wakeylad

I've seen a few wicks advertised primed with a 212 Melt Point Wax. Is this generally available. I haven't found any suppliers as of yet.

If not, that the highest MP available for home priming? Does anyone add anything to their high MP wax to raise the MP even higher?

thanks in advance.

Neil

I had two old YC Apothercary Candles that were pretty dirty looking (22oz Apothercary). One had been previously been burned with a lamp-shade style top and and had thick black soot at the top of the container. Anyway, I cleaned them both up and they were both sparkling. I figured I'd use them for comparison purposes. Candle #1 has about a third wax left and #2 about a quarter. Candle #1 which, was actually the cleanest of the two, has soot deposits after two 4-hour burn sessions while Candle #2 still looks clean.

Some of my test burns are still cleaner than candle #1 after six 3-4 hour burns but they do have dustings of soot. Am I being too much of a perfectionist to expect no soot all the way to the last 1/4" of wax or is is acceptable to have a slight dusting (or even more) soot on a used candle? I'm using 4630 wax which is know to be smokey. If you guys are getting clean burns all the way to the bottom, what wax are you using? Anyone getting completely clean burns with the 4630?

Thanks for the input.

Neil

The 4630 wax I'm testing with right now is close to 3 years old. The box went through the last summer in the garage and the box was badly oil stained from the wax inside since there is no plastic liner with this wax. Someone said on the forum that it should still be good but I still feel a little dubious about the quality of this particular box. I'm going to fill a few more wickless containers and do some retesting. I also have my LX and ECO's ready to test with the old batch which I'm going to start burning tonight. I had an extra wax-filled wickless container so I stuck in an LX-18 and figured I'd burn it. It gave me the best burn I've seen so far with this wax. All the other wick's have hang-ups on one side of the container and this is after the 6th burn. The only one that caught up were there CD's (4/5/6) which are not smoking now but were pretty smokey/sooty in the beginning.

Just to get some input. The LX-18 is in a 12oz status jar and after it's first 3 hour or so burn had a nice centered melt pool with about 1/4 inch hang-up on the side. I read somewhere that you shouldn't expect to get a full melt pool on the first 1 or 2 burns since the trapped heat will cause it to catch up later. Opinions?

Thanks

Neil

I'm still in the process of testing my container with out-of-the-box 4630 with absolutely no additives and still haven't gotten a clean burn (smoking/sooting). I still have three wick lines to test. I ordered the 464 for the 75/25 mix and I'm looking forward to testing that since it sounds like a winner.

Ditto that! Glad I am not the only one that took a while to figure out the LX's work best with this wax. Kept trying to make HTP work as it was so highly recommended. My second choice is Peak's cottons. I love this wax. The throw and appearance are awesome! If you wick down enough it won't smoke. In a small container the challenge is finding a small enough wick. Good luck to you!

I've tested a ton of wicks with straight out of the box 4630 (not fragrance, color, etc) and most of them smoke and soot even with the recommended HTP's. I spent another four-hour note-taking testing session. During in one of my breaks, I made up a batch of ECO's and LX wicked candles using the "poke the hole and slide in the wick" method for prefilled containers. I had one prefilled container left so I made another LX-18. I also had some failures using a different wax and figured I try trimming the wick to 1/8" instead of the usual 1/4" since Yankee suggests that on some of their tumbler. I lit old failures and they are burning a little less smokey. I figured I'd light the the extra LX-18. So far it's has a nice flame and no smoke. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I've also just order a sample pack of the cotton core from Peak's.

I just got my LX900 two weeks ago and I was able to throw together a professional looking label in under 30 mins. I'm very happy with the quality. I'm not sure about reliability yet but I did take the extended warranty.

As I mentioned earlier, I hung a 7 or 8 foot length of cotton which was drifting by up to 6". As it happens, I was having a new boiler installed for the heating. The boiler room in the basement is pretty drafty and because of the work going the guys had to leave the boiler room door open. As part of my investigation (now I feel like Sherlock Holmes), I covered the fireplace with a piece of plywood. I went upstairs to get something and heard a loud bang. I thought the new boiler had blown a valve or something. Anyway, it turns out that the wood was blown over and also knocked down a few other things. I went downstairs and made sure the boiler room door was closed (the boiler is installed and I have heat again). I then put the wood against the fireplace and voila!, my cotton thread is now hanging straight down. I may have expected it to move that much hanging next to a window but now from the door frame between the living and dining rooms.

