Alan

The combustion products of some fragrance oils, most notably the citrusy ones, can mimic the molecular structure of various fuels. Some noses will "see" these combustion products as a fuel, others will not, since it really isn't a fuel. We will all have varying levels of sensitivity. Additionally, the amount of these combustion products released into the air is related to how well the candle burns. If a candle burns with perfectly complete combustion, then the only products of that combustion will be carbon dioxide and water, both of which are odorless. While perfect combustion is probably unattainable, the closer you get to it, the better, since it will minimize the production of those molecules that mimic fuels, as well as minimize soot production. Poorly burning candles will produce more of the fuely odor, due to incomplete combustion, the same thing that causes soot production.

Based on previous comments, I know that you've already experimented with more heat. However, your frosting looks so compellingly like a cold pour, that I would still be playing with the heat. I would start by making sure the mold was warmed to about 150F or so, slightly above the melting point of the wax, and I would pour on the hot side, at least 200F. This will help insure that the wax remains liquid long enough for some bubbles to escape. With the pie crust molds, it's a relatively small volume of wax going into a rather hefty amount of silicone. If it isn't all warm enough, your wax will cool too quickly initially, and you'll have frosting, and perhaps even jump lines. Another option would be to increase the opacity of the wax. More opacity would make any remaining frosting look less noticeable. And, some frosting on a more opaque wax might be just the ticket to a more realistic effect. Stearic acid can be added to 4625 to increase the opacity. I would start with 10 to 20% by weight. The appearance of frosting can also be addressed by zapping the finished crusts with a heat gun, just long enough to get rid of the powdery look. Finally, I made chicken pot pies tonight for dinner. My pie crusts looked nowhere near as perfect as yours, if that makes you feel any better.

Sometimes carts will have a test mode that you can place the cart into. Also, many merchant account providers will allow you to use "test" credit card numbers. In the case of paypal, take a look at http://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/vhelp/paypalmanager_help/credit_card_numbers.htm Ultimately, I do think that using your own credit card to run a tiny transaction is the best way to convince yourself that everything is working as it should. When doing this, don't use a CC that is already tied to your Paypal account, as paypal will detect it and likely tell you that you can't run transactions thru your account with your own credit card. If Paypal permitted that kind of activity, then the CC companies would have a fit, since it would be like allowing you to withdraw cash against your credit line. That is something that the CC companies like to reserve for the higher "cash-advance" interest rates. I hope that helps.

Use a tripod. It opens the doors to natural light photography. Invest in a decent one and it will serve you well for many years. Even though I've retired many cameras over the years, I still use the same tripod that I aquired almost 20 years ago.

Miagracie, The electric griddle can be used, but don't set it at 375F, as mentioned in your original post. That's asking for trouble. Instead, set it much lower (200-225) and apply a little bit of patience. That way, if you turn your back, the phone rings, dog runs out the front door, kids start fighting, etc., you'll still be safe. If it seems like you can't get your wax over 170 in a double boiler, I'd really start by checking/calibrating your thermometer. To check it, just stick it in some boiling water for a minute or two and take a reading. Depending on your elevation, you should be in the range of 200-212F. If it is off by an amount, simply make a note of the amount, and add that amount to your future readings. Patience is your friend, especially when it comes to candle making. Good luck!

Since it is pretty much destroyed anyway, it can't hurt to try fixing it. Let's assume it is uncolored, so you don't need to do anything to match the color. Based on your description, you'll need more than a small amount of wax to add to the wax you salvaged. You'll need about 6.2 lbs. I assumed the cavity inside is 5 inches in diameter and 10 inches deep, from your description. Choose a wax that looks about as opaque as the hurricane is already. I would probably use a wax with a slightly lower melting point than the hurricane is made out of. You can use the salvaged wax to determine the melting point by melting it down, letting it cool, and measuring the temperature that it begins to solidify. This will give you a ballpark melting point. Then choose a supplemental wax with a melting point that is about 10-15F lower. If there wasn't anything embedded in the v-gap section, you won't need the insert. Instead you will just use the sheet metal form that you have fabricated (a mold). Place the hurricane in there. Fill it with your melted wax (now a mixture of the salvaged wax and your supplemental wax). for the pouring temperature, go about 25F higher than the supplemental wax's melting point. This should give you enough time to work with it, without having too much of a melting effect on the pre-existing shell (and now you know why I suggested a lower MP wax). Immediately chill it in a water bath. The area that is missing should solidify the fastest since it is not insulated like the rest of the shell (the shell is an insulator). When it is a little thicker than the pre-existing shell, dump it out. After it cools enough to remove from your sheet metal form, use a heat-gun inside to then remove some excess wax to achieve the desired thickness. I'm thinking there may be some blemishes on the outside too that a small knife and a heat gun will help you with. It sounds like a really fun challenge, and if you pull it off you'll be a hero. If you choose to do it, please post some before and after pics if you can. Good luck!

