Chefmom

I had the same issue with that fragrance. I'm using 6006 and the cold throw is wonderful! As soon as I light the candle all I can smell is an overwhelming kerosene. Like I just spilled it on my shoes. It's really disappointing. If anyone can get purely peppermint (peaks) or jack frost (candlewic) to throw without the strong kerosene stink I would be open to suggestions as well. It's probably the fragrance, not the wax. Though I do pick up a slight petroleum odor from the 1343, that is the scent of the wax out of the box.

"Jelly Jars" are usually the Ball jars that are 1/2 pint (8 ounces) and have the quilted crystal look. "1/2 pint jars" are the same thing from Ball, but they look like regular canning jars with the lines and marks, but they are the same size as the quilted jelly jars. The "jelly jars" from candle suppliers are the same size and shape as the others, fit the same lid, but are smooth with no markings so a label can be stuck easily to the side.

You can buy RRD wick on a spool at Candlewic. http://www.candlewic.com/store/Product.aspx?q=c61,p604&title=RRD-Series-Wick-Spools

From a Chef's point of view, you MUST make sure you have cookware that can be used on these stoves. If it isn't magnetic, it won't work. Cast iron will work, but even some stainless steel's don't. The experts say that the radiation isn't anything to have an issue about, but they also give warnings about people with pace makers etc. It can mess up anything electronic and sensitive. It can also mess up people who are highly sensitive to electromagnetism. I am very sensitive to electromagnetism. I get very sick with low frequencies and super powerful magnets, if they are touching me, make my skin tingle. Although I have never really tested myself, certain places on our property make me out of breath and dizzy.....I suspect they have a higher EMF rating etc. I have no problem with using a water source to heat my wax. I know that I can not over heat it. These cooktops are very expensive and complicated to install. All of my pour pots are aluminum, so they wouldn't work anyway. I read about the superior temperature control, but I haven't seen ANYONE who works with chocolate switch to one, even on a large commercial level. Chocolate and sugar Chefs are in need of very precise equipment.

I tried the hammer and chisel thing too. I broke two chisels and my favorite household hammer that I have owned longer than I've had my husband! I was pretty bummed. Hubby found me a heavy duty hammer at a swap meet and so I use that now. I just chunk it into pieces small enough to melt in my pots. When I'm working with small amounts I melt a large amount and just pour the small amounts off, like others have mentioned. I have also ripped up a couple of old pillow cases, so I just use the heavy plastic bag now. Then everything gets dumped in a rubbermaid tub. I keep all the hard paraffins I use in different tubs.

I wrap slabs in a piece of plastic and then put one edge on the cement and I hold the other. Then I whack the center with a hammer and then repeat until I have pieces that fit in my melter. It's harder to break if you lay it flat, but put it up in the air and it breaks a lot easier. I can't imagine trying to grate it. I would just smack it into pieces and then melt. It's fun to smack it with a hammer!

Write everything down! Even if you think that "AAhhh, I won't forget", once you get more than 10 scents tested you WILL forget. Get a notebook and write! Welcome!

I use 6006 and it is very strong for me. It fills my house.

http://www.amazon.com/Escali-136DK-Alimento-Stainless-Steel-Scale/dp/B0002KT52C/ref=pd_sim_indust_1 This is my scale for candlemaking and I love it. It has one flaw and it does NOT measure under 6 grams with accuracy. I have a micro-gram scale and so I use it for tiny amounts. The big scale is perfect for anything above 10 grams and I have been using it for 2 years now with great success. I have brass scale weights and I check it on occasion and have not lost its accuracy. A reliable scale is the foundation of this hobby/business. It's worth the higher cost to order one vs one of the spring scales that aren't accurate from Wal-Mart etc. If you are shopping in the store, and they have scales on display to use you can give them a test with an Alton Brown trick. 5 quarters weigh one ounce, always.

CandleWic has a selection in their pre-tabbed wicks of votive cotton core wicks. Their wick page is a bit kerjumbled. If you scroll down, and down you will see the "Standard Votive Wick Assembly" They have a variety of two and three numbered cotton core wicks in the pre-cut 3" votive size. Just read carefully because it's easy to confuse the zinc core, the paper core and the cotton core since they all use numbers. The wick page is a list, just a list, in no specific order and so you have to read each length of wick, size of wick etc. Once you catch on it's okay, just irritating. I have been pleased with all the wicks from candlewic. Once you get a type, number and size down you can order from their custom wicks and they will make them to your exact specifications. In the late winter/early spring they usually put their customs wicks on sale for 50% off. It's a great time to take inventory and order that years wicks. If you order from them you can try the votive wicks ECO-2 and ECO-1. I have had great success with these two in my paraffin and parasoy votives. www.candlewic.com

I live in a Christmas Tree farming area and have had a fresh tree every year of my life. My personal favorites are Peaks Frasier Fir and NG Balsam. Hubbies fave too!

