Warning!!! Dipping Vats can leak!!!!!!!!!

[OFCILynn]

Hi all!! I had a AWFUL experience tonight!! I made a cut-n-carve candle tonight and when my husband just got home a hour ago, I had him take the vat out of the deep canning pot so he could go take the dirty/waxy water outside and when he got the vat above water level, it was spewing HOT wax everywhere!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One of the seams where the vat was welded to the bottom base had a 1/2" hole in it and it starting pouring all over him, myself, the stove, floor..........everywhere!!!!

Now mind you, I just bought these vats a month ago and just started using them a couple of weeks ago. I bought them from Pourette. I have NOTHING against Pourette and the other vats are fine but Ill tell you, I'm scared to death now of them!! When they are full, I got the large ones, they can hold 11 lbs of HOT wax! That is what was in there!

The crazy thing is that I couldn't figure out why I kept having so much of my titanium dioxide powder floating in my water and why it seemed like I was going through so much wax yesterday!!! Yesterday I noticed this and thought that even though I was paying CLOSE attention, that somehow when I would stir and remove the BBQ spatula that I use to stir with, that some of the powder and hot wax was dripping into the pot! I knew that a LITTLE of it was but NOT like that! When we dumped the canning pot, there was tons of the titanium dioxide in the bottom of the pot!

I chalked the loss of wax up to being a beginner and just thinking that the two candles that I did really sucked up that much wax! Wrong!!!!!!!

My husband is NOT a welder and I do not know of one but if I can find one, I sure would have them put a extra layer of solder around the base where the round vat meets it!!

I am normally the one that lifts the vats out of the water to dump but due to health, had to have my husband do it. He happened to grab it from the side instead of front. Had it been me, the hot wax would have poured mainly only on me except for what managed to get on the floor and such! I would have been scalded with 175 degree hot wax down my front!

Please, anyone that uses these, BE CAREFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Leaking Vats is not something I thought I had to worry about this early on with minimal usage!!!!

Now to save money and go order more wax and vats!! Urrrg! LOL

I make sure that I use a rack on the bottom of my pans and don't let the temp get past 185 degrees when I am melting my vat wax.

God Bless,

OFCILynn

[Connie]

Oh my, thats terrible. Thank God you did not get burned too badly. I don't use the vats yet but maybe you can prevent someone else from having the same thing happen to them. Maybe you can call Pourette and get a refund. Seems it really should of lasted alot longer than a month. I would aleast let them know what happened. Agian glad you did not get hurt too badly as your work inspire so many of us here on the board.

[RMFrase]

I too have had this same experience - several times. I once had a leaking vat lose about 10lbs of melted wax as the bottom section just fell off while I was taking it out of my tank. One of the first things that I personally learned the hard way is to never allow the wax to harden inside the vats. This puts tremendous pressure on the solder welds along the sides and at the bottom. Just as Ice freezes it can expand and burst a rock, wax shrinking can pop the welds loose and allow leakage.

Since wax is lighter than water, you may not know it immediately as your vat of color looks full - only to be filled with water underneath a layer of wax.

Since solder has a much lower melting point as compared to other metals, 375* for a 60/40 solder, make sure you vat never comes into direct contact with the sourse of heat. Even if the vat is in a water tank, and the source of heat is at the botom, do not allow the vat to sit directly on the bottom of your tank (that holds the water) as the heat will transfer to your individual vats. It is imperative that you have several inches of (water) clearance between the bottom of your wax vat and the source of heat.

Also, I learned to solder or replace the vats periodically by marking them with a perminate marker before using them. I marked the date of 1st use as I placed them into the vat. Personally, I tried to find a welder/metal worker who could make for me vats that were not made from thin sheet metal, but something stronger. But I could not locate anyone in my area at the time.

Once I put my new shop back together, I'm going to be sure to have the vats custom made.

The tanks that I built myself, utilized (2) 55 gallon insulated drums with a replacable heating sourse, and thermostat-trip (for overheating.) Also, the vats were elevated from the bottom by a metal grate that I also built. So, the vats were at least a foot from the heat source.

I'm so glad you and your husband were not hurt. I wasn't so fortunate - but was not seriously hurt.

Sincerely,

Robert

http://www.robertfrase.com/My%20Candles.htm

[BruceCarvesWax]

Yes those vats would use solder and not be welded so the solder MP would be a problem if you were to put them on a burner direct or let them sit on the bottom of a double boiler without something under them to keep the heat from melting the solder. One other thing that you might think about is to use a wood or plastic piece to stirr with, never metal that can scrape the inside solder. Stainless steel is the only way to go with dip tanks they last forever and are welded. You could try some JB weld (epoxy stuff) and try to patch your leak. Not quite the same thing, but once I was using a glass jar to store paint in for coloring incense and I used a metal rod to stirr it. I was holding the jar and circled around the glass about a dozen times and the whole bottom of the jar fell right on the floor! The rod had a burr on it and it acted like a glass cutter, lol I had paint everywhere! Bruce

[Molly]

I was going to say try fixing it with some JB Weld, but I see Bruce beat me to it!! If your hubby is reasonably handy, he can do it, it's no different than using epoxy glue really. I've used this on regular wax melters that were leaking water out, works great!

[OFCILynn]

Thank you so much all for your advise and letting me know that I am not the only one this has happened to.

I would love to have stainless steel vats and am searching the net to find a company that has the appropriate dimensions for me! I am also seeking a professional melter that the vats can go in so I don't have to use my kitchen stove!! Anyone know of any melter's that are available? Used to start out with would be great!!!

Bruce, I'm assuming that you leave your wax in your vats to cool and harden? Is that true?

