Palm pillar candles - burning

[nadiap]

Quick question - when you make these - what is your intention when burning? So that a thin shell is left and the middle section of the candle burns down ?? Or do you aim for the whole thing to burn down as well. ???

I have a pillar that I tested yesterday -at last I think I found the right wick !! it burnt right down to the end through the middle - with a shell that stayed in tact for about 1/2 the height and right near the end of the burn, I did have a little bit of spillage / melted wax leak onto the bottom of the plate holding the candle...

just curious :-)

[Stella1952]

Because palm pillars are not *huggable* like paraffin, I have found it much easier to wick mine to leave a thin shell - approximately 3/8" - which allows the pillar to become a mini-hurricane. After the shell is burned out, I put electric tea lights inside to continue enjoying them. This is especially pleasing when one has made freaky layered or tilty pillars that would otherwise be very hard to talk oneself into burning because they would disappear. With larger diameter pillars, I use actual tea lights because they warm the interior enough to produce a pleasing "warm" throw, but for 3 inchers, the tealight produces a little too much heat and can change the crystal formation, cause a blowout or embed the tealight in weeping wax from the inside of the shell.

Following are some eye candy shots from some of our favorite palm pillars burning to give y'all an idea of what we are shooting for with ours...

This is one of my favorite little square pillars that I made as a scrap project (thus its diminutive height) that continues to give great viewing pleasure even though I burned it out 4 years ago... it's lit with an electric tealight

This round, ribbed ball holds a regular tealight after burning out...

When I wick pillars to consume completely, palm wax either tends to "bloom" like a flower and crack or develop thin, fragile pieces which crack... both situations can cause major spillage! It's not a totally unpleasant look but one that requires a lot more attention to make sure it doesn't blow out and spill all over the place... You can see below where I have broken off some of the structurally unsound edges from the top...

...(the bits & pieces are some herbs I had included - not a good idea when making a candle expected to self-consume, even if it was kinda pretty. For sales to the general public (not fellow candle freaks who can handle something that requires extra attention), I think it's safer to wick to leave a shell.

I also strongly suggest that people burn palm pillars in glass hurricanes for safety, especially if they have evil, flammable cats wandering around looking for trouble! At the very least, I instruct folks to burn them in a shallow glass bowl rather than a traditional candle plate which will NOT contain a blowout the way a bowl will. Palm wax is extremely runny when it blows out and makes one helluva mess if not contained.

This is how I want my pillars to burn for folks... Here's a very pleasing 3" x 8" stripey in the process of being burned out...

[lrbd]

absolutely beautiful:yay:

[Meridith]

Because palm pillars are not *huggable* like paraffin, I have found it much easier to wick mine to leave a thin shell - approximately 3/8" - which allows the pillar to become a mini-hurricane. After the shell is burned out, I put electric tea lights inside to continue enjoying them. This is especially pleasing when one has made freaky layered or tilty pillars that would otherwise be very hard to talk oneself into burning because they would disappear. With larger diameter pillars, I use actual tea lights because they warm the interior enough to produce a pleasing "warm" throw, but for 3 inchers, the tealight produces a little too much heat and can change the crystal formation, cause a blowout or embed the tealight in weeping wax from the inside of the shell.

Following are some eye candy shots from some of our favorite palm pillars burning to give y'all an idea of what we are shooting for with ours...

This is one of my favorite little square pillars that I made as a scrap project (thus its diminutive height) that continues to give great viewing pleasure even though I burned it out 4 years ago... it's lit with an electric tealight

This round, ribbed ball holds a regular tealight after burning out...

When I wick pillars to consume completely, palm wax either tends to "bloom" like a flower and crack or develop thin, fragile pieces which crack... both situations can cause major spillage! It's not a totally unpleasant look but one that requires a lot more attention to make sure it doesn't blow out and spill all over the place... You can see below where I have broken off some of the structurally unsound edges from the top...

...(the bits & pieces are some herbs I had included - not a good idea when making a candle expected to self-consume, even if it was kinda pretty. For sales to the general public (not fellow candle freaks who can handle something that requires extra attention), I think it's safer to wick to leave a shell.

