Bubbles in my candles

[Samstoy]

Hello from Arcadia, North Carolina!! Help please!! I have poured a couple of gel wax candles and the last one has mega bubbles in it. It was clear & perfect at first but the more time that passed and the better it set up the more bubbles appeared. I have an embedded plastic fish in it. Poured very slowly in an effort to NOT have it full of bubbles. Does anyone have any idea what I am doing wrong

[JAVAEBOY]

Samstoy,

Bubbles are kind of the evil and beauty of gel. This is a little hard to explain in words, but, depending on the size of the opening, you can try pouring the gel from your whatever you are using to pour from, with the use of a spoon to slow down the actual droppping of the gel into your candle itself. I melt my gel in a your general Presto pot, transfer it to a smaller glass beaker with a spout, I let it sit for a 20 seconds or so, (this lets the bubbles from the agressive pour, work themselves out) and pour into my candles with something like a tablespoon as a barrier to slow down my pour a little. I hope you can imagine that. That is what I did when I was actually making traditional gel candles. Now, all my candle holders (I really don't do true candles, per se, mine are all double glass now) I pour, put them back into a 225 degree oven to have any of the bubbles still in there, work themselves out. Since I only do a dozen at a time, I leave them in the oven for 30 minnutes or so, then turn off the oven and leave them in there to cool. This method won't work if your imbed is suspended with out the use of something to hold it up. I don't suspend anything in my double glass candle holders, everything is put into the bottom or to fill the space and the gel is poured over the embeds. You can still see a few bubbles in this one, but that is a very old picture, before I improved my technic. I still get some bubbles, but not nearly as bad as I used to.

I hope that helps.

Edited April 19, 2013 by JAVAEBOY

[jaxxcandles]

I usually put mine in the oven afterwards to get most of the bubbles out. Then let it cool in the oven. I have found it is very hard to pour and not get any bubbles, no matter what temperature. You can try warming the glass ahead of time too, but it still probably won't get all the bubbles out.

[eitsfan]

I keep the embeds suspended and put them in the oven at 170 degrees for a few hours. Almost all bubles will disappear but just keep an eye on it. I accidently left one in overnight and ALL the bubbles were gone. I don't suggest doing that though!

[TheSn8ke]

I usually put mine in the oven afterwards to get most of the bubbles out. Then let it cool in the oven. I have found it is very hard to pour and not get any bubbles, no matter what temperature. You can try warming the glass ahead of time too, but it still probably won't get all the bubbles out.

Thats a good idea.