Adding 415 to 464... Will it make a difference?

[SRez]

I've recently completed a naked 464 wick test, which I'll be posting with the results in the next couple days. 464 melted to 185 and cured a little over 2 weeks in 3" diameter tumblers and baking pans.

With that being said, pretty much every wick and wick series I tested all mushroomed to some extent during the testing. Some sooner than others. CD, CDN, ECO, HTP, Premier, RRD and Cotton Core. The ECO's not as bad. And actually the one CSN14 that I tested acted the best. Go figure. 

My question is, if I add 415 because of the no additives as well as being a harder wax to the 464 would/could that help? I'm thinking the wicks are drawing a bit too much too fast and eventually resulting in the carbon balling. 

I know ultimately the answer is give it a shot and test, test, test. Just wondering if anyone has been down this road before and how did it go for you?

[SRez]

I guess I should be asking if I should be surprised that all those wicks mushroomed with just plain ol' naked 464? 

[TallTayl]

415 and 464 are close sisters.  464 has more additives than 415 to preserve the tops and hold more FO than 415. I would not call 415 “harder” necessarily.  Using 415 to dilute the 464 may help your efforts.

 

in the old days (2016 and before) 415 is 2% universal soy additive made a fantastic candle.  Melt, scent, pour, enjoy. 
 

464 has been engineered to within an inch of its life to give the appearances that most vocal candle customers say they want. This came at a price with more wick issues. 
 

in soys I have the cleanest burns with cd, CDN, CSN generally. 
 

if you already have both waxes, try a couple of blends to see if diluting the additives will help.  I would try 80:20  and see if it improves in a small candle. If you have time, 70:30 and even 50:50 might be worthwhile. I had to do that with C1, which sometimes comes with too much palm wax and causes terrible excessive cavities and even cracking. I used Midwest soy to dilute as it was less $, and easy for me to get. 415 seems to have something which helps is cool and cure to a harder finish than Midwest, but the intent is the same.

[SRez]

So... after my little rant about everything mushrooming during the base test, I went back and selected what I considered to be the best wick picks. 

 

They were:

CD 10, 12, 14

CDN 10, 12, 14

HTP 104 and 105

ECO 12.

 

I started a 4th burn with these and went for 5+ hours.  To my surprise the mushrooms didn't really happen like I whined about earlier in this post. The CD10/12, CDN 12/14 were the best IMO.  CD14 and HTP105 were the biggest, with the 105 wading in the wax.  And that ECO12 is just tunneling away so far.   

 

After seeing how the CD's / CDN's reacted with this, I'm not sure if I'm going to blend just yet.  Gonna wait and see and drop the FO from 8% to 6% on some of the bakery scents to see if that makes a difference. 

 

I'll post the full base test later today.    

[SRez]

I would also like to point out that I did not trim these wicks this time around. The pics shown above were from untrimmed wicks. They looked kinda decent to begin with so I just lit them up. 

[moomin3]

11 minutes ago, SRez said:

I started a 4th burn with these and went for 5+ hours.  To my surprise the mushrooms didn't really happen like I whined about earlier in this post. The CD10/12, CDN 12/14 were the best IMO.  CD14 and HTP105 were the biggest, with the 105 wading in the wax.  And that ECO12 is just tunneling away so far.   

 

After seeing how the CD's / CDN's reacted with this, I'm not sure if I'm going to blend just yet.  Gonna wait and see and drop the FO from 8% to 6% on some of the bakery scents to see if that makes a difference.

 

Thanks for the pics! I use 464 with no additives or dye and stick with between 4-6% FO depending on the supplier. Certain suppliers (Scentsational Soaping Supply, Candle Cocoon in particular) appear to me to be much more concentrated than the norm and I follow their wicking guidance. Some scents are just stronger than others and will perform very well for you at those %. Check out the candle cocoon wicking guide (under Candle Wick Sizes) - you can see what she recommends for 3" containers. in my testing following her FO %, her wick recommendations have worked well, providing me a breath of fresh air during the wicking self-doubt cycles we can find ourselves in! it's because of this wick guide I finally ordered CDN and i've been really impressed with them since it's a no-brainer to think about their sizes with CD. 

