A different way to test?

[naomiheck]

I was thinking (that can be dangerous), since container candles burn quite differently at the beginning compared to further down, would it be helpful to initially pour the container only 1/3 or 1/2 full and start testing there? Then if the wick is appropriate, then pour a new full container to make sure the wick isn't a torch at the top? It's just so disappointing to have a candle burning well for the top half, only to find the wick drowns or the container gets too hot after all those days and hours of burning. Does anyone do this?

Naomi

[topofmurrayhill]

I actually mentioned this possibility in a thread maybe a week or so ago. I haven't adopted it as a practice yet, but I've been thinking it might be a worthwhile idea.

[LuminousBoutique]

I did this on accident actually.. I put a bit much wax in one of my pots and ended up pouring one and a half.. it worked out nicely to burn that one half candle and full candle at the same time!

[kimmeroo]

Great idea..."kill 2 birds with one stone", so to speak..lol.

Kim

Edited December 14, 2009 by kimmeroo

[Stella1952]

I was thinking (that can be dangerous), since container candles burn quite differently at the beginning compared to further down, would it be helpful to initially pour the container only 1/3 or 1/2 full and start testing there?

I think the idea is bogus. A candle burns from the top down and the best way to test (AND to learn!) is from beginning to end. I just don't believe in short cuts. For one thing, if you get past the learning curve stage, you should not have to do as much testing as you do when you are new because you won't make as many mistakes. You will learn how to guess more on-target than you did when new. Taking short cuts at the beginning of your candlemaking career will only prevent you from learning some valuable lessons. I have heard "old hands" take a lot of short cuts, but then again, they know more of what they are doing and what to expect than beginners. It just doesn't make good sense. I can't get behind the idea at all. Do your homework the right way and you'll learn mo' better!

[topofmurrayhill]

I don't think you understand. It's not about taking shortcuts.

The best wick for the candle is generally the one that burns well at the bottom of the container. A greater number of wicks might look plausible at the top. It's difficult to judge and the best wick could even get rejected.

Testing a half-candle or less could facilitate good wick selections with less expenditure of time and materials. Any selection would then be tested with a full candle.

There's a good enough rationale behind it that I think the methodology would have to be tried before it could be dismissed.

[RichardLOZ]

There really are no shortcuts, as much as we would all like there to be. Even now after testing literaslly hundreds of candles we still test every new scent / colour / jar combo from beginning to end.

Yes we already have a pretty good idea of the size wick to start with, but it still sometimes doesnt work the way we planned.

Every container we pour gets tested from top to bottom, and if the burn is too slow, or too fast, or if there is hang on the sides or any sooting, then that test has failed and we start again.

I also religiously record weights after each burn and then graph that so that I know how many grams / hour of wax I am burning. From that I can get a pretty good estimate of burn time to compare against actual burn time.

If I am asked by a customer how long my candles burn for I can answer in full confidence, provided of course that the burning instructions are followed.

I know many people dont test. In fact one of our competitors here when I asked how long her apothecary jars burn for told me approximately 80 hours. Not bad at all for a 10 oz jar. I sure wish I could get that burn time.

Testing from top to bottom is part of the craft as well as essential for good and safe business.

[jennyjo]

Honestly, my first testers are never full to the top. For measurments sake I use a half pound of wax and a half pound of FO to start testing. I use the 16 oz square masons, but they only hold 12.5 oz of wax when full and I fill with approx. 8.5 oz of wax when testing on the first go. For me I find that it gives me a more accurate idea of how the burn is going to go. When I used to test them completely full to the top, I found myself overwicking more often than not. Of course, once that is through I pour a full batch and I burn one myself and give one to a friend for feedback. If that goes well, they are ready to sell. It really works just fine. I have been doing it that way for a least a year. I have never had one not work after passing the first test.

[Stella1952]

The first part of the burn has a lot of effect on how the last half goes because of hangup. How does one know if a giant 'shroom is going to develop by halfway down if one doesn't have a first half? I certainly do understand and I think this is false economy both in terms of materials and labor. I would rather err slightly on the side of overtesting than undertesting and turning my customers into "beta" testers. Just my opinion.