Usually, to get a dripless taper, you move in the direction of a larger wick. The logic is that a larger wick allows the wax to be consumed as fast as it melts, and you end up with a taper that doesn't drip.

High school? Not so fast! I ain't that old just yet.

Yesterday morning, a craftserver member brought it to our attention that a number of people here have recently experienced fraudulent activity on their credit cards. As one of the largest suppliers, it served as an excellent reminder for me and my staff as to why we take every measure possible to protect the sensitive information of our customers. We invest a lot in security, and ideally that investment is uneventful, we never hear a peep about any breach in security. Issues like this though, do give the topic of information security the attention it deserves. Even though we always keep information security at the forefront of our priorities, I spent the better part of yesterday and last night reviewing our IT infrastructure, and reviewing our practices and procedures to ensure that we are doing everything we can to safeguard our customers information. I sleep better that way. While I can’t tell you everything about our security practices or infrastructure on a public message board because it could potentially be a security vulnerability (keeping infrastructure topology private is an important part of security), I will share with you some of the practices and procedures that we carryout at Peak to safeguard your information. When you place an order on our website, your credit card info is encrypted before it leaves your web browser. It arrives at our servers and is then encrypted again before being transmitted to the credit card processor for authorization. The processor then returns a transaction ID that is used by us to continue processing your order. By the time your order ships, all CC data for your order is purged from our systems, except for the transaction ID. That transaction ID is just a number that we use to communicate with the CC processor in the event of a refund or adjustment. It is worthless information for anyone outside of Peak. We do not outsource our hosting. We’re in full control of our own servers. There are no third-party hosting companies involved, or third party employees to worry about. In the almost ten years that we have operated, we have never experienced a breach. Our IT Specialist is a full-time employee of Peak that has passed numerous background checks and has tremendous experience in information security. His training was provided by the US Army. He holds certifications and professional development experience in Systems Administration and Security, Network Management and Security, Defense Messaging System/Tactical Messaging System Administration, and Information Assurance Security Officer. He also helps pack orders when needed. While I’m confident that we follow industry best-practices in securing our IT environment, nobody can ever be too sure. Hence, we outsource security audits to companies that specialize in scanning networks and identifying security vulnerabilities before they are exploited. We just had a thorough audit performed on March 2nd by Mcafee Secure to insure that we are meeting Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards. With all the security measures in place, I would be foolish to say we are bullet-proof. However, we value our customers and I can confidently state that we will continue to do everything we can to safeguard your personal information, just like it was our own, while shopping at peakcandle.com. We take security very seriously. Kind regards, Alan Wallace President Peak Candle Supplies

We're working on it. Our primary database server went down yesterday afternoon during some construction work that caused a power surge. The replacement server should be up and running in a few hours. I apologize for any inconvenience, and do appreciate your patience. Cheers, Alan

Lecithin or phosphytidalcholine (sp?). Hope that helps.

If you just put "conforms to 16 CFR 1500.17(a)(13)," then the uninitiated will certainly wonder what that means. But, if you add that it has to do with the CPSC, then maybe they'll know where to look it up if interested. Its obviously more than what is required, but may be helpful...

Ours exceed the standard, and that is probably true for most suppliers. You're probably OK with the zinc core wicks from any supplier in the United States, if they are getting wicks made in the USA. It doesn't hurt to ask them though.

It’s not really a new regulation going into effect on February 10th. It’s a stay on the enforcement of requirements aimed at various consumer products. In a nutshell, it means a bunch of consumer products are getting an extra year to get into compliance with the CPSC. However, the stay, or time extension to comply, isn’t given to candles with metal core wicks. So, does that mean you have to ditch your zinc core wicks, and start all over? No. It just means you should consider getting into compliance. When the regulation pertaining to metal core wicks was introduced several years ago, it struck me as annoying. To comply, you have be able to state that your wicks aren’t the bad ones, and “Conforms to 16 CFR 1500.17(a)(13).” with a sticker or label on the carton. At first, it seemed kind of silly to have to label the zinc cored wicks as conforming, while there was no equivalent requirement for the lead cored ones such as “contains banned material that is hazardous to humans.” What do I know though? What will it take for many people to get into compliance? It is pretty much as simple as putting a sticker on the carton to indicate that it “Conforms to 16 CFR 1500.17(a)(13).” Your supplier should be able to confirm this information for you. Every zinc core wick I’ve seen made in the USA is well below the standards set forth by the CPSC ruling. But, check with your supplier to be sure. I’m usually a defiant person when it comes to more regulation. It’s probably a trait left-over from teen age years. Anyway, I thought more about this issue this morning. The labeling requirement doesn’t really seem that bad. Take for instance a label that says: These carefully crafted candles Conform to 16 CFR 1500.17(a)(13) as set forth by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission… sounds like a feature, doesn’t it? Cheers, Alan

