Glass glow palm pouring

[Wessex]

I have been doing it that way a while, and it works fine. Once or twice I have flipped too soon, boy that is fun, LOL.

Cheers,

Steve

[Candybee]

I have been doing this ever since Top posted his flipping technique. Works like a charm. For my jars I wait about 30-45 minutes before flipping. Have not had one single leak in literally dozens of cases I have poured since. Plus the candles burn better and the tops are perfect.

[blue]

Thanks for your responses! I'll give it a shot..

[HorseScentS]

If you let the top set up and leave it alone, it's never going to look more pristine. There's no need to give that up or multiply the amount of labor required per candle with useless "wrecking" because of imaginary safety concerns. There are no flareups--either large or small--when the air pockets are at the BOTTOM. The trick is to pour the candle, wait for the wax to solidify against the glass and crust over the top, then just flip the candle upside down. That will optimize the burn and give you a perfect top.

How long do you have to wait after pouring before the crust is hard enough that you can flip?

[HorseScentS]

I have been doing this ever since Top posted his flipping technique. Works like a charm. For my jars I wait about 30-45 minutes before flipping. Have not had one single leak in literally dozens of cases I have poured since. Plus the candles burn better and the tops are perfect.

Oh, okay, 30-45 minutes, Thanks! I didn't see that before I posted.

[topofmurrayhill]

Even though this thread is old, I'd like to make a safety point about my flipping technique and also add a few technical notes.

 

An important safety consideration for flipping GG candles is that there is no need to do it at the earliest possible moment. It doesn't matter if the air pockets are all the way at the bottom. You just don't want them near the top. Don't flip until you're certain the candle surface is very solid. If in doubt, be careful and wait a little longer. You should never have a leak.

 

The reason small air pockets towards the bottom aren't a problem is that the wax is very porous. As the candle burns, melted wax seeps down to fill any voids, so there is never a flare-up. Palm waxes like feather and starburst are the same, and pillars cool upside down just like the flipped GG containers.

The most you would have to do with a palm pillar is poke through the bottom and do a second pour, but that's mainly for hard palm waxes like tortoise that set up with a big void. When a second pour is needed, it can be done when the pillar is totally cool. It doesn't even need to be in the mold.

 

To be blunt, "wrecking" has always been a terrible technique that should never have been perpetuated here. It's a whole lot of bother for no purpose at all, and it's impractical because it doesn't scale to making a lot of candles. Your pouring techniques need to be simple and smart, not overwrought and obsessive.
 

[Candybee]

Top ever since you suggested your flipping technique I started doing that. I have been doing it for several years now and it still works great.

 

I haven't made palm pillars in a while but when I did I think it was before I started the flipping jars. I always used to poke relief holes in the bottoms to do a repour. That was with crystal pillar palm. Not sure if that is as hard as tortoise but it is as hard as feather palm. All I know is when the crystal pillar palm wax cools its rock hard yet the edges can flake or chip off after time.

[topofmurrayhill]

Top ever since you suggested your flipping technique I started doing that. I have been doing it for several years now and it still works great.

 

I haven't made palm pillars in a while but when I did I think it was before I started the flipping jars. I always used to poke relief holes in the bottoms to do a repour. That was with crystal pillar palm. Not sure if that is as hard as tortoise but it is as hard as feather palm. All I know is when the crystal pillar palm wax cools its rock hard yet the edges can flake or chip off after time.

 

The waxes I'm familiar with are the ones that IGI is importing (and CS used to), so I don't know about the crystal pillar wax. When I tested those other pillar waxes, I made 6 inch candles and cut them in half to see how they behaved in terms of air pockets. I think I might have even posted photos of that.

[Candybee]

You did post pics and I remember them. Especially the one of the tortoise shell and it's interesting circular cone-shaped air pocket pattern. I tried looking for the pics a while back but couldn't find them. I did find a couple of your old posts about your testing the different palms a while back when I was doing a search.

