Hello I am new to the site but signed up after I read Ramr's post on 9/3/18 about making your own wood wicks. It made me feel better to know I was not the only one out there trying to do the same. I am also knew to candle making and so far I have used wooden wicks from Country Lane ( Hobby Lobby) and the latest from Northwood Distributing. They burned well, I never trimmed them once after burning and they always relit. Did not even realized you had to trimmed them until some reading well after I had made about 4 or 5 test candles. Anyway, I have spent the better part of my evening trying to find and article online or a video to show me how to make my own wicks. I understand these companies make them but seriously, the idea came from somewhere and I have even seen some wood wicks that are wider than the standard wood wicks sold. So I figure those must be custom made. I did see the article about how to do it with Balsa wood but the article show a stick that resembled a square wooden dowel as oppose to the flat almost sliver or sheet like, thin pieces of wood sold as wooden wicks. I was thinking I could take a piece of lumber and trim off a stick that thin, even if its the length of the piece of lumber, you could just cut it up into smaller pieces giving you several wooden wicks. But my problem is my usual medium is batter ( cake and cookie) not wood. I have been trying to identify a tool that might let me slice off a piece of lumber turned on its side and do it in one piece and without it being sooo thin it curls or breaks. After reading about you adventures as another member stated, I see you are use to cutting wood but like you Ramr, not about t open a mill for a few wood wicks. Anyone know of a tool a newbie to wood working could use to cut a thin slice of wood from a piece of lumber and do it in one long piece?
On 9/3/2018 at 1:38 AM, Ramr said:
I've been fooling around making my own wooden wicks. Have learned a lot. Since I am totally new to making candles I don't know that I'm qualified to say much, but here goes.
I have tried to burn, as a wood wick: the wood ends of match sticks (no), bamboo BBQ skewers (no) soaked the skewers in olive oil (still no) dried pine needles I found on the lawn and twisted together (BAD IDEA!) a thick chunk of cedar kindling I meticulously shaved with an axe that was too big (no, cannot make thin enough strips with that ridiculous monster sized axe) toothpicks, both flat style and round style (no and no) bristles I yanked out of the corn broom I sweep the steps with (no) little round sticks I got at the dollar store which looked really promising but failed utterly.
What I have had some success with: wooden stir sticks you get at the dollar store. Soaking them in oil is not necessary. The trick, for me, has been taking an exacto knife (utility knife) and scoring a thin line the length of the stick. This miniscule groove helps wick melted wax up towards the flame, or so I have convinced myself. But I do burn candles with wicks of this design.
I make votives and find a whole stir stick is too much wick for a votive. Even though they are narrow to begin with, cut them down to half their width is plenty for a votive. A full width stir stick can easily work in a 3 inch diameter candle. (at least with the wax I am using, IGI # 1245). I did some experimenting with splitting a stir stick in half and laying them on top of each other as a two layer wick, so wax could wick up the space between. This is fiddly to do, doesn't work unless your stir sticks are perfectly flat and often they are not, there are lots of deformed stir sticks in a dollar store package. I abandoned the double idea, don't need to double up.
I also bought a package of craft sticks that are the size of the tongue depressor your doctor uses. Have made wicks with these. They make HUGE wicks! Scored a few times to improve wax uptake. Did test burn tonight in a 3x3 square candle, on a pie plate, full tongue depressor wick, melt pool to edge in about 30 minutes. If this candle was in an enclosed holder it would have melted even faster. I could have cut this tongue depressor in half (long way) and it still would have been plenty of wick for this 3x3 square.
I have no wick holders for these. Improvised. Squirted hot glue blobs onto tinfoil and then stuck a stir stick (split long ways) in. When it was cool, peeled it off the tinfoil and there you have a wooden wick with a flat bottomed blob at the end. Do not know yet what will happen when everything melts down and flame hits glue glob. I have also glue gunned a wooden wick to a penny and used that in the candle. OR... I just stick the wick down into cooling wax, no bottom, and when it is burned down to 1/2 inch or so, the wick drops over, goes out and I like to think of it as a safety feature that it self extinguishes before you burn the candle dry. I may be wrong about that - time will tell I guess, but so far my untabbed wood wicks have all fallen over eventually in the last bit of wax and snuffed out.
Wood is a varied material and some burn well, others not so much. Some make a sputtering noise that I find hilarious. Also some send up tiny little embers, like a mini campfire. They also need to be carefully trimmed. Too long and they don't perform well. I clip mine with a fingernail clipper, taking off just a hair at a time.
WOODEN WICK
in General Candle Making Discussions
Posted
Hello I am new to the site but signed up after I read Ramr's post on 9/3/18 about making your own wood wicks. It made me feel better to know I was not the only one out there trying to do the same. I am also knew to candle making and so far I have used wooden wicks from Country Lane ( Hobby Lobby) and the latest from Northwood Distributing. They burned well, I never trimmed them once after burning and they always relit. Did not even realized you had to trimmed them until some reading well after I had made about 4 or 5 test candles. Anyway, I have spent the better part of my evening trying to find and article online or a video to show me how to make my own wicks. I understand these companies make them but seriously, the idea came from somewhere and I have even seen some wood wicks that are wider than the standard wood wicks sold. So I figure those must be custom made. I did see the article about how to do it with Balsa wood but the article show a stick that resembled a square wooden dowel as oppose to the flat almost sliver or sheet like, thin pieces of wood sold as wooden wicks. I was thinking I could take a piece of lumber and trim off a stick that thin, even if its the length of the piece of lumber, you could just cut it up into smaller pieces giving you several wooden wicks. But my problem is my usual medium is batter ( cake and cookie) not wood. I have been trying to identify a tool that might let me slice off a piece of lumber turned on its side and do it in one piece and without it being sooo thin it curls or breaks. After reading about you adventures as another member stated, I see you are use to cutting wood but like you Ramr, not about t open a mill for a few wood wicks. Anyone know of a tool a newbie to wood working could use to cut a thin slice of wood from a piece of lumber and do it in one long piece?