BruceCarvesWax

I remember you! Ive been hit or miss for about the same amount of years. Good to see you back.

Candle Carving... oh I remember that stuff! Good luck. I find pretty much any 140-145 mp "taper dipping wax" works the best. Adding fragrance oil is like putting butter between the layers and they all separate which is bad, very bad. Your temps are right on par with what I use.

Hi! Not sure Im back... but I changed my email so I can get notices now i guess. lol Im having a good time looking up some old names from back in the day. Is there a link to the old candle tech gallery somewhere?

Not much candle making anymore Sabrina but I am cutting rocks and making incredible jewelry now! I always have to create. Look me up on facebook if you like Bruce Baur from Hannibal MO.

Hey Sabrina! Might be 3 more years when you notice this but Hi from Bruce! Meow! lol

Meow! Nice Candles!

30-60 hours is a pretty large window of burn time. How did they test burn? For over a pound of wax, I would hope they would burn much longer than that. Cool looking none the less. Bruce

Sure you can. You can find some small core molds at Peaks I think. My finished small candle is less than a half pound. If you just dip in clear wax to get use to the way the wax will cut you dont need any color, or just use one color and white. Melt that down and use it for cores and it will be a pastel of that color. Cores can be poured from your scrap wax. If you have lots of scrap the colors will blend together to make brown. The white pigment in the wax makes the brown look like a wood grain in the cores poured from scrap wax. Bruce

If you put lots of coats of wax on the candles they will be lumpy like that or it could be water drops that didn't drip off before the next coat was put on. You wouldn't have even noticed the lumps if the carving was all the way up to the top. Probably got a bit too hard to finish but that's normal starting out. After about 100 candles there's nothing to it. 34 years ago this month I started making them for a living. Always keep your first candle of any new thing you make. Looks like you have a good start. Bruce

I think yours would look better if your tops didnt show where you cut the strips of wax. I poured mine thin then folded them in half long ways then rolled them. The roll part is on top and what you see so no flat tops. The bottom of mine looked like the top of yours. A little powered brown dye and a heat gun, then some clear wax for glaze. Been maybe 8 years since I made them and never made them to sell just to play around and see how close to real I could make them. Bruce

13 pouring pitchers for a newbie! I think I would have spent more money on wax and paper towels and just a couple pitchers. Even when I was making 1200 jars a week I only used 2 pitchers. lol I found a pouring pitcher just like those at goodwill a couple weeks back for a buck. Still had wax film in it so i knew what it was right away.

I bought one of them and the tips of the points are very rounded... too much for me to use them as dip and carve. After you add 20 or more coats of wax to them you end up with just a round candle (almost) and not much of a point to carve on. More like a hump so no double cuts and its very easy to cut into the core too far. Bruce

#1 square braid would be what I would/do use on that size candle. No problem unless you add 5 pounds of wax to it. Bruce

If they are true hand dipped tapers and not made with a dipping frame there will be at least one inch of wax at the bottom of the candle past the wick that will stop the burning process. Just as when we dip for the star candles we have drips we have to cut off, just don't cut them off. I would say there would be almost 2 inch of wax without a wick at the bottom of them and that can be pressed into a glass taper holder to form a nice base. No extra trouble and no extra cost. Bruce

The thing i like best is the description of scent for each fragrance right on the label. Interesting and informative. Bruce

First thing I noticed also. Needs to be net weight for the label. Giving 2 weights will only confuse them... but other than that those look very nice and give off the impression of a high quality product. Hence the need to remove the 9oz part.

I dont think many cut and curl candles are geared for good burning. Given that most are star shaped and tapered and that most of us use pigments which clog the wick... that right there takes away any good chance of a perfect burn. I do use a clear core on them so that could help if the top is decorated with a round cut and not much pigment can get to the wick. Another thing is that the wicks have to be a bit larger than normal just to support the weight of carving, spinning and dipping. You have a 4 lb tall slender candle and there is a good chance the wick that can hold that weight will be too large for a proper burn. Bruce

Those are real nice candles!

The whole clamshell only lasted 2 evenings or one chunk of it?

Thanks Pam! Nice to see you are still around. I might be up for offers pretty soon if the markets slow down anymore. Jar candles are fading fast in this neck of the woods so Im going to start making soaps again. Quit because had too many jars to pour so nows a good time to get back into it. I'm hoping someone in Hawaii needs a carver to run one of their shops and I get a fat check and free room and board out of the deal! Bruce

My city just banned Incense last month. Not the kind everyone has in stores but the stuff that is merchandised as incense but is just a drug. Local TV had it running at the bottom of the screen " Hannibal bans Incense" freaked out lots of people and gave my incense a darker view in the general publics eyes. Bruce

I would bump up your wax temp to 165 or 170. Room temp water dip it quickly once all the way under the water then again half way up the candle smooth but quickly. Try to keep water drops off the candle as you dip. I use my hand to wipe them off. Normal candle has anywhere from 20 to 30 layers of wax. The more wax you have the more round the star becomes and harder to carve. The less wax you have the less blankets of heat you have to keep your candle warm as your carving. Depending on the size core you use you have to presoak it in wax for anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes to make sure the cold core doesnt cool your candle off as your carving it. Practice practice practice getting faster. Bruce

What about any glass manufacture that has they name on a jar.... Libbey glass for example. They have the marking on the jar so everyone knows its their brand and trademark. I know they make jars for candle use but really wouldn't their name also be in question if one of their jars burst and caused a candle fire? I buy a bottle of beer, (not me I don't drink the stuff) I really don't see anything wrong with using that empty bottle to create new art/merchandise as long as you don't fill it up with the type of product they sell, beer. lol If I had a custom glass jar for my candles I would welcome and DO welcome seeing how my consumers can come up with creative and use full ideas on how to recycle them. If they want to make a buck off if it because of THEIR labor to create a new item from something I already made my profit on I see nothing wrong with that at all. Just my 2 Lincolns, Bruce

$49.37 at my local Sams every day if your a member. I have 5 of them and the darn screws keep coming out on me! " Lifetime 6' commercial utility table with white granite molded top and steel folding frame."

For gosh sakes just cut a piece of paper larger than your bottle you are using and keep cutting it down to get the perfect size you are looking for. Then lay it on a ruler and measure the length and width. Count the lines between the inch numbers. If there are 8 spaces it is in eights of an inch. (3 spaces would be 3/8 of an inch) if it is 16 spaces its sixteenth of an inch. (3 spaces would be 3/16 of an inch) That gives you your size you want then you go to your label company and find the closest size label you can. If you have a business, you really need to know these kinds of things as it can be a bad reflection on more than just your products.