I would start with a wick that worked in that wax in a votive container. So if you poured, say 464 into a votive sized container and used a CD-4 to wick it (just a number, I'm not sure what would work) then I would make that size and start with 3 CD-4's and go from there.

I did nothing this weekend. The evil MIL was visiting. So I ended up doing a LOT of yard work. I fixed a hole in the chicken's fence. I potted up my black raspberries to try to propagate babies. I mowed and dug up a new section of my growing flower bed to plant some mums. Played with the dogs. Love mums. Don't love MIL.

I would love to find a local beekeeper! I have to ship in my beeswax and I love working with it. My hands down, best burning, almost 95% consuming pillars are my beeswax/other wax blend. I use about 85% beeswax and found that if I mix it with just a touch of something else I can get a consistent product from beeswax batch to batch. I love hand dipping tapers and am getting better at it. Beeswax is gorgeous alone, but it does take on soft natural colors. I'm hoping to sell them, but it all depends on customers of course. I'm in the process of making some molds to make beeswax items, I love the pine cone molds, might have to buy some, my pine trees make long phallic looking pine cones. They don't make a very attractive mold!

Welcome to our nut house. It's well lit and smells great! But seriously. This "hobby" does make you a little crazy after awhile. I was at a wedding a few months back and my husband JUST HAD to bring up the fact that the candles burning on the table "looked weird", so that opened the door for me to discuss what was wrong with them and how the wicks didn't work. They were commercial pressed paraffin, votives and tealights and one pillar. Cheappy Cheap and severely underwicked. The tea light burned great, as a tealight should. A woman at the other side of our table (we kept our voices low, but I guess she could hear me) came up to me and said that she had no idea candles were so complicated. She thought they were some "wax stuff and string." I smiled and said they were science and art and my husband had a great laugh. ....wax stuff and string.....:rolleyes2

"Busting up slabs" isn't that difficult. I use the plastic that the individual slabs are purchased in. Even though I now buy cases, I have kept those tester bags. Just put the slab in a plastic bag and set one end on a firm surface, preferably cement and hold the other end up at an angle. Take a hammer and hit the center. Then repeat with the smaller pieces . It doesn't take much force and it is fun in my opinion. For working with smaller amounts from slab pieces I just take one pour pot and fill with plain pieces. Then I melt that down to a liquid and put another pour pot onto my scale and pour the liquid wax amount that I want to work with into that pot. Then proceed with heating it to the right temp, add dye and Fo and continue. Working in this way I can pour a LOT of small amounts back to back. When you are working you just keep the plain wax on low heat and keep adding amounts to it to melt. I tie a tag around the handle of the pour pot so I know what kind of wax it is. If I need that pot I pour that plain wax into a silicone loaf mold and let it set back up. Granulated wax is easy to work with and measure, however if you just take the wax and melt it first, then measure it's just as easy and it's usually faster.

There are lots of thread about fall scents etc in the Fragrance Discussion board. LOTS of reading there.

That's sad to hear. It would be a hard life to live in today's modern America and to fully avoid every single thing that had an environmental impact. The only waxes I could see that would be fully sustainable would be if you lived on a 100 acre fully organic/biodynamic permacultural based farm and harvested your own beeswax and grew your own bayberry. But that wouldn't make a scented candle. All the waxes we use have an impact, the production of soy as a commercial product is dependent so heavily on natural gas and petroleum. I don't have an issue with paraffin because it comes directly from the refinement of crude oil. Soy can not be grown without that same petroleum, so it too is a product of the petroleum industry the same as commercial corn, wheat, barley etc. The fragrances are synthetic, so they are probably a product of the petroleum industry. The wicks are cotton, which is heavily reliant on pesticides for its production and then the natural cotton is processed in a chemical cocktail to make it into a wick. It's a catch 22. Sorry about your contract, that blows.

