EricofAZ

The phrase "royalty free" and "stock images" mean the same thing. You will have to subscribe to a service and then you can use what they offer. There might be some nominal fee, but it won't be like buying the image for exclusive use. Others will be able to use the service and the same image. I would be wary of any royalty free sight that didn't have a fee or agreement for you to enter into. If its just out there, it may be true and it may be stolen, you don't know. I also agree that it is better to have the photographer's permission, but I am pretty sure you will never get that information from the royalty free sights. They buy thousands of photos from photographers and then enter them into categories for their customers to browse. They should maintain purchase information, but probably won't pass that on to the buyer. There are also some government royalty free sites where park rangers, etc, have taken pictures and uploaded to a gov't site for free distribution. Generally, the gov't doesn't charge a fee. There are some new laws about using photos that make it easier for folks to take them. The user has to make a good faith effort to find the photographer/artist. If so, then the artist is limited on what they can do. It is kind of a "sign your work or lose out" law. That said, anyone that lifts a photo off another website that is not royalty free has clearly violated the copyright laws and can get pounded, so I'd want to make sure I printed out the agreement and receipt.

One thing I found is that the first burn on a wick is generally the one that gets the wick saturated with the wax. Generally, wicks either have no coating on them at all (raw off the spool) or the coating is only the outside of the wick. Rarely do wicks have a coating that permeates to the center of the wick, and even then, the coating is likely not the wax that is in your container. Until the wick stabilizes with the fluid flow, it is going to do oddball things. I use raw wick off a spool for the most part and tend to saturate the wick in the wax melter (presto) if I can. Sometimes I load the melter with microcrystoline wax at higher temps and saturate a few yards of wick in that. You can tell if it gets to the core because after a while there is a release of the air at the core that superheats in the hot wax and foams, then dies down.

Do a search for "royalty free" and if you find any photos you like, make sure they include commercial use. There are a ton of royalty free images on the internet. Then don't get upset if someone else selects your same royalty free photo for their candles.

Here's a fun pic. This taper burned to a termination that I had about half way down. Just before the termination, a piece of the wick self trimmed and broke off and fell into the melt pool and created a secondary fire. By the time I got the camera, the primary wick self extinguished because the secondary had exposed it. You can see the flame from the secondary burn and to the left and above is a vertical black line which is the primary wick. Scary. No more ply wicks for me.

What size cotton core do you want? I have a ton of pre-tabbed and spool raw wick that I probably will never use. PM me. Maybe I have what you want.

Ooooh, ooohh, pick me Mr. Cotter, pick me! Oooh, ooh! I am mostly a paraffin guy, so I'll not speculate about soy, but here's my observations: EO's - I really like real lavender. Bulgarian Lavender - affordable at snowdrift farm. Some camphor in it but pretty low amounts. Best cost to purity ratio. English lavender is the lowest in camphor but through the roof on price. I use Bulgarian a lot in my candles. Spike Lavender - very affordable, but slightly more camphor than bulgarian. Lavandin - also affordable. Different plant species, but smells like lavender. FO's - way cheaper, but fake. Lavender Silk from candlewic is delightful. Not a true lavender at all, but a nice hint of lavender with a floral note to it. I enjoyed it and made a few tarts, etc. Might not re-order, but it is fun. Lavender from General Wax - strong and reasonably true to smell. Very much like a real lavender EO. Sage/Lavender from General Wax - the girlfriend likes this one, but I prefer clary sage EO and lavender EO, but this is good and a nice mix. True Lavender from thecandlesource.com. I haven't used this yet, just got it in, but OOB seems very much like Bulgarian Lavender EO and maybe just a tad more true than the general wax one. I have a couple other lavenders here I think but I can't find them right now (too many FO's). If I were to not use a real lavender EO, but an FO, then I think it is just between generalwax and thecandlesource.

Alan, that is correct, the larger wick often has a higher ROC which is what we need for dripless. I have noticed that when selecting various different types of wicks and picking the same ROC of each series, the wicks don't all burn the same. Some, like the ply wicks and square tapers, drop the self trim waste into the melt pool and then there's a secondary fire that causes an overflow. Some burn very close to the melt pool, causing leakage. One of the things I did was compare ROC to FH. The higher ROC with the lower FH seems intuitively to be the right pick and it is. I don't compare MP because veggie wicks have a MP measured in soy tests and paraffin wicks measure MP in paraffin. So you can't do any math based on MP since the base wax is different for the tests, but the FH and ROC is pretty accurate over at wicksunlimited in their catalogue info. The P series for some odd reason tends to wick the melted wax up a bit and the base of the flame is visibly about 1/16 inch above the pool. This space between the base of the flame and the pool has had the best result in dripless burning. I'm using the P-160 as a baseline and when I get the wax where I want it, I'll try P-180 and above and also some P-140 if I can find it just to see the changes. Now for the fun part. Its a ball making the cut/curl tapers then burning them. In one regard, I need the practice. In another regard, its cry time to burn one that came out really nice. Of course, I can't re-use the wax for the candles, it has to go to firestarters. The mica and pigments and titanium dioxide just doesn't burn in a core and I don't want to try and mix the colors, so there is a lot of wax going to the campfires.

