WOODEN WICK

[Ramr]

Echapp77, I wish my adventures had better outcomes. But lately I have been burning my newly minted stash of candles and ... they mostly suck.

 

It really bugs me when a flame flickers and wobbles, or blobs and smokes. The failures of the various wood wicks are not as annoying to me as the failures of the cotton wicks. Or rather, the failures of my candle making. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why my flames blob and wobble. Stupid flames. I do not think I am over scenting, putting in little more than a Tablespoon (or 3) of FO per pound of wax. About a teaspoon and half of polybar. Little to no colouring. What possible reason do my candles have to have such ugly flames? No reason. They're just being difficult.

I think with stir sticks as wood wicks you could test til you're blue in the face and never find out how well they are going to work because there is no consistency or quality control in a package of craft store stir sticks. Sometimes my wood wicks work great. Other times, oh my word, throw that candle out! I can be as precise and exact as I want in my measurements, but it's the quality and species of the wood that I have no control over. And I do think that makes a difference.

 

I was wrong saying that half a stir stick is enough for a votive. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, it depends on the wood in that particular stir stick and that is not something you can predict or judge. I am thinking wood wicks purchased from a manufacturer who has the same species of wood, the same pitch content and grain, the same moisture content (although that can change in each environment) is a more reasonable bet than craft store sticks.

[Cr8iveThnkr]

Hello I am new to the site but signed up after I read Ramr's post on 9/3/18 about making your own wood wicks. It made me feel better to know I was not the only one out there trying to do the same. I am also knew to candle making and so far I have used wooden wicks from Country Lane ( Hobby Lobby) and the latest from Northwood Distributing. They burned well, I never trimmed them once after burning and they always relit. Did not even realized you had to trimmed them until some reading well after I had made about 4 or 5 test candles. Anyway, I have spent the better part of my evening trying to find and article online or a video to show me how to make my own wicks. I understand these companies make them but seriously, the idea came from somewhere and I have even seen some wood wicks that are wider than the standard wood wicks sold. So I figure those must be custom made. I did see the article about how to do it with Balsa wood but the article show a stick that resembled a square wooden dowel as oppose to the flat almost sliver or sheet like, thin pieces of wood sold as wooden wicks. I was thinking I could take a piece of lumber and trim off a stick that thin, even if its the length of the piece of lumber, you could just cut it up into smaller pieces giving you several wooden wicks. But my problem is my usual medium is batter ( cake and cookie) not wood. I have been trying to identify a tool that might let me slice off a piece of lumber turned on its side and do it in one piece and without it being sooo thin it curls or breaks. After reading about you adventures as another member stated, I see you are use to cutting wood but like you Ramr, not about t open a mill for a few wood wicks.  Anyone know of a tool a newbie to wood working could use to cut a thin slice of wood from a piece of lumber and do it in one long piece?

On 9/3/2018 at 1:38 AM, Ramr said:

I've been fooling around making my own wooden wicks. Have learned a lot.  Since I am totally new to making candles I don't know that I'm qualified to say much, but here goes.

 

I have tried to burn, as a wood wick:  the wood ends of match sticks (no), bamboo BBQ skewers (no) soaked the skewers in olive oil (still no) dried pine needles I found on the lawn and twisted together (BAD IDEA!) a thick chunk of cedar kindling I meticulously shaved with an axe that was too big (no, cannot make thin enough strips with that ridiculous monster sized axe) toothpicks, both flat style and round style (no and no) bristles I yanked out of the corn broom I sweep the steps with (no) little round sticks I got at the dollar store which looked really promising but failed utterly.

 

What I have had some success with:  wooden stir sticks you get at the dollar store. Soaking them in oil is not necessary. The trick, for me, has been taking an exacto knife (utility knife) and scoring a thin line the length of the stick. This miniscule groove helps wick melted wax up towards the flame, or so I have convinced myself. But I do burn candles with wicks of this design.

 

I make votives and find a whole stir stick is too much wick for a votive. Even though they are narrow to begin with, cut them down to half their width is plenty for a votive. A full width stir stick can easily work in a 3 inch diameter candle. (at least with the wax I am using, IGI # 1245). I did some experimenting with splitting a stir stick in half and laying them on top of each other as a two layer wick, so wax could wick up the space between. This is fiddly to do, doesn't work unless your stir sticks are perfectly flat and often they are not, there are lots of deformed stir sticks in a dollar store package. I abandoned the double idea, don't need to double up.  

