peejeeratties

I have a friend that would like me to try and make some candles with wooden wicks. Sure seems easy since there are only like a few different wooden wicks. Yeah right... I have the 7 oz straight sided tumbler, with a 2.75" opening. I use GW 464 wax, 6 oz of wax, to .5 oz scent, no color. Since I order most of my stuff form Bitter Creek, I ordered wicks from there. Their site said that 3 inch opening with soy wax, uses the #3 wick and double them in soy. Got all excited, made my first candle, so much easier than traditional wick as far as centering and so forth. Let it set up, trimmed wick to about a quarter of an inch, lit it and had a decent flame until it hit the wax, it stays lit, but it is a baby flame, like barely a flame at all. Needless to say the melt pool is only about 3/4 of the container after 6 hours of burning. Melted it down, and started over. I tried just one wick instead of 2 just to see what would happen. Same exact results. For giggles I lit it later, and had a good flame, but not acceptable for someone lighting it for the first time. Thinking that maybe the wick was too small and thin, the BC wicks tend to separate despite my rigging while setting up. I ordered a bigger size from a different company. These were thicker, about 1/8 inch thick and almost an inch wide. Take 3, results exactly the same, the wick is at least double the size of the other wicks, and I have the same melt pool and flame size. Now it is making me angry lol. Oddly enough it gives off excellent hot throw despite the tiny tiny flame. Any thoughts or ideas? I've read the very very extensive post that someone posted, excellent read btw. tried mimicking them, and blah lol. Thanks in advance.

Thanks guys and gals. I am very left brained, so it is important for me to make sure that the numbers are "right". I made my first candle last night and it is very laughable. But I'm not going to stress about it lol. I know that it is going to take a while to do it correctly. I've found myself, making one, let it start to cool, and then dumping it starting over once the top has gone really weird. And not just the rough tops that I've seen people show pictures of, but I don't even know how to explain it. One of them, I got a mostly smooth top, then the other half of the top was all cratered and looked like the grand canyon. But I've got 2 with different size wicks in them, and will wait a couple of days and burn them even though their tops look horrid. I want flame dang it lol. I did learn one thing, I HATE HATE the lemon scent I got, it smells like lemon TheraFlu

I am getting ready to "make" my first candle. But after reading and rereading, there was one thing I am completely unsure, and that is measurements and the percentages. Ok say I am making 1 candle using 6 oz of wax. The wax say the fragrance threshold (I guess that is what is it) is 9%-11% Does that mean you take 6 oz. and then add .54 oz- .66 oz of FO, or you take 6 oz of wax and then subtract .54-.66 oz of the wax and replace that with FO? I'm sorry if it has been brought up a lot, but I haven't seen it. Hope someone can help my overloaded brain

oh boy, now I'm totally confused. Which doesn't mean too much lol. Now I do know my renter's insurance doesn't cover anything that would relate to a business. I guess next thing on my checklist of things to do, is to consult with some lawyers. Wowzers, and to think that something that is fun to do, can be difficult in ways that relate so indirectly to doing it. Just trying to get all my ducks in a row, cause my luck would be that something bad will happen, and if I'm protected then I'll be ok, but that one time that I'm not bam. I'm going to start calling around, thank you so very much.

yes it is thank you so very much. I've just seen so much with people talking about home owners insurance and then the product insurance that it gets all muddled in the brain lol. thanks again

Hi, newbie here in both the forums and in the candle making hobby. I am the type of person that tends to over research so I'm sure I'm putting the cart before the horse here, but after reading the entire weekend from these boards, there is one thing I need to know that I haven't found the answer for yet. I rent my home, I have renters insurance, and our landlord has home owners insurance. But after reading non stop that you NEED the product insurance, are you able to get this if you rent the home. I would be making the candles in my kitchen. As it stands right now, I won't even turn on the stove to melt the wax now until I have found something out lol. After hearing about people having trouble with their homeowners insurance companies mixed with candle making, this worries me because the house isn't ours, it belongs to someone else, and I don't want to cause them any trouble. They are awesome people. Let's say I am able to get the product insurance, will they then contact the homeowner insurance company? Our landlord has said they aren't worried about me making candles in the home as long as I am safe with it, and they even went out and bought 2 extra fire extinguishers, and a couple of extra smoke alarms (since our house only had the minimum required by city code, which oddly enough states that you should NOT have one in the kitchen, which bothers me, but they did install one in the kitchen along with one in the basement under the stove) I am NO WHERE NEAR the stage to sell to anyone, or even let someone have a candle. I've been making my own, probably unsafe candles for ages now. Started when we lost power in an ice storm back in 06. I had learned that you could melt down all your old candles and make new one. I used soda cans as molds, and cotton twine as a wick. Yes I know not anywhere from good, but it worked very well when we were without power for a week and a half, not to mention warmed the house melting the wax lol. (But I wanted to throw in that I'm no where near the selling or gifting the candles) Thanks for listening and would love to hear your responses.