Do some searches in the business forum here. You'll find you are not alone in your experience. Candlewic has great prices on rolls of cotton core.

Stella, how nice of you. I might experiment a bit with dual wax type (and triple by the article above you found). Seems that most of the makers like Yankme and GeneralWax, etc, use a soft core with harder shell. The concern that I have is a bit more oddball. I'm going to cut and curl the taper, which means the wax in all of its layers need to be compatible with curling. Then, the core gets exposed and needs to be clear, for luminescence, which means I am going to cut through the hard shell. And all that needs to be dripless. So by way of feedback, the 4045 is not as good as I had hoped. It drips when the candle gets to the lower third (which I might be terminating sooner with the electrical spice thingie). The 4807 is a good wax for the dripless part but not as clear as I want. So back to the drawing board.

I pretty much make small quantities. I have what I think was a 3 oz shot glass. Anyway, it takes 2 oz FO to the brim and I marked it in ml. Not all FO weighs the same by volume, but they are pretty close so I just fill to the markings. 30 ml is one ounce. Scales with tare are great. Sometimes I do that too, add what I want to the pour pot and then add the FO and mix. Great way to mix up exactly what I want. I pour one ounce under what my intended target is and let it all cool, then heat the pour pot and top off the container.

Well, I'm most familiar with the P160 so that is where I start. The pros are that it makes a good FH, the base of the flame is above the MP, and it gets the job done. The cons are that it tends to 'shroom a bit, the burned wick is too tall and when it finally self trims, the debris lands in the MP and has the potential to cause a rim fire (though I have not seen any yet with this wick). I am so familiar with how it burns that it is the baseline wick. If this wax is truly "all that" then I might try a P140 if I can find them. Hard to locate. I might also go back to a shot at the Ply 18 or so. Maybe an RRD, but I doubt it. I want a wick that has a higher ROC to MP ratio meaning that it consumes faster for a smaller pool diameter.

Hahahaha, great thread. I agree that friends and family suck at testing. They want to be "polite" when we want cold hard facts. I had this problem with the girlfriend until I tested one with her at her place. Then we were able to chat about why she like Yankme brand and why mine are different (came down to Yank-me providing HT in a half hour and mine took 45 minutes). I guess it is the "I want it now" generation. One of the best ways I found was to get a tester and give them instructions. Have them write down the size of the room, when they smell the throw for the first time, do they like the FO, is it strong or weak or just right, is the container hot, does the pillar curl in on itself or need hugging, etc, etc, etc. How long was the burn, subsequent burns, soot, yada yada. Sliver, I disagree about feedback from testers. I like to get this. I liken it to software. There is alpha testing and beta testing with software. Alpha testing is where the software is no where near finalized and it takes really skilled people. There is often no GUI or Graphical User Interface to alpha testing, meaning that the product doesn't really look like software or a candle. I alpha test myself only. Beta testing is where the product is pretty close to what a consumer might want. It has a GUI, meaning that it works as advertised and the bugs just need to be identified. Beta testing is often more like destructive testing meaning that "here's the candle, try and break it - find out how it fails to burn well for you or throw well, etc." I found that involving others with beta testing is very well worth the effort. Then there's version 1.0, the initial release. This is often a treat for the testers. I want feedback on packaging, presentation, the final product, etc.

BUMP! Hey gang..... So, I have built and tested way too many tapes now. Vybar, stearic, yada yada. I finally found some 4807 at LetItShineUSA and raw, with no additives, it was the first taper that really didn't drip at all during the entire burn. However, subsequent burns had just a smidge of overflow at certain stages of the burn. It burned fast. So the other day I received some Candlewic 4045EC wax at the recommendation of Bruce. First taper released pretty easy from the mould (ahhh, we really like that) and it not only was a slow and long lasting burn, but it didn't drip at all. In fact, looking at how the melt pool forms compared to all the other attempts, this is not even close to having an "accident" so I'm just jazzed.