 

I've never had luck with HTP or ECO in 464; I've really only felt confident with CD. I did just use an ECO6 in a narrow jar that is working well when CD6 seemed to leave hang up but CD8 and CDN8 were too hot, so they're kind of my back up when I need an in between size for a hard to burn scent (heavy bakery or patchouli). the HTP pics you posted are interesting- it looks like if you gave this HTP 105 wicked candle above to a friend who didn't trim the wick, they'd soon have no wick at all to light simply because it drowns itself instead of trimming and falling into the wax? Sheesh... 

[SRez]

Thanks for the link! I'll definitely check that out. 

[SRez]

22 hours ago, TallTayl said:

415 and 464 are close sisters.  464 has more additives than 415 to preserve the tops and hold more FO than 415. I would not call 415 “harder” necessarily.  Using 415 to dilute the 464 may help your efforts.

 

in the old days (2016 and before) 415 is 2% universal soy additive made a fantastic candle.  Melt, scent, pour, enjoy. 
 

464 has been engineered to within an inch of its life to give the appearances that most vocal candle customers say they want. This came at a price with more wick issues. 
 

in soys I have the cleanest burns with cd, CDN, CSN generally. 
 

if you already have both waxes, try a couple of blends to see if diluting the additives will help.  I would try 80:20  and see if it improves in a small candle. If you have time, 70:30 and even 50:50 might be worthwhile. I had to do that with C1, which sometimes comes with too much palm wax and causes terrible excessive cavities and even cracking. I used Midwest soy to dilute as it was less $, and easy for me to get. 415 seems to have something which helps is cool and cure to a harder finish than Midwest, but the intent is the same.

I have a couple of old plain testers. One of each... 415, 444 and 464. When I stick a skewer through them the 464 seems the less dense of the three. The other 2 were, for lack of better words, harder to skewer/push through If you know what I mean.

I also burned those alongside each other with the same wick/container and the 464 had a bigger MP than the other two. Which is what got me to thinking if it would slow the consumption down a tad if I added either 415 or 444 to the 464, and resulting in less carbon being formed. If that makes sense. 

I'm also convinced that the same supplies, wax/wicks, from different suppliers alter/ change each person's results.

Watcha think?

[TallTayl]

Looking at the pics, two things come to mind:

1) are your scissors really sharp when you cut the wicks the first time? I have a few that are not, and always create carbon at the end on the first burn.  The scissors damage the ends of the braided fibers and seem to catch fuel and don’t fully combust. 
 

2) if a carbon ball forms later on a self trimming wick, like the cd14 and htp 105, that indicates it is probably overwicked a bit for the combo of wax/wick/container/fo (or no fo). The longer wick stalk in those pics supports my gut feel about those being potentially to0 big for that particular setup. 
 

I am once again becoming a big fan of CDN wicks. I started off with them many moons ago and have circled back to them recently when cd were not working as well as they needed to. In soy they are a bit “smaller” than their numbered cd sisters.  In coconut blends they burn hotter by up to several sizes where cd would choke out from chemical decay in those waxes.  Blew my mind. 
 

when you compare cd 14 with cdn14, it supports the small sizing difference between the two series in soy. CDN has a second chemical coating to protect the wick material from acidic waxes. 
 

Baseline Test Discussion:

when you pick a wick series, I would make a small jar, dial in the wick and use it as the baseline for future cases of wax. For instance, pour a short jelly jar and cure as usual. Test for the best wick, and record that burn note so you can compare it to the next case/lot of wax. If they burn the same, or reasonably close, you can more confidently make new scented candles with that case. If the small baseline burns too hot or not hot enough, it is an early alert to do further testing before going hog wild with pouring new batches and know too late that your wax is “off”.