TallTayl Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 but this wax soots and burns pretty quickly.Soot can be from a number of causes, like too much fragrance, too much dye, incomplete combustion of the wax or combo of all ingredients. I get soot when a candle burns too hot. You can see black puffs as the convection within the jar changes. One of the worst sooting 'soy' candles was from a local retailer. Within the first 2-3 inches of burn the glass was solid black. It burned with a super deep melt pool making the wick struggle to keep up causing the incomplete combustion. Sadly did not throw any better than any other candle :-/ The fast burning makes sense. With three wicks, you're in essence burning three candles at the same time in less than three candles worth of wax.. If you have not already, I'd try a different wick series in your wax/candle. ECO burn hotter than the CD series IME for instance. HTP, Premier and LX series wicks also get rave reviews by many different chandlers. a simple wick change and may be the ticket to a great throw without the super deep MP and related sooting issues. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TallTayl Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 (edited) As for the deep melt pool, manufacturers recommend no deeper than 1/2" at any point in the burn. Somewhere along the line it became a goal to achieve a deep wide MP as quickly as possible. After you've burned a few truly excellent candles you'll see why some little changes can have huge improvements to your candles. Candle science has a video about choosing the right wick. WickIt, i believe has a document explaining the goals of wicking candles. I'll need to look for it. They also have a service to perform lab tests of customer candles.Found it: http://www.wickit.net/selecting_wick.html ASTM has a powerpoint presentation showing how candles, in that department's opinion, should perform to be considered safe. There's a link to it somewhere on this forum. I'll need to do a search to find it. The battery of tests they perform was enlightening to me when I read it.Found it: http://www.eca-candles.com/pdf/WorldCandleCongress/ASTM%20Standards%20and%20the%20Candle%20Industry%20-%20Becker%20Moss.pdf THe biggest lesson I learned the hard was is that heat generated toward the last third of the candle can be tremendous. Candle glass is subjected to many heat/cold shifts and over time weakens. Anyne familiar with food canning knows that even those jars crack and shatter easily spilling that precious goodness all over the counter. Having glass shatter across the room where moments before my daughter had been standing, leaving a burning puddle on my table almost made me give up chandling for good. It was not even my candle. Edited to add ASTM presentation. Edited August 14, 2015 by TallTayl 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Former Member Posted August 14, 2015 Author Share Posted August 14, 2015 If you have not already, I'd try a different wick series in your wax/candle. ECO burn hotter than the CD series IME for instance. HTP, Premier and LX series wicks also get rave reviews by many different chandlers. a simple wick change and may be the ticket to a great throw without the super deep MP and related sooting issues. Thanks for the advice Talltayl! I originally started with HTP wicks and decided these weren't for me for several reasons. The biggest reason that comes to mind is how they tip to one side when you burn them. In the containers that I single wick this was especially frustrating because I would have my wick centered but when I lit up my candles the melt pool would be off center because the wicks bend to one side and I would end up with hang up on one side. I've also found that these wicks mushroom a lot! and the smoke when I blew them out seemed to be never ending. I thought I could minimize these problems by wicking down but then I realized another problem with the HTP wicks. One wick would drown and the next size up would be too big. I just couldn't find a happy medium with the sizes that they offer. I have tried the ECO wicks as well. I have a fair amount of these that I burn in my soy candles and I decided to try them in my parasoy blend bc they mushroomed less, they burned hotter, they don't off-center the flame when they burn, and they don't smoke like crazy when you blow them out. The lowest size that I went down to in these was an ECO 8 bc this seemed to be a good flame to me and I didn't feel that wicking down anymore would be necessary (I suppose I could revisit this hypothesis though). Well the ECO wicks stood straight, they didn't mushroom and they didn't smoke when I blew them out. But I thought the ECO's were giving off more soot when they burned. So I ditched them. I'm using the CD's now and I like them! they don't mushroom as much as the HTP's, and they don't soot as much as the ECO's. I guess the heat of these wicks is good for me, however they still smoke more than I would like when I blow them out. I have a sample pack of premiers (thanks you all, I learned about these from you!) and some zinc cores that I still have yet to try. I never really thought about using the LX wicks because I sort of assumed that they would be similar to the HTP's. But now that I am rethinking it I realized that I just jumped to that conclusion and I will most likely order a sample pack of those as well with my next order. You're right about my FO% percent and the sooting. So I may be fighting a loosing battle with that particular issue. However I just LOVE a bunch of scent. Interestingly enough, and now that I'm thinking about it, all my candle have been either 6% or 12%. I think I should try a 9% candle and see if that helps with the sooting and if it makes a noticeable difference in my throw. