Cheapskate wick holders, a tutorial

[Ramr]

All excited to make my first candles I watched one lousy Youtube video, melted some wax, tossed in not enough FO, plunked some wicks in the votive molds, poured the wax to the top and went to bed.  As you all know the next morning revealed votives with deep sink holes and wicks that were NOT where I had placed them! Who knew that wax could yank a wick around like that?! I tried various things to prop the wicks up but nothing was working the way I wanted. I thought about buying some of those nifty metal ones but nah, I'm too cheap and pretty soon I will no longer be making candles so I didn't really want to amass too much 'stuff'. But I needed something...so this is what I came up with. It is pretty goofy and only practical for one pound pours. I don't see this working on a large scale. So I give you my sad wick holders and maybe someone else on a budget will find this useful.

 

You will need  A PIPE CLEANER cut in half, a STIR STICK or pair of small scissors.

 

Now wrap the pipe cleaner around the stir stick or end of the scissor blade. Not super tight, but do get a nice bend in it. Wrap one end one way and one end the other way and I realize that makes no sense. Maybe a picture will help.

 

Slide it off the stir stick or scissors and slip a wick through the opening.

 

 

Set the wick into your chosen mold, fiddle until it's well centered. Then bend the arms sharply over the mold.

 

 

Without removing the pipe cleaner from the mold, dab melted wax onto the bent area where it bends over the mold. Dab the top and sides and all around. Saturate the fuzz really well. This makes the bend more rigid, less likely shift out of shape and it makes a grippy notchy that holds the mold and does not slide around when cooling wax puts force on a wick. The next picture is supposed to show the wax on the bent area, but it doesn't show up all that well.

 

 

This is a batch of holders in use.

 

 

 You have to be careful with them because you can bend them out of shape. But if you take care setting them up, they do a pretty good job of keeping a wick centered. And because you wrapped them around something that has a little width to it, you can wiggle that wick a hair one way or the other in the little slot to get it right in the middle. The one thing to avoid though is pouring wax over them or so full that it touches them because once that fuzz gets waxed on to something, you WILL NOT pull it off! So DO NOT dump wax on them as you pour and DO NOT make your mold so full that the wax touches the holder. I have used mine for many batches and they are doing fine. I know...pretty low tech. But it works for me!

 

[Sarah S]

I like that! I think using long pipe cleaners will work better than my current chopstick method on my giant candles! Thanks!!

[Forrest]

Nice, easy and should do the trick. I like it.