[topofmurrayhill]

Apparently you don't want to understand. I'm going on the assumption that your reading comprehension isn't imparied if you choose to use it.

Spare us the rhetorical gibberish about turning customers into beta testers. Nobody said anything about changing the thoroughness of testing. People who don't want to test a full candle won't do it either way. This thread is exploring the idea of a more effective methodology for initially narrowing down wick candidates.

Nobody burns a full candle with every single wicking idea. People tend to narrow the selection by seeing how wicks work near the top of the candle, then they burn the most plausible candidates down. Everyone has had the experience that wicks seem to work great until you get past the middle. The idea is that you might be able to narrow the selection more accurately by testing performance in the lower half of the candle, maybe even nail the selection most of the time, then test it in a full candle.

If you're not interested in the idea, there should be plenty of threads more to your liking where you can regurgitate old posts. But you haven't presented any valid reason why this approach couldn't work or wouldn't be worth trying.

Edited December 14, 2009 by topofmurrayhill

[rebeccajo99]

I have tried your idea but I always felt like I was going in circles and that testing method didn't work for me. Maybe you will have better luck. I now pour 3 candles. 1 that i think it will be then 1 wick higher and 1 wicked lower and do side by side compairsons. Once I get my wick figured out I do it again with the winning wick to see if i get the same results. I am hoping that once my learning curve is done I don't have to pour 3 testers for each intially. You need to find a way that works for you and do it. People are always going to have different opinions

[Stella1952]

Ignoring your insults and getting to the meat of your post:

But you haven't presented any valid reason why this approach couldn't work or wouldn't be worth trying.

Actually, I did state my reasons which seem pretty valid to me:

The first part of the burn has a lot of effect on how the last half goes because of hangup. How does one know if a giant 'shroom is going to develop by halfway down if one doesn't have a first half?

[Debbie73]

This post is more about testing in general. I have never had a candle catch on fire before but this fall/winter season I had 2 catch on fire. I am still not sure what the problem was, I did wick down on both candles. I don't know if this made any difference or not but they were both chunk container candles. I, like a lot of ya'll have had to adjust my wick sizes by going down one or two wick sizes, but never ever did I have one that caught on fire, it was like a flambeau (I don't even know if I spelt that right!!) Flames were not shooting out all over the place, tho! Now, if any of you have ideas why it could have happened, I would love to hear from you, because this totally scared the pee-pee right out of me!

I always test, test, test everything, but I do mine with a full jar, just because that's how I started out. After this happened to me, I really got concerned about those that test a scent and assume they all burn the same way, because THEY DO NOT! I know the responsibility of burning the candle right falls on the consumer, but they deserve a safe candle, do they not?

Sorry for the hijacking, continue on! :yay:

_____________________

Deb

[Judy, USMC]

I agree with the hang-up problem. When I first started I tried filling the 8oz jelly jars I was using only 1/2 full. By the time I burned it down to the point that there was a hang up it was 1/3 of the way down. Usually I discovered that the wick would need some "adjusting" but there was too little wax left to pull the old wick and replace with another. So that meant pouring another tester. And if I guessed wrong on the new wick? It meant pouring yet another tester. Made for a LONG process.

Now I pour a full (sometimes nearly full) jar. It gives me the chance to pull and test different wicks if needed. If I hit it right the first time I just go into production... if not then I'll make other testers with the one or 2 wicks that seemed to work best.

But remember, I'm dealing with Jelly Jars. But I think that the same "not enough wax left to test another wick in the same jar" may happen with any size container.

I do think the 1/3 or 1/2 jar approach would work with paraffin where you get a complete melt pool on the first light-off. But it didn't work for me with CB-135 soy.

