EricofAZ

These are delightful candles, keep at it!

My post was not meant to attack anyone, it was meant to wish a wonderful Christmas and thank those who remember Christ this year.

Just want to wish everyone here a Merry Christmas. I know most of you are celebrating the traditional birth of Christ today. Thanks to everyone who avoids replacing Christ with an X in the holiday greetings. May the Lord's blessings touch each and every one.

Ok, so I've been testing wicks like crazy again. Here was an interesting thread: http://www.craftserver.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85429&highlight=tension One of my testers said she blew out the wick and liked the smoky smell. (Go figure.) Another tester who likes Yankee said she also blows out my wicks and it is about the same as Yankee on smoke. I did learn that the smaller the wick the less the mushroom and the less the smoke. We all know that. Zinc core was, by and large, worse than cotton core. I read on one site where there is a wick that has no core at all (and the claim is that without a core there is no smoking/mushroom). I think the Eco's were better than the CD's by a very small amount. The numbered wicks, such as 36-24-18 C were better in smaller sizes. I really want to solve this. We had a Christmas dinner at the office and lit up one of my candles. The HT was OK but when one of the guests blew it out after dinner, the smoke was very strong. Is this why on large diameter containers folks go to double or triple wicks? Smaller and less prone to smoking?

Lone Star sells IGI 1274 mottling wax. I've used it in containers and pillars. It is a pretty hard wax and makes a nice pillar. Adhesion to the container is not that great, expect some wet spots, but sometimes it does adhere (not sure, pour temperature has an effect). Seems to mottle better with slower cooling rate. General Wax in LA has a mineral oil additive that is supposed to cause paraffin waxes to mottle. I have not tried it yet. I did buy some high quality mineral oil locally (not the same mfgr or number) and it did not work. Maybe GenWax has figured it out.

Hi, my name is Eric and I'm a candleholic... and so is my cat, Einstein, though she never really says so, at least, not in so many words, well, er, kinda like cat words, but I digress. This is a great thread and if I had read half this stuff in a book when I got the crazy idea that making candles might be sort of fun, I would have saved a ton of money. If you want to make just a handful, follow a formula in a book and/or go get a kit from Yaley or one of the candle supply companies. If you want to make candles for sale, then this is the place to learn and be ready for the investment. One advice that I have is to make some basic decisions about whether or not you want to make containers or pillars and pick one size and one size only. Start with a wax that you think is good to start with such as an IGI pillar blend or J50 for container. Make your first candles with NO additives and NO pigment and NO fragrance. As Steve says, get to know your wax. Wick it based on what your research suggests as a starting point. Pick a series of wicks like flat braid CD or square braid, or numbered series such as 36-24-18. Decide if you want zinc core or cotton core. Buy wick kits so that you can go up or down as desired or change brands without a lot of expense. Don't buy spools until you have a lot of experience. Do not change your wax or candle container while you are dialing in the wick. When you get a burn that works well at 2 hours, 4 hours and a power burn of 6 hours, then start branching out. (Sometimes I do 12 hour burns just for fun and to make sure there are no adverse results.) Color has little to no effect on a candle so go ahead and add color and burn your "perfect" recipe and you'll see it doesn't change much. The diameter and depth of the melt pool is the same. Then add the FO in the recommended amount. Most waxes tell you the max and you might want to not go that high. You might want to use the standard one ounce per pound. See how it burns. You may decide to wick up or down one number in your "type" of wick. When you get it dialed in, have a nice dinner at the local 5 star restaurant. If you change FO's, you probably will decide that the same wick is fine. Test, but you may be just happy with it. If you add higher amounts of FO, you may or may not want to change the wick by one number. If you change your color or the amount of dye, it won't mean much to your base formula. Test anyway, but you should be fine. If you get a new shipment of wax, probably your formula will work, but test it anyway. If you add vybar or some other wax additive, you may have highly different results so expect a wick change after testing. Vybar tends to demand one size larger wick over the basic wax. If you get a new batch of the same number wax, test it, but most always you will find it the same. Sometimes you might want to change the wick size, but rarely. If you change the size of your jar, start over from scratch. If you change your wax type, start over from scratch. If you change from pillar to container, or vise versa, start over from scratch. If you change molds to a different shape, size, depth, etc, start over from scratch. (And this is a great reason to pick one or two basic shapes/styles to start out. You can expand later once you have that special intuition that chandlers have developed.) Hope that helps.

CS's French Vanilla is pretty strong and nice.

Sadly, the U.S. has a very weak consumer fraud attitude. The U.S. Department of Weights and Measures doesn't seem to care if you advertise candles with the water weight of your container. Attorney generals from State to State don't seem to care if the candle is advertised as soy when it is parasoy. I have learned that gov't agencies do respond to public pressure. Since there is little public pressure for truth in advertising, there is little interest in enforcing the laws that require truth in advertising. Like it is said on this message board, we are better than that.

Time to make our own gel.

I can smell the mint from here. Good job.

"Why thank you for reducing your carbon footprint and buying a soy candle instead of a paraffin, and thank you even more for not buying my palm candle. I applaud you in transporting that on our back with ice given it is 114 degrees this summer in the shade here in Tucson." ... "What's that? You won't be walking with ice on your back? Your Hummer has air conditioning?"

Might be worth while to send the data and info to OBI and your State Attorney General and suggest a recall. Let OBI take the hit. You can warn your customers, as any good vendor should, but let OBI soak up the cost of replacement and be sure to put them on notice that there is a hazard. Keep a paper trail so that if something does go wrong, you are sure to show that you warned and reported.

