xxxAlpha71xxx

Hey there, I know some of you are using hot glue to set your wicks. I'm going to play around with this a bit and was wondering if any of you had any recommendations on what I should be looking for as far as temperature resistance goes. Even better would be a link to a suitable product. Thanks!

I did a bit of research yesterday. I'm going to give an air purifier a shot. The one I ordered is around 26 inches tall and will fit in one of the corners right under our kitchen bar. It says filter replacement every 6 months. I'm sure with my use I will never get to the 6 month point without requiring replacement but even if I have to replace a 20.00 filter every 3 months I'm still better off that a 20 dollar filter every two weeks. I'll report back.

Dear Abby, Ninja reviving an older post. Another issue with cheap air filters that I've recently noticed is that some of the smoke/soot makes it through the air filter, into your AC unit, then gets blown back into the house through the ventilation system. Yesterday I noticed that AC vent in our kitchen had gathered up some black soot. At first it made sense because the bar in our kitchen is where I do a lot of test burns. When I went to clean the vent I wiped around it, expecting to see some residual soot on the ceiling. Nope. Clean as a whistle. I then went around and checked all of the AC vents and sure enough all of them had the black sooty stuff on them with the ceilings being clean. All of that lead me to the deduction that the air filter I was using didn't grab small enough particles and those particles were being recirculated back into the house. So question 1:. What MERC rating HVAC filter do you guys use? Question 2:. Since we've started burning test candles we've been having to change the ac filter weekly. The one in the photo was installed 3 days ago. Right now it's just black (it was white) and not clogged up but by next Saturday it will most likely need changing. Part of the problem is that the intake is about 10 feet from my test burn area so that makes it worse. How often are you guys (again, those that do a considerable amount of testing) having to change your AC filter? I'm afraid that if I up the MERC level of the filter it's going to clog up even faster because it's snagging more of the finer particles in addition to what my current air filter is getting. Those higher MERC level filters aren't cheap, especially if you're having to change them weekly. Thank you, Unfiltered in Tennessee

Back to my questions. I have 4 candles, 4 scents @ 6%, same container (2.5" diameter x 4" height). All of them burn beautifully until I get down to say 25-35% of the candle left. Then, within an hour of lighting them, I get some nasty looking mushrooms. Is this normal for the bottom portion of the candle? Thanks!

Start off with a nice and simple container. A jelly jar, a smooth sided tumbler, something along those lines.

This 1000%. Some sort of stickied/best practices/newbie guide would have probably had me posting a quarter of the questions I've posted. Yes, there's a search button but search doesn't always give you what you're looking for and even when. It does it might be buried 500 posts back. Thanks for volunteering.

Great minds think alike. I just talked to my wife about mixing it with a cinnamon to give it more of a pumpkin pie sort of fragrance. Going to make one at a lower FO and another with a pumpkin/cinnamon blend and see how they work out

Both Flaming Candle and Candle Science have Pumpkin Souffle Scents that seem to be very popular and have rave reviews. However, I've tried both of them and can't stand them. My wife, who loves pumpkin, doesn't like them either. I was just looking on the CS website and saw that the description states it is "our best pumpkin fragrance for soy candles." Can there be a large scent variance from wax to wax (6006 vs 464 for instance)? I know varying FO percentage can affect the scent throw. Can it also affect the scent itself? I made these candles in 6006 at 6%. They are just over powering and, to my nose at least, not very pleasant and not very pumpkiny (unless you're talking burnt pumpkin possibly) The same thing is also true for Autumn Flannel, which is another popular scent with great reviews. I'm going to try lowering the FO% to see if it mellows out. If anyone is using these scents and actually likes them what wax are you using them in and what percentage? I just have a hard time believing that these two FOs (actually three-Two different pumpkin souffles plus the Autumn Flannel) would be so popular if people are smelling what I smell.

I'm a newbie but this is 100% the best advice ever, in my opinion. I jumped into this not realizing how involved it was and how much testing went into everything. I started testing different scents, different containers, different wicks, and different waxes. In the end I really had no data for a ready for production candle.. I did, however, learn a lot about how waxes react to different variables and now have a pretty good idea on a wick starting point for testing. However, If I had applied the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid) and put together a testing plan from day 1 using realistic goals and expectations I could probably have learned the same thing in half the time using half the material and with half the frustration.

Thanks BF. I'm using 6% on everything right now. I'll throw a couple in storage for 2 or 3 weeks and see how they do

So I've been playing around with Zinc wicks. Have tried them in multiple sizes, multiple containers, multiple scents. In all cases, no matter how good the melt pool, no matter how pretty the flame I end up getting major mushrooming 1-2 hours into the burn. If I extinguish the flame, trim the mushroom off, and relight them they're good for another couple of hours. If I extinguish them, wait until the next day, trim, and relight same story. Is this just a peculiarity of zinc wicks or is their some trick? They seem to be the best throwing wicks I've tried so far but that large mushroom is a huge turnoff.