[CandleMama6]

When I first started testing, I would put the wick in and test it from the beginning to end. But if the wick was sluggish or too hot then I had a whole candle that was just kinda wasted. So then I started pouring the candle without the wick and would poke a hole in the center and test wicks. If one started sluggish or hot, I would pull it out and try another. Once I found one that worked well, I would finish with that wick. Then I would pour another tester with that wick and test it the whole way down.

I can understand your thinking on only pouring half a candle though. I have thought about it, but wasn't sure if it would give me a proper test. Maybe I will do a "focus group" and try it when I switch jars at the beginning of the year. Try a tester the old way and try one with half and see how comparable the results are.

I am not opposed to testing, I just get tired of having jars that wouldn't burn sitting all over the place. It gets to be a pain to eventually having to melt them all down to clean out the jars. So you may be on to something......just have to see if it would work and more importantly, be accurate in the results.

[topofmurrayhill]

I agree with the hang-up problem. When I first started I tried filling the 8oz jelly jars I was using only 1/2 full. By the time I burned it down to the point that there was a hang up it was 1/3 of the way down. Usually I discovered that the wick would need some "adjusting" but there was too little wax left to pull the old wick and replace with another. So that meant pouring another tester. And if I guessed wrong on the new wick? It meant pouring yet another tester. Made for a LONG process.

Judy, I understand where you're coming from but it also depends on how you approach it and how you think about the wicking problem.

I'd try this methodology by pouring simultaneous 1/3 testers with different wicks rather than swapping them. That would allow for a fairly fast bottom-of-candle test. If I can find the wick that doesn't tend to puff smoke in the worst-case scenario (full melt pool with minimal hangup at the bottom of the container), I'm going to want to use that wick.

This has decided my wicking with CB-135 in the past, but I had to spend a lot more time getting the answer by burning from the top. I even wasted time by rejecting the best wick choice and not continuing to test it until I discovered that the "perfect" wick blackened the container in the last few burns.

The better wick selection gave me more hangup at the top in a full candle, but I could simply burn it longer. Within reason, the ideal burn time for a candle is flexible; we're not so strictly constrained by the clock.

So I can think back to scenarios like that where this idea would have worked perfectly.

Edited December 15, 2009 by topofmurrayhill

[topofmurrayhill]

Actually, I did state my reasons which seem pretty valid to me

Actually you spent most of your energy making pointlessly dismissive comments about shortcuts and improper testing, which totally missed the point of the conversation.

As for your thoughts about hangup:

Hangup is going to vary depending on how someone burns the candle. At the very bottom, you can't count on hangup to slow down the burn because there might not be any. It should be possible to light that candle for 3 or 4 hours at the bottom, where you may have a full melt pool with minimal hangup, and not have the wick smoke. If it does, it's too large.

When you find the wick size that isn't too large at the bottom, but it won't burn the candle properly in 3 or 4 hour sessions when used from the top, then you may have discovered that your candle needs 2 wicks.

That wouldn't be a surprising result. There are lots of big single-wicked candles out there that don't actually work very well. Folks take the "see no evil" approach in assessing the performance at the bottom of the container as long as the wick is adequate at the top. Or maybe we mock the user for their blackened jar because they didn't burn the candle "just so" and with as much tlc as its maker did.

I think countless folks have had the experience of testing a candle all the way down, thinking the wick was working great, only to find the burn gets fast and dirty right at the end. That's the point of this idea. If you can quickly eliminate that result up front, your next step can be to take a good wick candidate and see what sort of burn sessions it would need to consume the candle well.

Edited December 15, 2009 by topofmurrayhill

[Stella1952]

Hangup is going to vary depending on how someone burns the candle. At the very bottom, you can't count on hangup to slow down the burn because there might not be any.

How would you know if there was any hangup or not if you didn't pour & burn an entire candle?

The OP has been testing 16 oz. candles which take a LONG time to burn completely. I totally sympathize with her frustration. In another thread I suggested that perhaps, until new folks get some experience under their belts, they might be better served to pour smaller candles which take less time to test and cause less wear and tear on their nerves.

