tests to see how they work. Or not. Here, in winter, we wrap heat tape around the water troughs to keep them from freezing. We use a special heat proof tape. It is silver, like tinfoil, only it's tape. I have cut very thin strips of this tape and wrapped it around the bottom of the wick. This is not nearly the size of a wick tab. Not even close. But it may be just heavy enough that it keeps the wick upright until there is no more wick to burn. Being foil I assume the tape itself will not burn - although not having burned one to the bottom yet I cannot say how this particular experiment will end. Probably badly! This concludes my long winded report on the trial and error stupidity that has been going on at my house lately. I know there are other experimenters out there who've tried this. I just couldn't find the posts.

I have a product called Polybar, which I believe is similar to Vybar. It comes in these flat little round chips and I find them awkward to measure since they don't sit nice and level in a measuring spoon. I have been using about 10 mls, which I think is 2 teaspoons per pound of wax. This might be too much from what I've been reading, but so far I have had pretty good throw when I add enough FO. In the beginning of this candle making I was under scenting. Probably best to not take advice from me! I use it in IGI 1245 paraffin.

Since getting into this addictive craft (sport? endeavour? past time?) there are a few phrases I have uttered that I can honestly say had never issued forth from my mouth before in my life. A few examples of things I never said before candles: "This is stupid wax." I have never had a reason before now to utter such a collection of words. "This wick sucks." Again, not a sentence I had ever uttered before now. "Well, that's a crappy melt pool." I am surprised that I even know what a melt pool is let alone use it in a sentence or know when one is crappy. "Darn those annoying sink holes!" Again, this is something you should say on the edge of a swamp, not in your kitchen. Some things are happening too that have never happened before. Like Hub comes in from a long day at work, opens the liquor cabinet to pour himself a shot of something stiff and ...where have all the shot glasses gone? I don't know. But look at these adorable itty, bitty container candles, don't you just love them? Here's an empty paper cup that I had coffee in last week, drink up.

Enablers. You are all enablers. I shall slink off to cry by myself, with a bottle of wine, and a lit candle. But first, yes, I must smell them all, to find the one that best goes with the wine....

I am seriously out of control. Seriously. I have candles. So many candles. Yeah, I like candles, but at what point do you have enough candles? I think I passed that 60 candles ago. I can't get a grip on myself! This is the conversation that is running through my head: "Hmm, I like vanilla mixed with peach, but what will happen when I mix it with cinnamon? (makes candles). Not that great. Try another blend. (makes more candles) Yeah, these are excellent, I need to put these in my personal stash. Just for me. But what about Christmas and birthdays and other gift giving occasions? I won't want to deplete my personal stash for that. Better make more, you know, for just in case. (makes more candles). I have lots of sweet scents and that's fine, I like sweet. BUt what about friends who don't like sweet and want something more aromatic? (makes more candles)......" Good lord. When friends drop over I never let them leave without taking some candles with them. They always gasp as I set the box full of candles on the table for them to sniff and choose. I smile, as if this is all the fruits of my labours that I am generously sharing. No! No! It's a lie! I have, off in a corner, a MASSIVE paper bag stacked to the top with votives and they're mine MINE! My preciousesssss... Help me!

I think I will stick with FO from now on. But I do like to try things!

Lesson learned. Three cubes of wax melt DOES NOT scent one pound of paraffin enough to create any throw. At all. Today, since I had all these wax melts, I melted half a pound of paraffin and tossed in the whole box of melts (6 cubes) plus a cube from another package for good measure. Oh dear. At least on pour the aroma is ... chest congesting. We shall see how this works as candles. At 3 cubes per pound of paraffin, no, no scent. But 6 cubes per 1/2 pound of wax? Maybe.

Kerven, my head exploded reading that. I barged ahead and tried it out. Melted the pound of paraffin (I think there was more, my scale is pretty unreliable) tossed in two little squares of melt. Hmm, could use more, tossed in another square of a complimentary scent. (I hope!). Threw in a couple droppers of vanilla and .... now we wait. Talltayl, all this experimenting and testing. Oy! Not a hobby for the impatient. I can hardly wait for my candles to set up and as soon as I think they're solid enough not to spill if the jar tips over, I light them. And they burn crappy. Cause I don't think hot wax burns all that great, unless it's on your stove in your kitchen in which case it overheats and burns just fine. In a bad way. This is a blend of smoky apple, spice and vanilla and I'm going to call is Bad Apple. It has a slight scent that I call tobacco, smoked, masculine. Sweet but with a little brute force behind it. If Rhett Butler was burning a candle when he swept you off your feet and kissed you while he didn't give a damn, this would be it. Says me.

I have never used a wax melt for its intended purpose . But today I bought some thinking they smelled great and that I would toss them into a pound of melted wax and have thusly scented candles. Will this work? If not, why not?

Water boils at a set temperature. (Approx. 212 F.) Boiling water does not get hotter the longer it boils. It just reaches a certain temp, boils, remains at that temp and thus the wax you are melting in it will only ever reach that certain temp without getting any hotter. Your wax can attain 200 degrees, but it is also losing heat to the air as it is being heated. Short answer, melting your wax ( in a pot set in) boiling water is a safety mechanism because the likelihood of overheating it to bursting into flame is pretty much nil. Steam is another story. DO NOT futz around with steam. Not unless a bad burn is on your do-list. A double boiler should have plenty of room for steam to escape without building up pressure. We're making candles, not locomotives. Having said that, back in the day when I was batiking I never used a double boiler. Never knew I was supposed to! Just plunked my pot of wax on the stove, on low and away I went. I never left it unattended though. Once or twice I did have smoke rolling off the top of the wax. Uh oh. Apply a lid and remove from heat. Since my 'inherited' candle supplies came with a big pasta pot for water and melting pot for wax, that's what I've been using.

Thank you!

Last night I made two posts and then wanted to delete them. I did find an edit button, but no delete button. SO I edited, highlighting and deleting the contents. That did not work! The post posted anyway. Imagine my horror! This morning I see they are gone. If someone on the site did that for me, thank you. Is there some way I can do that myself in future? I am new here and not yet clear on how all the gizmos work.