 

One of these days I want to work with feather palm. I think its beautiful and I may give tortoise shell a try too. Peaks carries all the palms except crystal I think. I got the crystal palm at Candlewic and C&S.

 

But for right now my soap is keeping me busy these days and I do very few candles now.

[topofmurrayhill]

Feather is easy peasy and looks awesome! Pick some up on your next order, just for kicks. With something in the vicinity of CSN 12, you can just pour any which way and go about your business until it's done. Guaranteed to come out great.

Tortoise, striking but temperamental. And those big corkscrew voids were interesting.

[Candybee]

I was hoping to pick up a sample of feather palm next time I get some glass glow at Peaks. I usually carry CSNs. Thanks for the tip!

 

I think I used LX  wicks before with the crystal palm pillars. They worked okay and I don't think I tried testing out any more wicks as I quit working with pillar palm for a long time.

Edited March 25, 2015 by Candybee

[topofmurrayhill]

I found some of my testing threads for palm pillars.

 

For the ones with all the burn test photos, you can search with quotes:

 

"tortoise shell palm testing"

"feather palm testing"

"starburst palm testing"

 

For the resulting instructions and recommendations, search with quotes on "how to use and wick" and all three waxes will come up.

 

I recall those waxes all fried LX wicks for me. That makes me suspect that LX might not do well in any palm wax.

LX wicking with the NST2 chemical treatment worked way better. Not the best, but it held up. There are some burn photos for it, but I didn't mention it in the final results because [1] the suppliers don't sell it (CS special ordered it for me from Germany) and [2] some people might think I was talking about the standard LX.

 

I have to hand it to CS. They imported the waxes, helped develop wicks that would burn in them, and it worked as advertised. There are wick types you can fall back on, but CSN is what I have the most confidence in. As a starting point, my instructions report the sizes I had the most luck with.

 

I'm amazed to this day that CS abandoned those products.

[Candybee]

Believe me a lot of people were amazed and disappointed that CS discontinued selling palm. Fortunately they continue to sell the CSN wicks for which I am grateful. But they really left a lot of chandlers in a fix when they quit selling palm. But I did understand their being upset with the RSPO for allowing inconsistency in their members wax products.

 

For a long time I used Candlewic's crystal container palm exclusively and still do today. This year I will be switching back to Peaks Glass Glow as I am familiar with it and now that they opened up a warehouse in PA (closer to me on the east coast) and am starting to sell candles year round again I will get my wax from them.

 

But I do have to give a big thumbs up to Candlewic for their outstanding wax constistency and quality. They buy the raw materials and custom blend the waxes on sight in their own factory. I always got consistency in the wax I bought and could rely on its performance plus the cost was the lowest around for that wax.

 

I am praying that the Glass Glow from Peaks is consistent. Its one reason I switched to the crystal palm from CW. The glass glow was not consistent for years. It was good when it was good and awful when it was pour quality. That was a problem in the RSPO a few years back. I don't know if its changed but am hoping that they regulate their members manufacturing process or have tighter qualifications for production now. If I run into an inconsistency problem again its back to CW's crystal palm.

Edited March 26, 2015 by Candybee

[topofmurrayhill]

I guess the suppliers selling those products get them from IGI. And guess who hooked IGI up? CandleScience!

[Candybee]

Yeah. They both bought their palm waxes from IGI and even had the same batch numbers on the cases. So if you got a bad batch from CS you could've gotten one from Peaks. But I think Peak watched the boards more closely and pulled bad batches. You could notify CS about a bad batch and they would continue to sell the remaining batches. Frankly, they didn't trust in their customers experience enough to pull the bad batches. I sent them a few lbs from one of batches they sold me. It was after that they contacted the RSPO in Malaysia and then suddenly discontinued their palm. Is was quite the scandal!

 

I am hoping the RSPO has gotten better at policing their own. I think Peaks would have pulled it if it continued to have problems but since they didn't I am hopeful it truly is up to standards.