To put things in perspective, I moved into this place just over a year ago and the main floor has been chilly in the winter even with the heat up high unless you had a fire going. The previous owner said the same thing oo. BTW, the old boiler was working fine, just converting from oil to gas. Now, the thermostat is set lower but the room is toasty thanks to the fireplace cover.

So, all the candles that were doing fine on Wednesday night are back in the game. I wiped of the soot that had accumulated around the CD's and gave them a second chance. So far only an an RD34 and a Premier 755 gave any smoke. The others are burning perfectly for their size.

Thanks for all the input.

Neil

I think I found out what the problem is. I'm at work right now but will explain later when I have a little more time.

Thanks for all the feedback. I'm definitely going to incorporate the taper suggestion into my testing routine.

Neil

Hi all:

I've been testing some 4630 wax. I'm intending to test pretty much all the different wick types with this wax in my container. I started with CD and I was not impressed. Some different wicks showed promise then started to dance on their 3rd testing burn (3 hours at a time).

Anyway, I wondered if I had a bit of a draft somewhere so I hung a long piece of cotton from a door frame and there is about a 2" movement from center.

Anyone come up with a way to ensure their candles are tested in a draft free environment? I was thinking to build a mesh cage to see if that would do the trick. Maybe start with mosquito netting or a finer mesh if possible. I figure I could blow a small fan on the cage to see how much it affected the flame. I saw something on another site about testing candles for soot and they used a mesh cage with a small plate of glass for gathering soot samples.

If no-one else has tried this, I'll keep you up-to-date with my findings.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Neil

The grease stains made me curious. The 4630 reminds me of lard. I wasn't sure if it would alter the burn qualities but it's good to know that this stuff can takes some abuse when it comes to storage.

Thanks for the quick reply.

Neil

Dear all:

I had some 4630 was that was sitting around for a couple of years (1 year in the garage through summer and winter). The box was grease stained from the oil in the wax but this was has no plastic wrap in the box, just paper between the slabs.

The wax looks okay itself.

Any comments on whether this is still good or not?

Thanks

Neil

I am still working on my 3" Libbey Status jars with 4630 but I am using CD-12 or CD-14. LX wicks seems to work well for 3" diameter and larger containers, so try a LX-20. That said while I love 4630 for it's throw and for the range of FOs that work in it, it does smoke and throw soot when the flame gets too larges. A slight draft send plumes of black smoke. Keeping wicks trimmed helps but who needs the extra work. In order to tame the flame I am adding soy wax (464 for now and may try 415 later) at 20% to 25%. Some add more. The burn is better controlled and there is only a small hit on HT if that particular FO does not work well in soy. If you try the parasoy route, stick with the same wicks and adjust from there.

I was hoping to work with the unadulterated 4630 but I may go ahead and order a case of the 464 since I just received 4 cases of the 4630. How did adding the 464 affect your colors?

Pam:

Thanks for the feedback. A wick vendor also suggested the ECO wick too so hearing that you are using them too is encouraging. Any problems with smoking during the burn? My ECO delivery is scheduled for Thursday so I'll pour some containers that evening so I can start testing over the weekend.

I'll let you know how I do.

Neil

Hi:

I wicked this jar wick using plain IGI 4630 Wax with Paper Core, Zinc and CD's. The Paper and zinc mushroomed badly. I looked at the recommendations from one wick supplier and they suggested CD-12 to CD-18 wicks for 3" diameter containers. Cut to 1/4", these wicks smoked like crazy (set off the smoke alarm). I trimmed the CD-12 and CD-14 to 1/8" and they are burning better. But since most warning labels suggest 1/4", I would prefer to stick with that length.

I upped my wick inventory and ordered the follow samples: LX, RRD (Wedo), HTP, Premier 700 Series and ECO's.

I'm looking for a good starting point for IGI 4630 was with the 12oz Status (Metro) Jar both without additives (plain 4630 wax) and with additives (color, UV, fragrance).

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give?

Neil