Tabbing wicks

[bells4shells]

I'm curious-- do you girls/guys do this yourself? Or do you buy already tabbed? i've bought all tabbed, but am curious if you find that doing it yourself works better?

Also, the ones I've gotten have wax around the core, but I've seen people's candles with no wax on the wick at all... what's the difference?

[fredron]

Who has the time to tab wicks? I barely have the time to make the candles. Anything I can sub to someone else I leaves more time to create new fragrances and make candles.

Fredron

[greeneyedney]

i buy tabbed wicks but i also have tabs to do my own if i need too....

[Trae]

I tab my own wicks because I buy wick by the spool and tabs by the pound. Really doesn't take any extra time and I can make whatever size I want.

[honebun]

I buy tabbed too and I tab my own as I get loads of leftovers from jars that are long enough to make another.

[k0mptec]

Exactly Sarah, I do that as well, why throw away perfectly good wick that you will have to buy for another candle?!

[candlesprite7]

I buy tabbed for tealights and votives. I buy spools for everything else. I do keep tabs around for those times you need them.

[bells4shells]

Interesting! Thanks for the replies everyone. I think I may look into spools for my bigger candles once I start working on them.

[Oh-MYo]

Hi Jade. I'm no expert. I just do what works...for me. I don't sell candles. I just make my own.

I quit using tabs at all quite some time ago. Basically, I just ran out of tabs. And realized that a container without a tab eliminates a number of the safety issues. The wick just collapses into the melt pool once it has burned down to close to the bottom. Long before it can catch fire to wick trimmings etc.

I center a short copper rod in the container after I pour and twirl it several times as the wax is cooling so that wax doesnt harden to my---wick pin. Then extract wick pin, insert primed wick and repour.

I suppose that wouldnt be so effective with tea lites or votives. But it's what works for me.

[Ruby]

I retab wicks that I trim if they are long enough to use again. Saves some $$$. HTH Ruby

[Stella1952]

I buy tabbed, save the scraps and retab for other candles.

Spools are great, but one has to put out a heckuva lot of candles of the same size for that to be cost effective.

Having primed, tabbed wicks in a standard length is a big timesaver. If one, for example, was going to make nothing but votives, it might be more cost effective (cost + labor) to buy pretabbed wicks in the appropriate length for the votives.

When new to candlemaking, it's best to buy pretabbed, primed wicks in a variety of sizes until you get a feel for what you are doing and where you are going with your new passion. Test, test, test.