 

I also bought a package of craft sticks that are the size of the tongue depressor your doctor uses. Have made wicks with these. They make HUGE wicks! Scored a few times to improve wax uptake.  Did test burn tonight in a 3x3 square candle, on a pie plate, full tongue depressor wick, melt pool to edge in about 30 minutes. If this candle was in an enclosed holder it would have melted even faster. I could have cut this tongue depressor in half (long way) and it still would have been plenty of wick for this 3x3 square. 

 

I have no wick holders for these. Improvised. Squirted hot glue blobs onto tinfoil and then stuck a stir stick (split long ways) in. When it was cool, peeled it off the tinfoil and there you have a wooden wick with a flat bottomed blob at the end. Do not know yet what will happen when everything melts down and flame hits glue glob. I have also glue gunned a wooden wick to a penny and used that in the candle. OR... I just stick the wick down into cooling wax, no bottom, and when it is burned down to 1/2 inch or so, the wick drops over, goes out and I like to think of it as a safety feature that it self extinguishes before you burn the candle dry. I may be wrong about that - time will tell I guess, but so far my untabbed wood wicks have all fallen over eventually in the last bit of wax and snuffed out.

 

Wood is a varied material and some burn well, others not so much. Some make a sputtering noise that I find hilarious. Also some send up tiny little embers, like a mini campfire. They also need to be carefully trimmed. Too long and they don't perform well. I clip mine with a fingernail clipper, taking off just a hair at a time.

 

 

 

[Ramr]

Cr8ive, I hope you find this magic tool you speak of. I haven't. I have also not made a candle in quite a while because other life stuff got in the way. I have burned a few of my many candles and keep coming up against several failures in my home built wicks.

 

Both my crochet cotton wicks and my wooden wicks, fall over.   Since my wood wicks have no holders, as the wax melts to the bottom of the holder, the wooden wick bobs to the surface, like a stick in water, plops over and snuffs out. If you're lucky. Sometimes it decides to become a towering inferno belching stinky smoke. One never can tell which way it will go. I tried using glue blobs as anchors on the bottom of the wicks. But hot glue melts in molten wax, and burns. And stinks. And sticks the wax to the holder. Bad plan.

 

My crochet cotton wicks make a nice flame when they burn well. A horrible flame when there is a defect in the cotton, like maybe a piece of cotton seed or a bug. Crochet thread is very wobbly, not stiff at all and the last 1/2 inch of candle, they always wobble over and snuff out. This bugs me because 1/2 and inch should still be a burnable candle. Well not when the wick is on its side, congealed in wax.

 

If you find this teeny wood slicer, please share!

[Sponiebr]

On 11/9/2018 at 10:46 PM, Cr8iveThnkr said:

Hello I am new to the site but signed up after I read Ramr's post on 9/3/18 about making your own wood wicks. It made me feel better to know I was not the only one out there trying to do the same. I am also knew to candle making and so far I have used wooden wicks from Country Lane ( Hobby Lobby) and the latest from Northwood Distributing. They burned well, I never trimmed them once after burning and they always relit. Did not even realized you had to trimmed them until some reading well after I had made about 4 or 5 test candles. Anyway, I have spent the better part of my evening trying to find and article online or a video to show me how to make my own wicks. I understand these companies make them but seriously, the idea came from somewhere and I have even seen some wood wicks that are wider than the standard wood wicks sold. So I figure those must be custom made. I did see the article about how to do it with Balsa wood but the article show a stick that resembled a square wooden dowel as oppose to the flat almost sliver or sheet like, thin pieces of wood sold as wooden wicks. I was thinking I could take a piece of lumber and trim off a stick that thin, even if its the length of the piece of lumber, you could just cut it up into smaller pieces giving you several wooden wicks. But my problem is my usual medium is batter ( cake and cookie) not wood. I have been trying to identify a tool that might let me slice off a piece of lumber turned on its side and do it in one piece and without it being sooo thin it curls or breaks. After reading about you adventures as another member stated, I see you are use to cutting wood but like you Ramr, not about t open a mill for a few wood wicks.  Anyone know of a tool a newbie to wood working could use to cut a thin slice of wood from a piece of lumber and do it in one long piece?