Hi, as for stearic and vybar, I remember researching these when I started to make candles and there is very little meaningful info out there, so I feel your pain. I am mostly a paraffin person. While I use palm and soy, I don't use these additives with them so keep that in mind. Stearic for me hardens the candle and it increases the opacity. I use that to increase the whiteness of the natural wax white color. Instead of adding white dye (which clogs the wick no matter what they say), I use stearic to make the white more opaque. It doesn't seem to require a different wick, burns just fine with my normal wicks. I don't use it to make the candle harder. If I want harder I just use a harder wax. I don't use it to make the colors opaque. If I want them opaque, I use more color dye (other than white). That's about it. Vybar might, in certain waxes, allow a higher FO content, but I think that is with basic paraffin. The refined Chinese paraffin wax that you get from General Wax, or the other suppliers that have basic paraffin with 3 percent FO load will benefit from vybar in the FO deparment. Any of the IGI waxes that are specialty like harmony, comfort, 4786, J50, J223, J225, etc, really are not going to increase the FO load very much with vybar. In fact, some have reported the opposite. I suspect those waxes already have vybar loaded in them. Vybar does, however, slow down the progression of the melt pool. If I am having a nightmare of a wick issue and one wick is too small and leaves too much hang, and the next upper wick size is too large and I don't like how it creates a huge melt pool then I might sometimes stick with the larger wick and add vybar to make the melt pool progression slow down and work with the larger wick. Adding more FO does not necessarily make a stronger candle. I pretty much think anything below 6 percent is going to be weak (depending on the FO), but any more than 9 percent opens the door to other problems, like mushrooming wicks which fail to complete the burn process and soot a bit. Some waxes will mushroom without any FO, so keep that in mind when you overload it. I pretty much only use metal moulds. If I use plastic, its for some little trinket that I want to add like a heart at the top of the candle or a star for my 4th of July ones. Sorry, can't help you there. If you live near a supplier of IGI and don't have to pay shipping, congrats. Yes the case price is better than the slab price, but you need to test and experiment before you lock yourself into a particular wax or blend. The testing process is time consuming and if done right, will help you choose your wax or wax blend, or additive, etc. The money you save on a case is fine. If you don't like it, sell it. But don't get into the situation of sticking with a wax that you have just because you bought a case and want to use it up. Test, come up with a good candle, and re-sell the raw supplies you don't want. Best wishes to you.

Interesting. I think stearic acid is derived from stearin. I use the additive in small mix ratios to harden, whiten, and reduce dripping in tapers. From the internet, it looks like it is similar to tallow.

Ornies?

Welcome aboard. One of these days I'm going to learn soap making because it looks like a lot of fun. Perhaps as you learn on candles here, you share some info on the soap boards.

Pam, I never said it takes that to get a decent throw, just that I tried it to see if it worked, and it does. 001, a claim of 80 hours might be so over the top that it fails the fraud test. I don't really know how long mine last, but they go well beyond 4 hours. I recall dumping a dish of melt at about 12 hours just because I wanted to try something else.

I haven't used 6006 in a while, but I do pretty much stick to ECO and HTP for almost everything. I use a cotton core for my pillars and P wicks for the tapers, and TL's for the votives. Those are the exceptions. All the containers get HTP or ECO.

I'm not sure that the high FO loads are worth while. They certainly don't wick well and in a tart or clamshell, the lower and more standard percentages do a right fine job and last a long time. The higher the FO, the more crumbly the tarts get too.

DNJ, it is best to use whatever junk wax you have around. Trimmings from cut/carve or some experiment gone horribly wrong, etc. As for sale, I have 32 bags of a dozen each sitting here and have given a bunch away to friends who like to go camping or winter fireplaces, so I haven't gotten around to selling, but since they cost me about ten cents each to make, I would be happy with $5 or $6 a dozen.

Its hit and miss. Some EVO dyes take three or four drops in a pound and some don't get the job done even with 20.

I have Leather from lonestar and don't have to change wicks. Dunno about peaks. But I have to say that while Stella is correct that some FO's require wick changes, I have found darned few that actually do. Sadly, I have about 200 FO's here and 30 EO's. Way too many for a hobby.

Test burn tonight, mainly to see how I like coconut oil added to the wax. I'll let you know about the "other" properties. The reason why I used sage was primarily because all I had left was the sage/lavender blend, but I do know that the girlfriend has reported that she finds sage to be arousing. The lavender/sage is pretty strong compared to the pumpkin, but its only just lit and not a full melt pool yet.

Yup, those candles look like gel and with the wicks laying along the rim, there's a high degree of probability that the candle will 1) break the glass from uneven burning, or 2) leave the side so hot that touching it is out of the question, and 3) the gel may act like napalm after the glass breaks. I'm thinking a letter to the consumer protection agency in the US? A letter to the statutory agent for Ebay, Inc? The local state level attorney general likely won't get involved unless there are actual injuries.