I'm not sure what I could possibly use to pour 11 lbs of hot wax into to harden each night when I am done as to not put pressure on the galvanized steel vats!

I use either cookie racks, trivets, or the canning pans bottoms turned upside down to raise the vats at least a inch off the bottom of the pan.

I had found some stainless steel garbage pails at the Magic Dollar store! They are Home Accent garbage cans actually from WalMart! I don't know how the Magic Dollar got them but I bought all that they had which was 8 of them!! They are nice for the smaller dipped candles but not large enough for the larger ones! They are oval so I really don't have much room to work with but they help! You never know what you will find in the dollar stores!!

Any of you dippers know of a good place to buy stainless steel dipping vats that are at least 6" or more around?

I would also like to know your opinion on what kind of melter's that you use that you feel melts the vats evenly and is energy conservative?

Thanks again and God Bless,

OFCILynn

[RMFrase]

After using the wax for the day, I carefully took the vats out of my (2) 55-gallon drum boilers and poured them into large - disposable, but heavy gauge aluminum foil roasting pan. The link I'm providing here is NOT what I used. But is similar to the disposable aluminum pans that I used. They were inexpensive.

http://tinyurl.com/mponq

Mine was quite large and when I poured, I filled them about 1/2 - 2/3rds way up so that when it became time to break the wax, it was not hard at all.

I didn't always pre-melt the wax. I normally placed the wax slabs in a box large enough, and took a hammer to break them up. I then placed the chunks into the vats. Which I then placed into my melting tanks.

However, there were times that I used a double boiler and melted some additional chunks in a pouring pot I purchased from either Pourette or the (no-longer in business) Barkers. Both were located in Washington State. I then poured the hot wax into the vats that contained the chunks to help melt them.

If your going to use your stove, which I do not recommend, I would advise you to place something like this at the bottom.

http://tinyurl.com/mjc3x

It adds extra protection from the direct heat of the bottom of your pot. Water is allowed to circulate and keep the vat below the boiling point. You never want your wax above 180 (my opinion)

And if your melting it for carving, no higher than about 8 - 10 degrees above the melting point. (But I haven't carved in 10 years.)

If your wax is too warm past that point, you will re-melt off your wax layers you just added.

My system comprised of (2) 55-gallon drums that previously carried Non-hazardous liquid chemicals. I believe in my case, they had once carried corn syrup.

There was a metal grate that I made, from slotted angle irons that I purchased from the "Home Depot." hardware store.

I used the heating coils used in Hot-water tanks to make the hot water.

I used a 220volt line. A 120 can also be used, but it takes longer to heat up.

I used standard electrical (and electrically grounded) on/off switch system similar to a light switch on a wall.

I used a Thermal Cut-Off switch rated to 165 degrees. Therefore I could heat the water to at least 160. If it got hotter, it would automatically shut-off.

I also insulated the tanks to help keep them warm. Kind of like a blanket, but was made with Insulation that had a thin white plastic sheet on the outside, so that the fiberglass stayed on the inside.

I also installed a (outside type) brass faucet for draining the tanks when needed.

Each tank held (6) color vats with clear non-colored wax in the middle.

I'm in the process of adding construction plans/parts list in the booklet I have available at my website.

http://tinyurl.com/nph6h

TinyUrl is not my website. But is a process by which anyone can place long URL Links into emails to make it easy for people to use.

My actual website is http://www.robertfrase.com

Let me know if you have any other questions I may answer.

Sincerely,

Robert

[BruceCarvesWax]

Thank you so much all for your advise and letting me know that I am not the only one this has happened to.

I would love to have stainless steel vats and am searching the net to find a company that has the appropriate dimensions for me! I am also seeking a professional melter that the vats can go in so I don't have to use my kitchen stove!! Anyone know of any melter's that are available? Used to start out with would be great!!!

Bruce, I'm assuming that you leave your wax in your vats to cool and harden? Is that true?

I'm not sure what I could possibly use to pour 11 lbs of hot wax into to harden each night when I am done as to not put pressure on the galvanized steel vats!

I use either cookie racks, trivets, or the canning pans bottoms turned upside down to raise the vats at least a inch off the bottom of the pan.

I had found some stainless steel garbage pails at the Magic Dollar store! They are Home Accent garbage cans actually from WalMart! I don't know how the Magic Dollar got them but I bought all that they had which was 8 of them!! They are nice for the smaller dipped candles but not large enough for the larger ones! They are oval so I really don't have much room to work with but they help! You never know what you will find in the dollar stores!!

Any of you dippers know of a good place to buy stainless steel dipping vats that are at least 6" or more around?

I would also like to know your opinion on what kind of melter's that you use that you feel melts the vats evenly and is energy conservative?

Thanks again and God Bless,

OFCILynn

I have never had to take the wax out. Even back in the 70's when we started out with galvanized we didnt take the wax out. We did paint them before the first use with some kind of marine coating that you would use on a metal boat to keep the salt water from rusting the steel. Long time ago so I really dont know what the name was or where we got the stuff at. Heating and cooling shops might be able to help you out on stainless steel. I have some that Im not using but they are HEAVY STAINLESS. They weigh about 30#s empty and are not very large diam, maybe 6 inch and about 20 inch deep. THICK STUFF. It was surplus pipe from a manufacturing company.... PET INC, general foods, it was from when they added a new line (they make red devil canned ham and roast beef and junk like that) at the factory and the welder had access to the scraps and made these them for me. Dont need them now, too heavy even empty! All our stuff is / was custom made.. I never pay retail for nuttin. Best thing to do is let you tank stay on and not worry about the melting and cooling. I had mine on for about 8 years straight once.... Bruce