NEWYEAR is the code, good until 6pm. HTH

Some glass beads, or even a handful of pea gravel, in the bottom of the first pot will serve well to create a barrier. It'll lead to gentler boiling and eliminate the popping. HTH

I like it. Sounds like fun. OK, off to think of something. Thanks Sara.

3M and Elmers have spray adhesives. You'd just cut your labels out of whatever stock you like (you can even get fancy with the scissors or paper cutter). Lay the labels on a sheet of newpaper, and spray the backs. Then stick them to whatever you like. You can even do bands for pillars this way. Hope that helps.

I understand. Many of us have seen the similar questions posted multiple times here. The choice to participate or not in any given thread is always our own prerogative. I just didn't want to loose sight of fact that this site was established as a learning medium. What may seem elementary to some, may pose as an obstacle for someone else. I think we've all been on both sides of that equation. That's just the way it is.

CRS disease, that's what my dad calls it. Let's just remember that CT is for learning. Thanks to everyone who contributed to that end. Now, that calculator here http://www.candletech.com/calculator/round.php?fst_num=3.5&snd_num=1&ans_num=0.22&ans_num=4 will give you a quick approximation. I left an eigth of an inch for headroom. You might need more. Cheers, Alan

Spider. I'd get your web pages back up.

They use to live in our neighborhood. Their pottery accessories are a major driving force of their business. From what I can see in the pictures, I'll go ahead and speculate at to how one might do those candles. The photos, btw, are more like computer renditions, so I don't know how much the candles actually resemble the images depicted on the site. The variety of candle shapes suggests tin molds. Aluminum isn't available in the variety of shapes. Silicone or rubber molds are possible. But if it were silicone or rubber, we'd probably see embossed candles as well as debossed candles since you can do both with silicone or rubber molds. So, let's assume tin molds. One could apply a thin vinyl magnetic sheeting to the back of a rubber stamp, and stick it to the inside of a tin mold. Since thin vinyl magnets are not that strong, the candle should slide out of the mold fairly easily. And then the stamp could be peeled from the unmolded candle with very little effort, leaving the debossed image. Cheers, Alan :smiley2:

hmmm... I was a bit lost until I saw the "2oz" bottle. Then I looked at your recorded weight for the new bottle, 0.265. Is it possible your scale might be displaying pounds? A 2oz bottle in glass would be really close to 0.265 lbs. And on the same scale, if the scale had a precision of 0.05 lbs, it would display 0.05 lbs for Natures Garden's 1 oz sample (assuming plastic bottle). So, I'm just thinking that you might have a scale displaying in pounds, and you might be assuming that an once would be equivalent to 0.10 on that scale. And if you were to pour out 0.10 lbs of the 2oz bottle, then you'd only end up with about a quarter of the bottle left (by volume). 0.10 lbs ends up being about an ounce and a half. See if there is button on your scale that allows you to toggle the units from lbs to ounces. I think you'll see numbers that make more sense that way. And you'll also get better precision from your scale. Hope that helps. Cheers, Alan :smiley2:

They actually melt at about the same temperature, despite the 4627 being softer. The only way to know if it would lead to a mixture that could be single wicked in your wider jars would be to try it. However, even though the 4627 is softer, from my experience it doesn't lead to wider melt pools with a single wick. Hope that helps. Cheers, Alan

I'm going to chime in. I think your labels look great. However, I wouldn't eliminate color from the candle. It's one of the two important sensory inputs that helps your brain figure out the scent. While you probably know each scent you carry without a color cue, I wouldn't count on your customers to have that keen of a sense of smell. They will depend on the color to distinguish something like mac apple from Bartlett pear. Through a candle (or a colored soap, or a red strawberry shortcake doll, blue blueberry muffin doll, or yellow lemon meringue doll... you get the idea), you're trying to give as much sensory input as possible to convey an experience (one of being surrounded by whatever). If a plum scented candle were white, do you think the consumer would think it was as strong as one that were purple? We all know the color of a FO has nothing to do with how it really smells, but consumers tend to associate certain colors with certain scents. I wouldn't eliminate color from your inventory of tools to convey an experience. Cheers, Alan