C3–Sinking/Grainy

[sarahmarah]

I just got a 50lb box of C3 because I like to complicate my life 😂

I have a pretty good handle on 464 and now I’m realizing that it’s not applying here. I’ve checked the forum archives and found some interesting tips on ‘tempering’ C3 but when I tried it just came out grainy? I’m wondering if my wax didn’t properly bind to the FO? Or maybe I used too much FO?

 

I tried a 6% FL in a wickless test candle —followed manufacturers instructions and got a big ol’ sinkhole in the middle. I even jacked up my thermostat to make sure the ambient temp was 73 and let it cool on a rack. Next one I added an 8% FL to a wickless test candle adding FO at a lower temp to avoid fuel smell (blood orange) and poured at a low temp—120ish. Granules everywhere—even after I used the heat gun they came back.

 

What am I missing? 

 

[TallTayl]

C3 can be really temperamental. I had the most success by: 

heat to 185,
stir FO in very well with a wide spatula.

place pour pot in front of a fan, keep stirring Often until you see it cloud

pour into your jars

cool where there are no drafts.

 

grains mean a couple of things, like cooling much too slowly or not enough stirring. Those fragrance loads you note seem fine if they were calculated correctly. 

[sarahmarah]

9 minutes ago, TallTayl said:

C3 can be really temperamental. I had the most success by: 

heat to 185,
stir FO in very well with a wide spatula.

place pour pot in front of a fan, keep stirring Often until you see it cloud

pour into your jars

cool where there are no drafts.

 

grains mean a couple of things, like cooling much too slowly or not enough stirring. Those fragrance loads you note seem fine if they were calculated correctly. 

Thanks, I’ll try that!
 

For a 13oz fill I did the first one at 6% FL—

0.74oz FO to 12.26oz (348g) wax 

 

The second was for a 12.5 oz fill at 8% FL—

0.97oz FO to 11.57oz (328g) wax. 
This was the grainy one. I can’t remember when I added the FO but I think it was around 160–maybe that was too low?  I took a shot in the dark lol

[NightLight]

C3 you should pour using the table chart with temp times to get a flawless top. Typical pour temp for perfect tops around 75 degrees is around 155 - 160. If you pour cool you will get a rough top. You will get sinking in a wickless candle. Ignore it. When you use a wick this will change. It’s a great wax - print out the chart, use a room thermometer and your candles will be flawless.

[TallTayl]

Flawless tops mean nothing if the candle is riddled with cavities.  Consider the whole candle.  I wrestled with C3 for 8+ years and >10k candles. You will get great tops when the whole candle is poured at the sweet spot for your case of wax. Ambient conditions become less problematic once you understand how the wax formula is designed to work. Cloud point is a pretty common baseline for soy waxes.

 

a bigger problem I see is not heating it “enough” so that the additives blend well. 

[kandlekrazy]

I recall having a box that had that grainy look but it was way back when they had just reformulated the wax.  I never had it happen after that and I used C3 for well over 20 years, always "tempering" (melting wax, let get solid and reheat to temp).  I agree it likes a warm room temp but mine was never 75, maybe 70 at best and I always poured very cool when it gets cloudy which was approx 115.  I always heat gun tops to see if any bubbles come up even if smooth, usually they are close to the wick or center if no wick.

[sarahmarah]

Thanks everyone for all the input! I certainly have a lot of experimentation on my hands. 

*In your opinions would an additive be helpful or more trouble than it’s worth?*

I don’t care about frosting whatsoever as I do not color my candles—I just want good throws. I’m all stocked up on CD and ECO wicks. I also just got sample packs of Premiers, LX’s, HTP’s and CSN’s. With 464 I really struggled with CD’s so I’m just wondering where I should start wicking?

I know it wicks UP a few—but I don’t know if there are some wick types that handle C3 better than others? 

 

 

 

[sarahmarah]

Would there be an additive to help with throw and lengthen burn time? 

[TallTayl]

Depends on your container, but cd, CSN CDN were good in my tins depending on fragrance. Cotton core can work. Any hot wick with old consumption.

 

if trying additives, it doesn’t technically need anything.  Paraffin will improve a lot of nuisance issues though. 

[NightLight]

No cavities at 155 - 160! I go by the recommended temps, and the candles have perfect tops, great adhesion.

[sarahmarah]

Well I got some significant top seepage with the grainy candle today (day 5 of cure). 
 

I’m pretty sure my math was spot on (the .97 oz FO listed in my earlier post was actually .93oz according to my notes) 

 

I’m  thinking that even at 8% my oil blend may have been way too heavy with the C3. I blended small amounts of Lab & Co., BB and WSP (Fragrance Formulator CC) oils. Most of those are plenty concentrated on their own so I guess I’m not really surprised that happened. I was basically going HAM on some nice samples that I wanted to use up. 
 

I wiped off the oil and stuck and HTP 93 wick in and lit it. I’m not sure if that’s a good place to start with C3 in16 oz straight sided jar with an interior diameter of about 3.25–3.30ish? 
 

This pic is the 2 1/2 hr mark. I popped the wick in with a skewer a bit off center 😬.  Flame seems to be way more steady than I’ve ever seen in all my other testing with ECO’s and CD’s—it only now is developing a mushroom making the flame dance more. Throw is surprisingly good for a candle I screwed up on.

should I wick up or down? I feel like in the next burn or two the sides could catch up. 

[NightLight]

I would go up two wicks at least for that diameter, and let burn for three hours.

And C3 has good hot and cold throw. Try 6 per cent fragrance, this will also stop fragrance weeping at top.