 

It's called a spoke shave or a draw knife... A froe will work as well. BUT spoke shaves, draw knives, and froes are EXPENSIVE, (like you don't even wanna KNOW). I have a couple of draw knives I use for tillering bows and shaping axe and tool handles... I do NOT own a froe... I DO own several machete's though, and they work just fine as froes (not so great at wrenching off a shake but meh... I can still do it.) Froes are used in making wooden shingles for roofs... As you can imagine there is not a lot of use for the froe these days. I use my heavy machete and  a mallet and it works just fine. 

Bye the Bye... You can buy flat balsa stock, it's readily available at your craft store, and you can buy it in varying widths and thicknesses. Or you can buy a wide piece and cut it to width with a snap knife or any knife really. Bases for wood wicks can be quickly and cheaply made from binder clips divested of their little wire handles after they've been placed on the bottom of the wick. I think I mentioned that before... 

Anywho, 

Good luck! 

[Bia]

On 8/30/2018 at 9:17 AM, lightmyfire said:

I'm dabbling with wooden wicks now, just in one container.  I ordered from The Wooden Wick Company (woodenwick.com).  I ordered their sample pack for $29.95-they don't charge shipping on this item.  As a side note, their website is extremely informative (including videos and lots of wick charts) and their packaging is gorgeous.  I'm going to use some of the recommended wicks in my container this weekend and see what happens.  The wooden wicks I've tried before have a tendency to turn my white wax brown (I don't use dye).    I can update when I do a test burn.

how did your testing go? I have been testing with wooden wicks and noticed some black particles in my burn pool.  looks like burnt dust.  Is this what happened to yours?  It got like this after 3hours of burning.  I dislike this "dirty" appearance.  

[Testing123]

On 8/30/2018 at 9:35 AM, TallTayl said:

2) I’ve had some that just won’t burn in the same package as those tested successfully. Hard to retail those when it’s a crapshoot if they will even light and stay lit. 

 

Hi Tall was this your experience with Wooden Wick co wicks? Or are you referring to another company?

Edited January 19, 2020 by Testing123

[TallTayl]

3 hours ago, Testing123 said:

Hi Tall was this your experience with Wooden Wick co wicks? Or are you referring to another company?

Wooden wick co

[Testing123]

3 hours ago, TallTayl said:

Wooden wick co

oh wow thanks for the heads up

[Nadine]

Hallo. I see this is a very old conversation but wanted to know if the stir stick trick is actually working for you guys. I live in South Africa... and it's not always easy getting the supplies i need for my candles, most of the time the supplier is out of stock and if i order online my shipping is twice as much as my order :( 😞 im thinking of making my own wooden wicks from bamboo sticks... i hope it works.

[Kira]

I hate everyone is giving me pros and cons and what they perhaps might try. Not very informative. I'm looking for good wooden wicks that will stay lit in my 8oz candle. All the ones i purchased go out immediately. So if you are just trying out and reporting pro and cons im good. Tell me which ones you used that worked. Thata what i want to know  

[bfroberts]

1 hour ago, Kira said:

I hate everyone is giving me pros and cons and what they perhaps might try. Not very informative. I'm looking for good wooden wicks that will stay lit in my 8oz candle. All the ones i purchased go out immediately. So if you are just trying out and reporting pro and cons im good. Tell me which ones you used that worked. Thata what i want to know  

Try a different size.  

[TallTayl]

2 hours ago, Kira said:

I hate everyone is giving me pros and cons and what they perhaps might try. Not very informative. I'm looking for good wooden wicks that will stay lit in my 8oz candle. All the ones i purchased go out immediately. So if you are just trying out and reporting pro and cons im good. Tell me which ones you used that worked. Thata what i want to know  

I have learned through many experiments with wooden wicks that they ALL benefit from priming. I hold them under the wax in my melter until they stop releasing air bubbles, then stick in the candle.  Rarely had a problem lighting after.