My 1st Attempt Ever!!

[babydoll]

Hi everyone, I have just started making candles and as my 1st attempt I decided to make a square pillar (3" x 3" x 3") following the instructions off this site.

As you can see there is a horizontal line running halfway up the candle, this is when I was pouring and ran out of wax so I quickly had to melt a new batch!! LOL!!

My main question however is this:

As you can see the flame is quite large and I noticed it was smoking alot, I have trimmed the wick and it still smokes like mad!! Do you know how to reduce the amount a candle smokes??

[topofmurrayhill]

Congratulations on your first attempt. That's not at all bad, but just seems to need a smaller wick. What wax and wick did you use?

[babydoll]

I trimmed the wick to a smaller size than in the picture and it has stopped smoking now!! I used Beaded Paraffin Wax and a 3 x 20 Square Braided wick.

Thanks for the help!!

[topofmurrayhill]

There are a few different ways of numbering square braided wicks and I'm not familiar with that one, so I don't know what size it is.

Possibly you're using Wedo flatwick, which is a flat braided wick that's numbered that way. If so, the size you'd probably want for a 3 inch pillar might be more in the range of FW 3x11 to FW 3x13.

I haven't used those, just going by the specs.

[katinka]

Not bad at all for a first try!! The flame is a bit big, so as Top suggested you might want to wick down a bit. This will not only decrease the size of the flame (and your candle won't look like a flamethrower:p) but it will also take care of the smoking.

Also just an FYI, if you want help on the board you would generally do well to mention what wick and wax you use, pouring temps, amount of FO etc.

Keep going - for me there was very few things so special as the first candle I made!!!

Katinka:grin2:

[Patience]

Babydoll...now you're a big girl! Enjoy!

[geekrunner]

Very nice job there noob!

geek