SatinDucky

Welcome to CT and the addiction While I do votives, I wouldn't be of much help with prices since I've had mine for a while. One of the biggest determining factors will be where you live though. Supplier A might sell them cheaper but charge a much higher shipping fee than Supplier B. Finding suppliers close to you and comparing shipping charges is a necessity, especially for heavy items. I do use wick pins and wouldn't have it any other way. The two most common ways are wicking the mold in the beginning or using the pins. I don't like wicking the mold personally. It's hard to keep the wick centered and straight since you can't pull it tight and hold it there while the wax cools. Some wick like zinc are stiffer and may stand up enough on their own, but I'm not comfortable with the looseness and possibility that somewhere inside the wick may have shifted and could be too close to the glass holder. You won't find many people that use a drill press, not that many people have one at home..lol. Even if you do, it would be tricky. Nope, I haven't tried it, but I have tried drilling wick holes before. It's very slow going and you have to keep backing out and cleaning out the excess wax. It's kinda tacky by nature so it doesn't necessarily just follow the threads up and expel out the top like wood or metal does. There is an abundant amount of info on the board here, in all the different sections. Kick back, put your feet up and start reading. It wont take long before you see a dozen different things that you just HAVE to try... shortly after that your brain will go into info overload and you'll forget most of what you just read

Most definitely! Think of the clay like a solid wick The best I've seen is the Modge Podge. I used 3 thin coats. Personally I stopped using the clay. I have a small votive sized one that turned a bit brown on one side of the top. I test burned in a drafty area. Sooo.. it does seal it, but now I question if the coating would be flammable or if it would just "bake" it. And it it bakes long enough, would it chip and let the clay soak up the wax anyway? I don't know if it has something to do with the terracotta underneath or not because the tin buckets I've sealed never got any brown areas. Just too much trouble for me to test thorough enough to feel comfortable selling.

Maybe I should have said that better. Mine aren't plated at all. Plain old steel. Even discolored a bit where the pins are welded to the base. And on that note... repeated steaming would damages them anyway because they'd probably be a pile of rust before long....lol. Sometimes I heat them a bit to wipe them, usually not. Mostly I use a paper towel to get the largest amount of the wax to crumble off, then pop them in the mold for the next one

Beautiful! The layers really add interest even if they're the same color

My wick pins don't have a chrome plating on them. I've never seen them that way.

Now this is JMO sooo... unless YOU'VE had problems with cracking, why start out with a more complicated mix? I'm curious where you read these posts at? Personally I've never heard of paraffin votives cracking, but I do miss a lot more the older I get...lol. Start simple. If you run into a problem, correct it. If you try to make a candle by preventing every possible problem that COULD happen, you may as well grab the jacket and hunt down the padded room with you name on it before you ever start.

I don't know how much difference altitude makes in the burn. I lived higher up and now down lower and have never seen that much difference on the burn of store bought candles. I suspect the altitude would make more of a difference in the making of the candle. The only way to know for sure is to make a bunch in the same place and have them burned at different altitudes. Then in reverse, make some at different altitudes and burn them in the same place. It would make an interesting experiment

I suspect that the 100% refers to the type of wax it's made with, not the percentage that the paraffin is refined. Meaning it's not a parasoy or palm or beeswax mix, etc. Completely dripless? Are they taper candles That's the only type of candle I've ever seen that referred to. Some tapers do, some don't but basically any other type of candle would be dripless. Many of us use 100% paraffin. Now what kind we use is a whole different ballgame. The categories of waxes are mostly determined by the kind of candle it is. Inside that category are many different waxes. Some are blends, some are plain paraffin with different melt points, some we put in our own additives. Now you start getting into the complicated part and my knowledge is limited so I'll stop here

There are many threads just like this one in the Fragrance section... I mean pages and pages of them...lol. Browse through there, you'll find massive amounts of info on different suppliers. From opinions on quality to prices to customer service....

http://www.craftserver.com/forums/showthread.php?t=68021

I WON a gallon of it as a door prize, that's what I'll be playing with! :neener:

Yup, it was definitely fun. And it was nice to meet everyone. The goats were precious too The vendors were great too! I've got so many goodies in my bags to poke through and play with. I can't wait til Monday when I'll have time to poke through everything I absolutely MUST play with the perfume base from Synergy next week. I'm so glad I got the little sprayers from SYR's coo-op now And I gotta get down to Alabaster and pick up some of their new lotion base. Like I need MORE things on my "to do" list...lol I forgot my "felted soap" on the floor. Thanks again Birdie for all your hard work, it turned out great!

Just because you make the "fresh to order" doesn't mean you have to buy the supplies in very small quantities. You will just flush your money down the toilet that way. I only make to order as well, but I buy my wax by the cases and FOs by the lbs (which some here still consider small quantities). Continually buying FOs in a 1oz bottle will likely equate to business suicide. You say you've been doing it a year, but how often in that year? I can't help but wonder how it took a year for you to realize that a 12 fluid ounce jar doesn't hold 12 oz of wax...and the entire time you've been calculating your FO load wrong because of the inaccurate wax measurement. Honestly, working is a supply warehouse doesn't mean squat. You could read every post on this and every other forum and even pick every chandlers brain that you know, but until you really study all the aspects, do the testing for yourself AND continually test and gain experience in actually making them, you shouldn't be concerned with selling any. I don't mean to sound harsh but you've missed out on some real basics in your first year. In the long run, it will not only hurt the reputation of ALL handpoured candles, it will hurt YOUR future business reputation and have a real good chance of making sure most of you beginning customers never give you return business :undecided JMHO

I use the large oval metal ones from dollar tree. They have flowers and a bumble bee or dragonfly I think. I didn't chance the seams leaking and coated the inside with Modge Podge first. The are about 1 ft wide and I use 3 wicks. Boy do the put out a LOT of scent

That turned out nice, especially for your first! My first one hardly showed any pattern at all...lol

just curious... how long did you say you've been making candles (on a regular basis)?

I really like your mottles. The uniqueness of each one makes them more interesting to me. I much prefer that over the identical ones that look like they were made by machines

Keep in mind that I know very little about soy so I read more than anythng else here. Just a question Sabrina... are you concerned with the messy tops or the "hidden" air pockets that you didn't know were there? Does soy often form air pockets in containers?

That's pretty much a loaded question.... With each scent from different suppliers smelling different to most people...there are so many variables that the results of one persons test with particular scents from a particular supplier would be hard to compare. They sound like nice combinations Oh yeah... you might find some information on different mixes in the Fragrance section too...

I agree with Vicky 100%. I've dabbled with floaters some and have given up for a while because I just cannot get a decent burn time from them and for the life of me, I can't figure out what's wrong. I've tried a few different sizes and types of wicks. Guess I'll try changing waxes next. Maybe it's the shape of the molds I'm trying, I dunno. But it dang sure isn't as easy as I thought it would be :rolleyes2

If you browse through the Business section, you'll find a lot of info on this.

4625 too

I've never seen any difference...

Have you tried a LX12? I use 4625 as well and 98% of my FO's burn best with the 12's... I don't remember trying a 14 so I can't say for that. The ashes I ran across were back when I was testing zincs.

The only time I've ever seen any wick make ashes was when it was under wicked and had trouble burning properly. Those few times the ashes dissolved in the wax and didn't hurt anything. Then again, they weren't burning good so I didn't keep it going too long...