Coffee candles... crack

[Kaczor]

Hi,

I have problem with my coffee candles. My step by step:

I take mold, put pillar candle inside, put grains of coffee around and pour with colored and scented paraffin wax. Next day I pull out of the mold. It is almost ready. Then I take heat gun and when I finish, my candle crack.

We use our own recipe for paraffin wax, we leave candles in very cold room till next day

Edited December 14, 2013 by Kaczor

[Scented]

I'd say it's the cold. You shock it with heat and then shock it again with cold. Something's going to splinter.

[Kaczor]

Thanks, I will try to pour candles in the morning, and in the afternoon I'll try pull them out from molds and heat I use metal molds. Is this correct?

[Scented]

Well I'm wondering why you would put them in a cold room.

With metal molds that I used, I always anchored the mold with weights in a room temp water bath. Now if you were going for rustic, maybe I could see why you'd do cold. I've switched from metal to aluminum because I don't have to mess with water.

For the metal molds though, I'd try equalizing your temps more. What I mean is that while you're going to pour hot into a mold that isn't as hot and still put it in a water bath, I don't know that melting off say some wax to show your coffee beans and then storing in a cold room is a necessary step.

I'm saying all that without knowing your wax blend, but I don't that it much matters. I just think that this candle chose to crack because of the extremes in temp switching. It's something that could turn into more of a catastrophe though with a lit wick causing that fracture to continue and then part of the candle breaks off and a mess occurs. It could also be that that extreme doesn't happen.