I also strongly suggest that people burn palm pillars in glass hurricanes for safety, especially if they have evil, flammable cats wandering around looking for trouble! At the very least, I instruct folks to burn them in a shallow glass bowl rather than a traditional candle plate which will NOT contain a blowout the way a bowl will. Palm wax is extremely runny when it blows out and makes one helluva mess if not contained.

This is how I want my pillars to burn for folks... Here's a very pleasing 3" x 8" stripey in the process of being burned out...

Those are beautiful. I especially like the first and last one. I love the idea of the shell and being able to reuse the candle.

Do you normally wick a palm pillar to leave that shell or can it also be wicked to burn all the way to down to a wax disc? What do you find the preference to normally be? I my(palm wax unexperienced) self like the shell because yours look so pretty.

[Stella1952]

Do you normally wick a palm pillar to leave that shell or can it also be wicked to burn all the way to down to a wax disc? What do you find the preference to normally be?

Yes. I deliberately wick the palm pillars to leave a shell. The ones I wicked to self-consume do not burn down to a flat disk, but more like a disk with ruined walls. You can sorta see that happening in the third photo... The highest points become very thin, pointed and fragile. I often break them off inadvertently when handling the candle, and, I admit: I am a picker and cannot resist breaking off the thin spires and putting them inside the shell to melt!

Because of this and the beauty of the wax shells, I decided that I would deliberately wick all of our palm pillars to leave a shell.

I don't know what anyone else's preference is - no one either of us knows had ever seen a palm wax candle until we showed ours to them. We have heard nothing but positive remarks about relighting the shells that remain. No one has complained or remarked about them not melting down to a disk. We explain how to burn these to our customers and the ones who can follow simple, straightforward directions are delighted with the results. The customers who *blow it* and blow out their shells buy replacements so they can try again. It's not difficult to obtain the results you see in the photos.

If you haven't fooled around with palm wax, I encourage you to try some! I find it very easy with which to work (much easier than soy!) so long as you follow "palm wax rules" rather than having expectations based on soy or paraffin. It's such a beautiful wax, it's extremely hard NOT to make beautiful candles with it!

Here's a photo of the little square when I was burning out the interior...

Edited January 14, 2010 by Stella1952

[Meridith]

We've recently started working with Palm and I must say I really enjoy this wax. We've only made containers and some votives so far. and we've figured out how to cool them down properly; still working on the wicking but we may have that one down with the FOS we've worked with. I recently broke my wrist so our testing has been going a bit slower than we want. Pillars are on the list for us to work with too.

[Maggie]

Gotta agree with Stella on people NOT following your instructions on how to burn them properly and then saying...oh I forgot you told me that. PLUS I give everyone who buys one a printout on the proper way to burn a palm pillar.

A good friend bought one last year. She had it burning so her grandaughter could see it when she got there around 4:00pm. A few hours later her grandaughter said...Grandma...your beautiful candle sprung a leak. I asked her how long she had it burning...when she told me 9 hours I about slapped her...lol. I'm like...ANDREA...WHAT DID I TELL YOU? :rolleyes2

And my daughter did the same thing with the one she bought...had it burning all day. And she helps me at craft shows and hears me telling everyone that palm pillars can't be burned forever but again...:rolleyes2

[Stella1952]

still working on the wicking

Have you tried CDNs & CDs? I have had very good luck with them in all of the different formulas of palm wax we've used... Again, it's important to note that palm wax just doesn't burn like soy or paraffin, so allowing it to "do its thing" is the key to finding the wicking that works.

I asked her how long she had it burning...when she told me 9 hours I about slapped her...lol. I'm like...ANDREA...WHAT DID I TELL YOU? :rolleyes2

Well...:embarasse...I am a self-admitted powerburner at home. One of the things I love most about my palm pillars is their "light 'em & forget 'em" capacity. I lit a 3" x 3" pillar (wicked with a CDN 12) late afternoon of 12/30 in a hurricane with sand in the bottom (my safety insurance). I extinguished it once when we went to bed in the wee hours of 12/31. I relit it after sundown on 12/31 (New Year's Eve) and it burned until the late evening of 1/01/10 (New Year's Day) when it finally self-extinguished. It burned slightly off-center because I was busy with guests, partying & blowing stuff up outside. It did not blow out, but the shell was off center, thinned out and melted a little hole at the top in one area. When wicked properly to leave a shell, one can burn these far beyond any reasonable burn time.