The only time I have gotten that with candles is when to much much fragrance was added.

[TallTayl]

Deco wick up. C3 will continue to harden for months. 

[sarahmarah]

Thanks again for all the input.

I’m definitely going to try sticking with a 6% FL now in my C3. At 8% this started as nice but took a turn into cloying headache territory real quick. 
I’m curious about those Cottonwood wicks—I saw they have free shipping on all wicks from Northstar so I’ll definitely be checking them out. 
😊

[BusyBee]

2 hours ago, sarahmarah said:

Thanks again for all the input.

I’m definitely going to try sticking with a 6% FL now in my C3. At 8% this started as nice but took a turn into cloying headache territory real quick. 
I’m curious about those Cottonwood wicks—I saw they have free shipping on all wicks from Northstar so I’ll definitely be checking them out. 
😊

Cottonwood Wick = 2 hours & 15 minutes of Happiness!

 

I was in similar situation as you are with 464 & C3.  464 was available 20 min. drive away & C3 was 1 hour away.  So, I tried out 464 and stuck with it since.  I am very curious how your comparison is going to come out.

 

I have tried cottonwood wick in 464, and I thought I had the best candle in the world and that lasted for 2 hours & 15 minutes.  Wax was burning really clean(no more sticky wax), quick melt pool without getting too hot, cute little flame, great HT, zero soot(even in heavy drift), smooth mirror like clean top after I blow out the candle, only little white puff when blowing out candle...  What can you ask more from a candle?  But then after 2 hr & 15 min, it was producing a lot of black smoke, wax was burning & turning into brown color, burnt fuel smell, etc.  Some other people were having similar problem after 3 hours. 

 

You should definitely try this wick, so you can see how beautifully soy wax can able to perform during that 2 hour time frame.  But, don't order too many.  It will give you guideline what you need to aiming for with soy wax candle.  If you can somehow figure out a way to make this wick work entire life of candle, then it is going to be the one of two best wicks in the world.  

[candlehappy]

On 1/11/2020 at 10:56 AM, kandlekrazy said:

I recall having a box that had that grainy look but it was way back when they had just reformulated the wax.  I never had it happen after that and I used C3 for well over 20 years, always "tempering" (melting wax, let get solid and reheat to temp).  I agree it likes a warm room temp but mine was never 75, maybe 70 at best and I always poured very cool when it gets cloudy which was approx 115.  I always heat gun tops to see if any bubbles come up even if smooth, usually they are close to the wick or center if no wick.

Hi kandlekrazy!  What does tempering do for the wax ?  And when you reheat, do you reheat back to the 185 degrees and then add color and FO?

[kandlekrazy]

On 1/18/2020 at 8:09 AM, candlehappy said:

Hi kandlekrazy!  What does tempering do for the wax ?  And when you reheat, do you reheat back to the 185 degrees and then add color and FO?

Sorry, I've been on vacation so haven't looked here.  Way back someone told me to try tempering to see if I got smoother results as the candle burned and I did so I continued to do it.

What I do is when I finish making my candles for the day I refill my melter and melt it all to 200 before I turn the melter off.  When I'm ready to use again I remelt the pot.  Sometimes the remelt happens in the same day and sometimes not for a week, doesn't seem to make a difference.

[lmc]

I've been using C3 for almost a decade and imo, tempering helps with the texture and minimizing C3's notorious bubbles.  As already mentioned, on way to temper is to heat wax to 185* until completely melted. Remove from heat and you can either let completely harden or if you want you use same day, let it cool completely down till it's starting to solidify then bring it back up to 185* till melted, remove, add go and stir. I pour when it starts to cloud. I'm happy using 8.5% fo and don't have seeping issues.

As far as wicking goes, for that size jar try HTP104,105; CDN 14,16; Premier 790. 

Hth

[Kevin Fischer]

On 1/10/2020 at 9:05 PM, TallTayl said:

C3 can be really temperamental. I had the most success by: 

heat to 185,
stir FO in very well with a wide spatula.

place pour pot in front of a fan, keep stirring Often until you see it cloud

pour into your jars

cool where there are no drafts.

 

grains mean a couple of things, like cooling much too slowly or not enough stirring. Those fragrance loads you note seem fine if they were calculated correctly. 

@TallTayl - do you mean cooling prior to pouring or after it's poured?

 

I always suspected grains like the ones below were tied to the ambient room temp and curing conditions.  Using C3 yesterday I had a grainy top after it initially set, so I heat gunned the poor thing and put the lid on.

• Max temp: 185 (I didn't temper this in any way)
• Poured around 125, probably 20-25 minutes after max temp
• Ambient room temp was around 68 I think.  Definitely no drafts.
• I probably heat gunned it 30-45 minutes after I poured (which I'm calling "Initial Set" below)

Initial Set

 

Heat Gunned Top

 

Top after I removed the lid

 

[TallTayl]

@Kevin Fischer cooling too slowly in general.  If  cooling slowly in the pour pot it can form grains as easily as in a jar.
 

When pouring C3 (and c1 and similar soy) I found I had the most successful candles When I cooled the pour pot rapidly in front of a powerful fan while stirring frequently.  Cool it that way until it begins to cloud and pour, stirring with a wide silicone spatula. The exception to this success rate has always been 444.  That stuff forms sink holes no matter what. Even poking and filling results in more sink holes. 
 

When I learned the timing I never had to worry about sink holes/cavities or imperfect tops. I make thousands of these every summer so every step saved is time back in my day. 

[Kevin Fischer]

Fantastic.  I never even considered the cooling rate in the pour pot before despite my constant stirring.  I'll give it a go - big thanks!