[bugtussle]

but this fall/winter season I had 2 catch on fire. I am still not sure what the problem was, I did wick down on both candles. I don't know if this made any difference or not but they were both chunk container candles. I, like a lot of ya'll have had to adjust my wick sizes by going down one or two wick sizes, but never ever did I have one that caught on fire, it was like a flambeau

_____________________

Deb

Debbie, what wax were you using? This is a very scarey event and when it happens, it should get everyone's attention. I have had it happen with super-long burns in a tin which was over-wicked. The wax got so hot, it caught fire. Carole

[Debbie73]

Hi Carole! The candle was palm wax. One candle was Mistletoe which was a chunk candle and the other was Red Clove, regular candle. I know now that the Mistletoe was over wicked, I went down two wick sizes. What was strange is the candle had only been burning about 2 hours (I was on my 2nd 4 hour burn) It was the same with the Red Clove. I could understand this happening if I had been doing a power burn, but having it happen during a regular test burn was scary.

I finally decided to scrap the chunk and made a regular candle out of the Mistletoe, and I scrapped the Red Clove. I have work on that one later.

We had a customer come in the store and was telling me how she makes candles with stuff she buys from Hobby Lobby. I brought up the subject of testing, and I am not sure she was understanding the fact that she should be testing before selling or giving them away. I don't think this can ever be overstated!

Sometimes, people really do scare me!

____________

Debbie

[WillowBoo]

I test my candles by pouring half way up the jar. I tested for months and months and couldn't figure anything out and finally attempted this method. Using the 16 oz. LM Mason jars and CDN wicks, I have been able to properly wick scents using CDN sizes 12-16. I prefer to err on the side of underwicking rather than overwicking. I always have a bit of residue no matter what, even if I intentionally make a candle a small flame thrower just to see if all the hang up disappears. If my jar is too hot at the bottom then I pull the wick and test with a size smaller. I randomly test full candles and have yet to find one that was a problem. Mason jars are denser than the regular glass candle containers (except maybe an apothecary jar), in my view, so maybe that has something to do with the success of my testing method. But then, as you all know, there's always tomorrow and a new dilemna.

[soy327]

Wow, there's alot to think about here, thanks for the thread:yay:

[soy327]

I actually mentioned this possibility in a thread maybe a week or so ago. I haven't adopted it as a practice yet, but I've been thinking it might be a worthwhile idea.

Where is that thread?

[naomiheck]

Hi. Original poster of the thread here. :smiley2: I like the idea of 3 test candles with 3 different wicks, and I did just that last night with some jelly jars. Actually for 3 different wick types, though (HTP, CD, and CDN). But I forgot to make a little extra for half jar testing as well.

Actually, the way I was thinking, the partial pour test would add extra work rather than be a shortcut because I would never be satisfied with a candle that wasn't tested from start to finish several times (power burning included). I've had several friends who have lost all their possessions by a house fire (not candle related, though), and have seen their suffering.

I've been randomly buying candles made by others (my husband thinks I'm crazy because of all my candles lying around the house), and they all seem like torches at the top. I haven't burned them all the way down yet (too busy with my own testing), but I wonder if they've been thoroughly tested, or if they were meant to be that way and will be fine further down.

I am in the process of testing a double wicked 16 oz apothecary (creme brulee and Peak's C wicks), and it was burning great the first half. Then for 2 burns halfway down, the flames were really small - one was a quarter inch and the other was so tiny I thought for sure it would drown. But it didn't. The melt pool was about 90% full after 3 hours. Then the next time I burned it, the flame was better (back to about 1/3 inch). Maybe a "black hole" of no oxygen? I'm not sure what to make of this, and whether this is acceptable. I planning on remaking this and testing again. I'm afraid to wick up because I don't want the jar to get any hotter. Anyone else have this happen?

Naomi

[topofmurrayhill]

Where is that thread?

It wasn't actually discussed in that thread, just mentioned.

http://www.craftserver.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87631

http://www.craftserver.com/forums/showpost.php?p=806653&postcount=12