I posted a thread recently about soot on the side of a container. One of my testers that has a production candle said it turned black on the side and thought someone at her home blew it out instead of pushing it into the MP. Most of the replies indicated that blowing out a wick was bound to produce this result. I went on a testing spree and agree, but did learn a few things about it that I will share in that thread. Anyway, I'm of the belief that FO is not the source of shroom production, the wax and wick type/size is. So, IMHO, it is a marketing ploy that misleads the public. Reminds me of that old BS Candles company.

All my left over wax from tests or pillars, etc, goes into a bin and once a month or so I make firestarters.

I'm sure that everyone knows that container manufacturers size their products by water weight. A 12 oz container should hold 12 oz water to the fill line or the lip of the container if no fill line is indicated. Because wax by volume is lighter, the same volume of wax will weigh less. Plus, we don't always pour our wax to the lip of the container. No candle police, but there is a U.S. Department of Weights and Measures. Thanks, Judy, for the links.

I think there is a thin layer of wax. That's fine. I don't want the jar to overheat and you can see through the jar above the wax level no matter where it is. I'm wondering if there is an additive in the wick that is causing it. I've tried the LX series and I can see a stream of black soot going up from the top of the flame so that's out. I have smaller CD's and ECO's that just came in so I'll try those. The Yadley is self trimming, no shroom problem. But I agree, most customers will just blow it out and that smoke that comes from the wick is a bit obnoxious.

Can't tell from the pics but if you have a 2 inch diameter I think your wicks are a bit large. Hard to say because palm tends to work better with a larger wick than paraffin. I am concerned that you are going to pour a large quantity of candles without proper testing. The right way is to pour with your wick selection, cure for a day or two minimum, then run test burns. Don't let the container wall get too hot. If a person can't pick it up without burning themselves, then its way too hot. I'd like to suggest that you ease into this and test well before finalizing your formula.

Not to be a party pooper here but every time I bought a woman something that was of interest to me it turned out badly. What does she want?

See, I'm not used to these numbers like 10 percent vybar. I use some vybar from time to time but about 8 globs (1/4 tspn) is fine for a half pound. There is a recommended max for vybar and I'm pretty sure it isn't anywhere near 10 percent.

So one of my testers got a production container candle as a "thank you" and reported back to me something very interesting (that I know about). She said at about 1/4 remaining, the glass turned black and she was going to return it to me. I asked if she extinguished the wick by blowing it out or by dipping it in the pool to drown then raising it again to cool and the was not sure, she said someone else put it out and thought it might have been blown out. I asked how the CT was and she said it was fine. Now, these production candles in an 8 oz glass jar do not soot during the burn, but if you blow them out, they soot like crazy. Like blowing out a match and smelling the sulfur. Since I don't wick to clean the sides of the container (meaning that they burn cool and you can pick up a container without burning yourself), there is some slight wax residue on the sides. Really, it is pretty much see through after the wax level goes down, but there is some was residue a few microns thick and it does pick up the black soot color. I personally didn't think this was an issue at all. Given that there is still good CT, and container integrity, I told her to keep it going and ignore it. But the point is, it bothered her. Does this happen to others? What are you doing about it? Sooner or later someone is going to blow out a candle rather than properly extinguishing the wick and I'm not sure I know how to prevent the smoking and discoloration. Any help is appreciated. Paraffin container wax, IGI 4786. 2 1/2 inch diameter. Wick is that Yadley "large" flat braid. (I've used LX and CD sizes and been happiest with whatever Yadley has on a spool.) Eric Oh, let me say it happened with some FO from Snowdrift Farms that is pretty expensive (FO lavender Fields) and thinner and lighter viscosity than the FO's from the usual places. SF is local so I tend to favor them and I think their FO does throw to the last drop unlike some other companies. The only other time I have noticed the blackening is on power burns where I let the container go for 12 hours or so. Also, at the bitter end when it self extinguishes.

After reading this thread, and others, I am convinced that chandlers need some certification. This is one business that anyone can do in their home and not do it right. Some won't do it right because they don't want to. Others because they don't know how. I think the first few months I was attempting to make candles, I had no idea what the requirements or industry standards were. There is no book that lays it out that I found. The ones they sell at Michaels or on Amazon are light fluffy things and nothing serious about wicking or wax selection or container selection or anything else. I learned more on this forum than in any book and I'm pretty sure that others are in the same boat.

Depends on the wick and the container that you use. In my tealights with the small tealight wick, I get the same as you, 7-9 hr/oz with paraffin. Soy seems to be about the same but I have to use a larger wick. I have some containers that are about a half pound (9.5 oz really) and I get about 45 hours of burn time = about 5 hr/oz. The diameter is pretty wide, like 3.2 inches, so it has a large wick to make a good melt pool. J50 and J223 are the wax choices. I have some other containers that burn on a smaller wick, but have a smaller diameter, about 2.5 inches. I use an IGI wax in those, paraffin. Same burn time as the J's. About 40 hours for a half pound. That would be about 5 hr/oz as well. Slightly more though, but not much. The IGI pillar wax (paraffin) burns about 60 to 70 hours for a full pound. Maybe more, I didn't measure the time perfectly. I think they dip under 5 hr/oz. The pillar palm wax has a huge wick, a #4 square braid. They go about 100 hours or more. I don't use soy very much. My recollection is that they probably do burn slightly longer than the paraffin, but not much. Again, it depends on the wick and the container. I think if you have a wall to wall and deep melt pool with a large wick, you can expect to consume more wax per hour than if you have a barely wall to wall with a shallow melt pool.

I read somewhere that clay is not good to use for containers because it is porous and the wax that soaks in can ignite.

Yes, I tend to salvage just about everything. If I cut a wick to fit, the leftover gets used. If its long enough, then into a new sustainer base it goes. If not, it goes into firestarters. Left over or unburned wax from test burns or spills, etc, go into making firestarters. I wouldn't hesitate to salvage the wicks in your situation.

Yup, very nice.