Wooden wicks

[Lora]

I love the idea of wooden wicks.  I've not used them but am planning on it.  Is there a particular type of wax that is better suited to wood?  Or will they work in any wax?

[Sponiebr]

1 hour ago, Lora said:

I love the idea of wooden wicks.  I've not used them but am planning on it.  Is there a particular type of wax that is better suited to wood?  Or will they work in any wax?

Yanno... I don't make candles but looking into this wooden wick concept makes me want to make candles. This is the first time I've ever heard of this, and I have used some weird stuff before to create makeshift wicks. Oh... This has got my curious all in an uproar...

Slainte, 

 

Sponiebr the Executor of Bad Ideas and Sundry Services

 

[TallTayl]

9 hours ago, Lora said:

I love the idea of wooden wicks.  I've not used them but am planning on it.  Is there a particular type of wax that is better suited to wood?  Or will they work in any wax?

Hey did not work AT ALL in my beeswax. Seemed OK, for a few sizes, in soy. And nearly set my living room on fire in palm. 

 

I wanted to use them them so badly, but had inconsistent burns from wicks in the same darned package! Quite a few burned hotter or colder in the same wax/container. The larger ones would not stay lit. I gave up on them.

[bfroberts]

I've had decent luck with them in 6006, but it's a pretty fine line getting the wicking just right.  I finally figured out that it is easier just to use them with FO's that work than to try to make it work by trimming slivers off the wick, which I could never be 100% consistent with anyway.  So, I've got about 6 FO's that burn perfectly, and I stopped there.  I use the wicks from TFC. 

[Moonstar]

9 hours ago, bfroberts said:

I've had decent luck with them in 6006, but it's a pretty fine line getting the wicking just right.  I finally figured out that it is easier just to use them with FO's that work than to try to make it work by trimming slivers off the wick, which I could never be 100% consistent with anyway.  So, I've got about 6 FO's that burn perfectly, and I stopped there.  I use the wicks from TFC. 

Interesting how certain FO's work best with them. What FO types seem to work best. Have you tried pines such as Frasier or blue spruce . Those would match the concept of the wood wick IMO 

i almost ordered some (Flaming)

seems like the xtra lg worked best based on reviews. They seem to hit n miss

[bfroberts]

They seem to be just like other wicks as far as wicking up for heavy or spicy scents, down for lighter.  My issue was that in my containers sometimes small was too small but medium was too big, and sometimes medium was too small but large was too big, etc.  The sizes aren't incremental enough for me.  I can work around that by using the larger wick and trimming it down, but I'm not confident that I could do that with accuracy every time, so I didn't consider it a viable option.  I am probably just too picky about my wicking.  What I did was just stick with the scents that worked perfectly without having to modify the wick.   Out of about a dozen or more scents tested, I had about 6 that were a success, but then I kinda switched gears and stopped testing.

 

[bfroberts]

I should have added....I really like the wood wicks from TFC.  They have always been consistent for me and the price is decent.  XL is pretty big.  What wax and container would you be using?

[Lora]

2 hours ago, bfroberts said:

I should have added....I really like the wood wicks from TFC.  They have always been consistent for me and the price is decent.  XL is pretty big.  What wax and container would you be using?

I want to use straight paraffin and jars.  For those who were trimming the wicks, would a ruler and exacto knife work if I needed to trim?  I will just have to test and see what happens.  I just really like the look and "feel" of the wooden wicks.  Hoping I have some success!  LOL

[bfroberts]

I use 6006, which I believe is roughly 70% paraffin, 30% soy (not sure) and the medium size work pretty well for my containers that are 3" in diameter.  You can trim them pretty easily with an exacto knife.  That's what I used.  It was easy to trim off a sliver if the wick was just a tad too big.  It was harder for me when I needed a slightly larger wick and had to trim a bigger piece off the large size wicks.  That was harder to trim consistently.  I didn't have any luck using two wicks back to back or any of the other configurations I've read about.

[Lora]

Thanks everyone for your comments.  I will play around and see what happens.  I'll let ya'll know

[wthomas57]

I did preliminary testing with wooden wicks and didn't like it much.

Ill go back to it again in the future though. 

 

But I used 6006 and used wooden wicks from both TFC and naturesd garden ( i think, but cant be sure)

The issue I had was inconsistency and not working well with many FOs.

 

But the biggest issue I had was so hot, smokey, and it changed the wax very ugly color really noticeable after it re-hardened.