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TallTayl Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 All good info. Am on my phone but wanted to share another melt pool problem I had. when the mp gets too deep it can sometimes melt the wax coating on a wick making the Wick no longer rigid. Then the wick sags, sometimes drowning, sometimes lying on the glass wall. I came across a picture of an old failed candle that reminded me of this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Former Member Posted August 14, 2015 Author Share Posted August 14, 2015 As for the deep melt pool, manufacturers recommend no deeper than 1/2" at any point in the burn. Somewhere along the line it became a goal to achieve a deep wide MP as quickly as possible. After you've burned a few truly excellent candles you'll see why some little changes can have huge improvements to your candles. Candle science has a video about choosing the right wick. WickIt, i believe has a document explaining the goals of wicking candles. I'll need to look for it. They also have a service to perform lab tests of customer candles.Found it: http://www.wickit.net/selecting_wick.html ASTM has a powerpoint presentation showing how candles, in that department's opinion, should perform to be considered safe. There's a link to it somewhere on this forum. I'll need to do a search to find it. The battery of tests they perform was enlightening to me when I read it.Found it: http://www.eca-candles.com/pdf/WorldCandleCongress/ASTM%20Standards%20and%20the%20Candle%20Industry%20-%20Becker%20Moss.pdf THe biggest lesson I learned the hard was is that heat generated toward the last third of the candle can be tremendous. Candle glass is subjected to many heat/cold shifts and over time weakens. Anyne familiar with food canning knows that even those jars crack and shatter easily spilling that precious goodness all over the counter. Having glass shatter across the room where moments before my daughter had been standing, leaving a burning puddle on my table almost made me give up chandling for good. It was not even my candle. Edited to add ASTM presentation.These links are great! I am familiar with the video on candle science and it has helped form my opinion on how wicks should burn. For those of you who haven't seen it, basically after two 2 hours of burning your candle, if the wick is too large then it will be flashing or blinking. If it is too small, well then you will know lol. It will be this puny little thing. You should try to have flame that is no bigger than 1" and is not blinking or flashing… just a solid flame. At least that what I got from it. I have read the wicket article before but I picked up something new from it this time.. "Getting a candle to burn to the edge in the first 3-4 hours is not always the best way to judge how good a wick is". I could definitely put this into practice in my future candles. Not that I judge the wick on whether or not it form a melt pool that reaches the walls of the container. As stated above I judge a wick more on if it soots, if it mushrooms, and how much it smoke when I extinguish it. However, I do add more wicks when I can't get a melt pool to the container sides. So you guys have made me waffle on this. I'm taking you guys at your word when you say that I have too many wicks in this container, however I just cannot get a double wicked setup to not drown out when the hang up catches up to the wicks later. Maybe I should take my own advice and "container up" get a larger diameter container for the triple wicks. That power point is completely new to me and I enjoyed it! Seemed geared more towards what scenarios to avoid rather than how to avoid them but still it was good. Thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grama Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 Instead of blowing out my wick I use a wick dipper. I saw this several years ago and you just dip the flame in the melted wax and it puts it out, no smoke. Just straighten your wick back up and its ready for next burn. You can just use an old knife or similar to dip your wick with. Another thing I learned from this forum was to twist your wick several times so when your wick burns it will gradually untwist and burn all around. I use a wick bar to hold my wick centered and this keeps it from un-twisting before it sets up. I use cd wicks in my 4786. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Former Member Posted August 14, 2015 Author Share Posted August 14, 2015 Instead of blowing out my wick I use a wick dipper. I saw this several years ago and you just dip the flame in the melted wax and it puts it out, no smoke. Just straighten your wick back up and its ready for next burn. You can just use an old knife or similar to dip your wick with. Another thing I learned from this forum was to twist your wick several times so when your wick burns it will gradually untwist and burn all around. I use a wick bar to hold my wick centered and this keeps it from un-twisting before it sets up. I use cd wicks in my 4786.what great fix! thanks grama! I will start trying that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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