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Fingernails - BAD


Henryk

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Candlewic has their sh*t straight, so yes that's a good source. My favorite source for polymer additives is CandleChem.

If it made your candle opaque then your Gloss Poly is the right thing. Another way to assure yourself is through the irony that the polymers that cause opacity are clear (Epolene and Elvax) and the ones that keep the wax translucent are opaque (the various F-T waxes).

Sorry to alarm you. I hesitated to buy from Bitter Creek because they sounded confused:

IGI 1218: This wax can be used as an over pour for chunk candles as it is semi translucent when used straight or with Gloss Poly C15 added.

IGI 1260: This wax is semi translucent when used straight or with Gloss Poly C15 added.

Then I saw the words "clear crystals" in the description for Gloss Poly but I guess they were just referring to the appearance of the additive.

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Henry, all my additives came from Candlewic so I think I'm good as far as having each figured out. Mine are very specific as to what they are; the bags say "Gloss Poly C-15" and "Fisher Trop" and such.

Today I'm going to add vybar and soy to my pillars and see if I can stop the fingernailing. Darn it, something used to work......without additives! For years and years I didn't have the problem and now it's in better than 50% of my batches.

DanaE

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So you've given me something to look forward to :) Guess you are saying that even with the c-15 they could even develop over time. I'll have to do some in 1218 and let them sit around awhile - mine don't usually last too long - they either get burned or remelted. Maybe paraflint will work better in controlling it over time than c-15?. Sounds like a good extended experiment anyway. Thanks for letting us know and of course I will keep you posted if something interesting should pop up.

What a great bunch of pillars btw! :)

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Eugena....and Henry......a long time ago Bill Binder (owner of Candlewic)told me that I should use 4045EP for pillars, not 4045 which is now 4045H......I never had fingernailing with the EP and a little gloss poly. However, his brother Dave likes a different pillar wax...4144 with 3% gloss poly. 5% micro 180 and vybar 103 to make opaque and hold FO at 2%. That was told to me several years ago.....I keep notes...LOL Donita

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Eugena....and Henry......a long time ago Bill Binder (owner of Candlewic)told me that I should use 4045EP for pillars, not 4045 which is now 4045H......I never had fingernailing with the EP and a little gloss poly. However, his brother Dave likes a different pillar wax...4144 with 3% gloss poly. 5% micro 180 and vybar 103 to make opaque and hold FO at 2%. That was told to me several years ago.....I keep notes...LOL Donita
That's some formula. Have you tried it? 3% Gloss Poly is going to harden and opacify the wax quite a lot. 5% micro is going to hold a bucket of FO. The combo should raise the melt point quite noticeably. So somehow the Vybar just seems like one ingredient too many.
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Hey, jumping into the discussion here with something Henry might find interesting regarding 1218, temperature and humidity.

I just got back from Arizona where I used a whole case of 1218. Room temp. was consistently 80 degrees, low desert humidity. I made about 5 dozen pillars, most of them the kind you're trying to make: solid-colored-translucent, glow-all-the-way-down when lit. Some with fragrance, some with mineral oil, some with neither; I used various amounts of stearic and/or vybar, some with no additives. Pouring temps varied from 170 to 190, wax was never cooked at high temp.

Result: Some were great, some were not, but out of 5 dozen pillars, there wasn't a single fingernail in the bunch. (A previous case of 1218 in Arizona also produced no fingernails--low humidity perhaps?)

This probably doesn't help, but thought I'd share anyway. :wink2:

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No Top.....I never tried Dave's formula. I have always used Bill's. I have never had fingernailing with the EP and a small amount of gloss poly, fade inhibitor and mold release. That keeps my colors bright and gem stone looking. If I want to have a creamy look, then I add a little vybar 103. I make millions of chunks and have found that the blend CBL 141 works fine for that, but when I do my own formula, using wax from Candlewic, I can only use the EP. As soon as I add any kind of chemical to the 4045 (now 4045H) it ripples terribly and I can't use it. The EP with gloss poly stays flat and breaks apart easily. Donita

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  • 1 year later...

I made a batch of peanut butter cookie jars candles awhile back and they fingernailed really bad BUT i showed then to a couple people adn they loved them, they burned fine and now i have peple wanting the peanut butter ones to always look like that..... wonder if i can do it again :Dlol

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