Here's one I lit late afternoon on 11/03... note the glass hurricane (water in the bottom) on a concrete table on the porch outside in calm, mild weather conditions... Testing should take place under the safest conditions one can muster...

It burned all night long, slow & true... This is what I saw looking into it while drinking my coffee the next morning...

This was a tester for a FO I did not like, so my goal was to enjoy it and burn it out as quickly as possible 'cause I had a friend who wanted the shell (she actually LIKED the nasty Hawaiian Punch fragrance) but didn't want to bother burning out the interior for the shell. I kept telling her IT AIN'T HARD!! It doesn't take fine tuning with constant vigilance to obtain decent results!

[Meridith]

Have you tried CDNs & CDs? I have had very good luck with them in all of the different formulas of palm wax we've used... Again, it's important to note that palm wax just doesn't burn like soy or paraffin, so allowing it to "do its thing" is the key to finding the wicking that works.

Yeppers we have those wicks that we are testing as well as the CSN's, HTP and RRDs. We will be testing the CSN's and the CDN's with the pillars. So far, I did not like the HTP's for the container. The 105 left too much hangup in a 9 oz hex jar but enough to where it appears the next wick size up just maybe too hot. We haven't test the next size HTP wick to see since I wasn't happy enough to try HTPs and palm further. The RRD 55 was too hot so I might try a much smaller size with that wick. But so far, we are happy with both the CSN and CDNs and how they are preforming although the CSNs do seem to have a larger flame (almost like a torch) on the initial burn but they do settle down nicely.

ETA - We are also enjoying using colors in our candles since we never color our soy and don't plan on coloring the beeswax candles either.

Edited January 14, 2010 by Meridith

[Circle]

Stella, doesn't the flame become very small for a period of 2-3 hours? Just asking as when I wick my palm pillars to get a shell, there is a bad stage where the flame is quite small and there is not much light coming through due to the thick wall. I love your pictures.

[Stella1952]

Stella, doesn't the flame become very small for a period of 2-3 hours?

Often, toward the end, the flame does diminish somewhat. The wall isn't very thick on 3 inchers - usually only about 3/8" - 1/4" thick. I don't think any of our larger pillar shells are more than 1/2" thick. The darker the color value of the wax, the less light will be transmitted through the shell; the deeper the shell, the smaller the flame tends to become at the end (gasping for O2, no doubt); and, the smaller the flame, the less light it emits... so the glow does become dimmer, but since I don't use 'em to read, this doesn't bother me. There is still plenty enough light for a nice glow, depending on how much ambient light there is. I usually burn mine in the dark with little or no ambient lighting, so the glow is more noticeable. The blue/lavender stripey candle in the photos is a good example of this. It was a taller pillar and the layers were colored from lighter to darker value colors.

Thanks! I really love photographing them! Wish i could make some of them look as *alive* in the photos as they look in real life, but general ambiance is hard to capture!

[Sharon in KY]

You make some beautiful candles. The Palm pillars are beautiful when burned as a shell, with the light glowing through. By electric tealight, do you mean one of those battery types? Or is this a candle you made and put a cord on? My husband bought a pillar that had a small light about the size if the tealight ones but you blew it on and off. Really cool, wish we could find those to put in the forever candles.

Also love the hurricane for the pillars and the size is really nice. Looks really large , just what size is it? Think I'll check Hobby Lobby and see if they have them. Then I'll need a pillar to put in it. Damn it Stella, I do not need another project. I still have 49 lbs of container Glow Wax that I just can't find time for. I have a bag of LumaLite ?? wax from WSP that is about 8 or 9 yrs old. Oh well I got to take my sleeping pill and get to bed. Talk to you later.....

This is one of my favorite little square pillars that I made as a scrap project (thus its diminutive height) that continues to give great viewing pleasure even though I burned it out 4 years ago... it's lit with an electric tealight

[Stella1952]

By electric tealight, do you mean one of those battery types?

Yes - the little, round electric tealight things with the fake flame. You can get them in all different intensities, colors... some flicker, etc. Very pretty!

Or is this a candle you made and put a cord on?

No, but I don't see any reason why this could not be done...

The world of battery & solar powered little lights is getting larger! I have some LED disk type lights (like stick-ups) that work great in hurricanes & larger diameter pillar shells.