How to use a heat gun properly

[chicagocubsfan3434]

I'm going to attempt my first batch of candles with soy wax. I have a heat gun and 8 oz glass jars. 2 questions:

For preheating:

1)Where do I point the heatgun (on which part of the glass..inside, ouside?)

2)How long (seconds or minutes) do I blast the candles with the heat gun to have a good preheated jar?

Thanks in advance for your help. I did a search in the FAQ and in the search component on this website but didn't find any info for preheating.

[dashmo37]

You need to be very careful aiming the heat gun directly on the glass! If your only doing one candle you may just want to blow it lightly in the jars to warm it. if your doing more than one I would use the oven on the lowest setting. I never heat my containers. Sometimes I need to hit the tops real quick with the gun but that is all. HTH

[Henryk]

Don't think "heat" just think "warm"

As long as the temp isn't really cold I don't heat the jars. Also depends on the wax. If its a hot-pour soy, I don't preheat the jar at all. Pouring this type of soy around 160F heats the jar up fine for me.

Now, if you are pouring a soy that is recommended that it be "slushy" (edit: like the KY125 below) and your jar is too cool you may want to slightly warm the jar to avoid "ripples" at the meniscus (where the top of the wax meets the glass). You see the jar on the right was not heated - and therefore the wax line is much less smooth at the edge than the jar on the left. (That left one I had sitting on my radiator in one winter and grabbed it to pour into - thats when I noticed the difference).

Other people warm the jars all the time the theory being it helps reduce wet spots. (To me it seems more depedent upon the wax that the heat of the jar - JMO).