The relief hole orthodoxy

[topofmurrayhill]

To poke or not to poke? That is the question.

Nobody would dare offer candlemaking instructions that don't include poking relief holes as the candle cools. And yet, with aluminum molds and pillar pins I have yet to see a cavity or other wierdness resulting from pokeless cooling.

Any thoughts?

[eugenia]

I'd be afraid of air pockets. You won't see them at all until it's burning; then whoosh!

e

[Mozzie]

Maybe it's the wax you're using. The only time I don't need to poke relief holes is with chunk candles, all my others just slurp away around the wick as they cool.

[SatinDucky]

I've not seen them, but definatly found them. Occasionally I'll poke the holes too early and forget to keep them open. After it has cooled I did my repour, then went back with a metal pick, like a dentists tool and poked the same spots. Well dug around a bit. Low and behold, the bubbles started gushing forth. That's happened a few times, in the 4625 and 1343 both. Forever reaffirmed the need for relief holes in my mind.

[topofmurrayhill]

OK I'll remain true to the Word. I've just been pouring a lot of test candles lately that probably weren't going to get burned so I didn't bother. Based on what I observed I wondered if I really ever needed to bother when using pins instead of a wicked mold.

[SatinDucky]

I use wick pins 98% of the time myself.

[Trish]

Take some of those experiments that you said you weren't going to burn and cut them open. See if there are any air pockets in there?

[topofmurrayhill]

Take some of those experiments that you said you weren't going to burn and cut them open. See if there are any air pockets in there?

Good idea but most of the tests got tossed by the time I thought to pose the question. Maybe I'll do it with the next round this coming week. Also I saved one test candle to burn for pleasure (best-guess wicking ), so I'll burn that one down and see if there's a whoosh.

[eugenia]

I've had it happen and believe me, you will notice that whoosh if it does,LOL!

I'll burn that one down and see if there's a whoosh.

[topofmurrayhill]

I know I mustn't leave my burning candle unattended.

[Alan]

And yet, with aluminum molds and pillar pins I have yet to see a cavity or other wierdness resulting from pokeless cooling.

You might not, but poking relief holes is good, cheap insurance. But remember, just because you don't find something in a sample of 10, it doesn't mean it'll never hapen.

[Alohagirl]

Even with relief holes and a wick pin, this pillar formed a big bubble. I posted it in the gallery--here's the link.

http://www.candletech.com/forums/showthread.php?p=19259#post19259

[Alan]

Devra, when you do those relief holes, one of the benefits is that when you do a re-pour, it can get in through the holes to fill any voids. But, you have to do the re-pour for that to work.

Relief holes do not let air out, they let air in, purposefully. What they actually "relieve" is a vacuum or suction. Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Alan

[Alohagirl]

But, you have to do the re-pour for that to work.

I usually do my repours after unmolding in case the pillar is fugly and not worth the trouble. So I guess they all have holes like this before the repour, but until this one fell apart, I never noticed.

[raginabr]

I have to agree that poking relief holes is a pretty quick and easy way to prevent a problem. Could be that since you have been pouring all of the test candles under the same conditions that you are experiencing any problems but when the weather changes (less humidity, etc) that you may find the candles react differently. HTH

[RobinInOR]

This was an interesting test a friend and I did on our two waxes. No poking.

Votives. The left is 1343. The right was my natural wax, Cleanwax. She didn't poke her 1343, and it really pulled away and shrunk down, deforming the top. I've noticed that in my pillars too, the sides are bowed if I don't poke.

Cleanwax just plain got holes. Had to poke..

[topofmurrayhill]

I promise and cross my heart that I will never ever contemplate pokelessness when making a candle that's intended to be burned (as opposed to testing for some other purpose).

Having said that, it's interesting to see how different waxes behave under these circumstances. One thing I noticed is that if there was ever a pillar wax you'd consider not poking, it's got to be Candlewic's 4045. I was kind of fascinated when I tried it.

In my aluminum molds, this stuff shrinks so evenly that it doesn't even make a sinkhole. Instead of pulling mostly outwards from the center, it goes to a great extent straight down along the walls of the mold, and just enough from the center to make a gently concave surface. The result is downright pretty.

[Mtngrl]

Robin, thanks for posting the pix. Visual aides are great!