I ordered a set of these which were waiting on me when I got home this evening. These are absolutely awesome. Quick, and most importantly, clean cut on every wick I tried them on.

The attached pics are of a 3" straight sided tumbler. 6006 wax, 7% FO, with a CD 16 wick. Burn #1 was a four hour burn. This is 2 hours into burn #2. Do you think this is over or under wicked? I have a hard time believing that a bigger wick is required. My thought is that an oversized wick might cause a quick burn downwards not giving the heat time enough to spread outward to the edges. Is that a possibility? Just not sure if I need to go up or down with this wick. Any advice greatly appreciated.

@bfroberts What wick series are you using in those pint jars? If it's CD are you finding yourself up in the 16-18 range?

What height do you guys trim your wick to for the initial burn? 1/8", 1/4", etc

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After seeing a few sink holes over the last couple of days I just ordered an ice pick for this very purpose.

I get email notifications when someone replies to a post I have made or commented on. Is there a way to get replies and such added to my notifications when I log into the board. I can currently see when I have been quoted or when someone has reacted to a post but I do not see any thread reply notifications. Ive found the place to do this in notification settings but the options for that particular setting are greyed out and I am unable to modify.

Yeah, that's the issue I'm having, during the initial cut when there's still a bunch of wax on the wick. If I try to cut a new wick outside of the container it works fine because I can get the wick back further in the blades. Works fine once the wick has been burned. Same thing with wick cutters. Just didn't have any luck with them when trying to do the trim prior to the first burning with the wick in the container (at least on anything CD12 or above, which is what I've been using the past few days.)

I ordered one from Amazon and got it today. It works great if I need to trim a wick outside of the container but when I am trying to trim a wick in a container not so much. I've bought two different wick trimmers over the past few weeks with the same result. Work fine after the initial burn, worthless on the initial trim, especially on larger wick sizes. Once I even make it through the wick im left with something that resembles those old troll pencil toppers/keychains. Best thing I've found so far is just an old pair of scissors that we had laying around the house. I've ordered a newer pair that's more in line with the size that I need and will just use those unless I see someone come up with something better. Catching up on the posts I've missed those cuticle trimmers do look interesting. Just might have to make a quick Amazon visit.

6006, 185/170. This particular one is a square pint jar with a Max measurement of 3" corner to corner. After not really seeing any issues since starting this II had 4/5 test candles on two different containers go this way today. The only thing I did differently on these was setting the wick. I've had an issue with wicks pulling out of the wick tab when I try to put my wick centering thingie (I've got both bowtie and straight bar) on right after pouring, which I had decided was a combination of me pulling them too tight while the wax was still that hot. This time around instead of immediately centering the tops I waiting on the candles to cool a bit then centered them. My thought at the moment, since I had several with this issue which were all made in the same day with me centering the wick in the same manner, is that I waited too long to center the wick. Possibly my moving it around along with the cooling issues Tayl is talking about just created the great candle black hole. What ya think? @TallTayl. How do you decide which candles need to be poked or do you just Norman Bates them all?

So my wife asked me to make a pint jar candle for my mother in law. I made a few for testing and went to burn them this morning, which is when I met my first sinkhole. The top looked fine but I lit the candle and two minutes later it was like someone flushed the toilet. WHOOSH then all the wax disappeared from the center of the candle. Thats a neat trick.

Oh great and powerful Oz. Your omnipotence regarding all things candle is most enviable. The candle that appeared to have the wick that was too small had some tunneling. I removed that wax with a knife, smoothed out the top then relit it. Both candles are now burning pretty much the same. Guess I was overthinking it and overlooking the obvious.

That could be it. I never saw it appear but when I extinguished one of them there were some holes around the wick that possibly could have drained some wax down making a cavity. Watching it burn with the new wick, will see how it goes and toss up some pics after day 3ish. These were just some comparison candles that I was playing with a few weeks ago that I decided to burn. One was 464 at 180/145, one was 464 at 185/Slushy and one was a blend of 72% 6006, 28% 464 at 185/170. Was just playing around with temperatures and blends to see how the candles ended up appearance wise (the 464 looked ok externally, with no wet spots or frosting-the 6006/464 blend had a considerable amount of wet spots).

I'm learning more and more about this wicking thing and just how difficult it can be. There are a lot more variables that I had never considered could causes changes. I've got 2 candles with same container, same scent and %, same dye, same wick. The only difference is one was made with that little candlemaker that CS sells which ended up with scent being added at 180, poured at 145ish. The other had scent added at 185 and was poured slushy. The slushy candle is going to end up being a full wick down than the one that was made with the candle maker. Is that the norm that scent addition and pouring temps can make that much of a difference in wicking? Looks like I've got a ton of learning to do.