I keep track of the shipping on what I order and figure that into the cost of each item. If I am shipping wax, then the shipping is usually 75% of the shipping cost because its the heaviest. I assign a basic amount to wicks and colors and fragrances etc unless a fragrance is the only thing I buy, then that fragrance absorbs the cost 100%. So. I write down the cost like 50 pounds of wax cost $100 for the wax, $30 for shipping (just an example) So the cost of 50 pounds is $130 or $2.60 per pound. Since I make small batches for now, I add up the costs for 1 pound batches. 1 pound of wax+an amount for color, wick and the cost of fragrance used in that 1 pound. Some are one ounce, some are more. Then I add the cost of the jar and packaging. Add all of that up and you have the cost per unit. If a cost changes, I go back to my notebook and change the core cost. If you can use a spreadsheet it would be a lot quicker. I learned accounting when I was 13 helping my Grandmother who was a bookkeeper. After that I studied accounting in college, but we still didn't use computers then and so all of my experience is by hand. Yup, I still do it all by hand. It takes me longer to figure out how to use the computer and I have everything done in my head faster so I have never changed.

CandleScience also carries J50. http://www.candlescience.com/wax/astorilte-j50/

I melt down my paraffin pillars without any issues. If they are just white, then they could be used for any other pillar you want. They probably won't discolor, but sure to cut the black burned part of the wick off. That can discolor the wax.

Well, you learn something new everyday!!! That looks very interesting! I'll have to give it a try, I'm trying to get a 3-inch diameter paraffin that has more glow with a deep blood color. I have the color down, but I was going to go with a hurricane shell. When the wax shell is less than 1/3-inch thick ish the candle looks like glowing, solid blood. Totally creepy! Thanks! Another reason to love this board......

I use the CandleScience lavender and have very good throw at about 6% in 6006. I was playing with 464 soy and read that many people use a higher % of fragrance, so I went with 9% and just minutes into the burn I had to extinguish. It was so strong that it was burning my eyes. I was using either a CD or a CSN that time. soy needs a cure time, I let mine cure at least a week or two in 6006 and two weeks in the 464.

That is a wick issue. You are getting an uneven burn, one side hotter than the other. Either the wick is too long and leaning to one side, or the wick needs to be primed in high melt wax to help it stand a little higher. It can also be a sign that the melt point of your wax is too low. EcoSoy Pillar Blend is a 130* melt point. What's weird is the fact that parasoy 6006 (for containers) has a melt point of 133*. If you make a 6006 pillar it will pool in a puddle. But PB is supposed to stand upright without a container. Hhhmmmm. That was one of my issues when I made 100% PB pillars. After my attempts at a 100% soy pillar, and disappointing results I threw in the towel and moved to paraffin and beeswax based pillars. Even with 100% beeswax I had burning issues and gummed up wick issues. One thing I like about square braid is it tends to stand more straight. I like flat braid wicks for 2-inch diameter pillars and square for 3-inch diameter. There is also the hardness of the wax itself. Basic paraffin for pillars is usually 140* melt point. I have found that the paraffins can bulge at the top because they soften before they melt. So they do better with additives to "harden" the wax. This is why buying a pre mixed wax, like the 4625 can help a beginner. I have played with many combinations of additives that are readily available from most suppliers. I read, then make and observe. My favorite test is to make 12 pillars with three different recipes and test four different wicks in each of the different recipes. Then I clear my dining room table and light them up. I start taking notes and go from there. You can learn a lot from burning different wicks side by side. I have ironed out many of my pillar burning issues with experimentation and a LOT of reading and a LOT of burning. We had a major power outage several months back at the end of winter when a main-line transformer caught on fire. Within minutes my house was glowing when my daughter started to fill the rooms with my tester candles! I was glad that I didn't melt them back down the week before. If I were you, and if you are set on soy wax, I would play with additives like beewsax and even palm waxes. Candlewic has a palm/soy blend pillar wax that has always made me go "Hmmmm". I haven't played with palm waxes yet. I do like the look of them as a finished candle, I just don't care for the pictures of them (that I've seen on here) when they are burning. http://www.candlewic.com/store/Product.aspx?q=c19,p766&title=Smooth-Pillar-Blend-%28CSP-1%29---Natural-Wax-Blend-fo Every time I order ANYTHING from any supplier I always buy a type of wick that I don't have. That way the cost of the wick can piggy back on the rest of the order, and I have a good supply of a variety of wicks. One important lesson I have learned is when you try what seems like every wick, you need to look at the wax and try to change the wax, softer, harder, higher melt point etc.

I can't answer that, I have never made any kind of chunk candles. I have done cold pour and layered candles, but never chunk. As usual, testing is best. To answer that I would make a chunk candle and a plain, use the same wick and then burn them side by side for the same amount of time. That should give you the best answer of if there is a difference between them.