candle making

crawley_girl

Burn your candles if you want to, use them as ornaments if you so choose.

No-one is going to call the candle-police!!!


Back to OP, I use tea-lights when enough wax has been melted down on chunky candles. I have never managed to burn them 'nicely' and they always end up looking lopsided and wonky. I have seen my mum slice off huge chunks of soft wax after the candle has been burning for a while but it looks too bloody dangerous for me to do without burning myself and tipping hot wax over myself and carpet!

geordie_joe

Kevie192 wrote: »

If you do melt them, I would HIGHLY recommend you make relief holes like this tutorial instructs you to. Otherwise, you'll have exploding candles on your hands!!

Forgive me if this is a stupid question. I'm not self employed making candles, I'm just a person who was born in the days when "remaking" candles was an every day job, given to the youngest kids in the family. As a result, I have remade more candles than I have had hot dinners.

I have never heard of anyone poking holes in the candle to prevent explosions. And I don't see what good it would do.

Step 7 in the link you give tells you to poke holes in the candle to prevent explosions. The text says (about the holes) "The important point here is to provide a vent by which the contracting volume of wax can suck air through to make up for the decreased volume."

But in step 8 you will clearly fill in these holes when you re-pour, so how will the wax suck air through the hole when you have filled it up again? Even if you don't completely fill the holes, you will certainly seal them and prevent air being sucked in.

Kevie192

geordie_joe wrote: »

But in step 8 you will clearly fill in these holes when you re-pour, so how will the wax suck air through the hole when you have filled it up again? Even if you don't completely fill the holes, you will certainly seal them and prevent air being sucked in.

I agree, this is a little bit confusing but let me try to explain!

Pillar blend wax is designed so that it will contract on cooling. When this happens, you can be left with air pockets in the wax next to the wick. When the candle is burning and the fire meets the air, BOOM, you have a rush of energy as the candle finds extra oxygen and it will blow the candle apart, splattering anything around it in boiling wax. You poke holes when the wax is warm next to the wick on the premise that this then intersects with the air pockets so that your second pour ensures there is no air left and you have yourself a safely burning candle.

Hope that helps a bit more.

Kevin

gilligansyle

Not sure if this is any use, but a candle making kit I was given years ago had this bit in it which I have always taken to mean that you blow the candle out when there is melted wax in the centre and then it sets rather than just burning down the middle.

The general rule of thumb is 1 hour for each inch across the diameter. If you burn the candle less time than it is likely to burn down the centre on the next lighting, and drown the wick.

I throw all the bits of wax into an old tin and then when I've got enough make candles to go in pots outside where it doesn't matter what they look like.

NowWhat_2

Kevie

YOu talk abhout "pillar blend wax". Is there more than one type of wax commonly used to make candles - and one type gets used in pillar type candles and a different type in other candles?

beautiful_ravens

My candles havent exploded... I dont think Ive ever seen a candle explode, Ive made loads with re-used wax.

I have a really old 'make your own beeswax candles' kit [I got from an old ladies house she had died and we were sorting everything out.] its great, because theres sheets of wax which you cut to size and wind round a wick till you have a candle. I looked on ebay and found something similar: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Beeswax-Candle-Kit-Bees-wax-craft_W0QQitemZ320467839038QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Carfts_Candle_SoapMaking_EH?hash=item4a9d5f283e
very easy, AND you can soften the wax sheets and just press them around an ugly candle to make it look nice

Kevie192

NowWhat wrote: »

Kevie

YOu talk abhout "pillar blend wax". Is there more than one type of wax commonly used to make candles - and one type gets used in pillar type candles and a different type in other candles?

Yes, there are many different types and blends out there. The type you use for pillars is very different to that used for containers. Then of course there's either soy or parrafin waxes too, just to confuse things!

Here's a little snippet for a tutorial I wrote for another forum on "Working with Soy and Paraffin Wax":

Types Of Wax

Paraffin
Paraffin wax is a by-product of the petrol industry and is the type of wax you will see most in candles and wax melts available on the high street. It is available to buy as a pre-blended pillar or container version as well as raw paraffin to which you are required to add your own additives such as stearin or microhard.

Soy
Soy wax is a natural product made from the soya bean. It is creamier and mostly softer than paraffin wax and usually much more opaque. It is also available as pillar or container varieties and there is generally no need to use any additives unless for specialist applications. An interesting feature of soy wax is it’s ability for spillages to be removed with hot, soapy water which is not possible with other types of wax. In addition to this, soy wax is often thought of as a ‘greener’ wax as it produces less carbon when burning that other kinds.
There are a number of other different waxes available on the market for making candles, including beeswax and gel wax, but these will not be covered in these tutorials as I have no experience with these waxes yet!

Wax Blends

Pillar Blend
This type of wax is used mainly for creating pillar candles and wax melts. It is designed to shrink when cooling to aid release from metal moulds and tends to be much harder than container wax. As a consequence of this, it tends to be fairly brittle. For ease of use and the many benefits mentioned previously, I recommend using soy pillar blend for tarts and pillar candles. For very intricate moulds, however, you may find that it is better to mix this with some container blend soy or paraffin to make the finished product less likely to snap at vulnerable points either when removing from the mould or during its lifetime.

Container Blend
This blend, as the name suggests, is used when making candles held within a container. It is usually much softer and creamier than pillar wax, as it is designed to melt easily and evenly and provide a good adhesion to the container. In order to facilitate this, it does not shrink when cooling. Some people use container blend wax for all of their wax melts, but I find it to be far too difficult to remove from moulds with little extra benefits over pillar blend melts. Both soy and paraffin wax are available in container blend but I find soy to be the trickier of the two to get right.
As soy is a natural product, each batch made by the producers behaves in a slightly different way. This means testing every new batch of wax to ensure the wicks you are using are correct for the particular batch and fragrance and involves buying very large batches to eliminate unnecessary testing. For this reason, I prefer to use a high quality container paraffin for my containers and eliminate costly and time-consuming repeat tests.

Hope that helps!

Pink.

As this thread has dropped off the front page of Old Style I've added it to the main candle making thread to keep the advice and suggestions together.

Pink

geordie_joe

Kevie192 wrote: »

I agree, this is a little bit confusing but let me try to explain!

Pillar blend wax is designed so that it will contract on cooling. When this happens, you can be left with air pockets in the wax next to the wick. When the candle is burning and the fire meets the air, BOOM, you have a rush of energy as the candle finds extra oxygen and it will blow the candle apart, splattering anything around it in boiling wax. You poke holes when the wax is warm next to the wick on the premise that this then intersects with the air pockets so that your second pour ensures there is no air left and you have yourself a safely burning candle.

Hope that helps a bit more.

Kevin

Sorry, but your explanation just makes the whole thing sound even more stupid.

The wax contracting would not cause air pockets, as you imply in your first two sentences. There is either an air pocket in the candle or there isn't, the wax contracting can't create an air pocket.

Even if there was an air pocket in the candle it would not cause the candle to blow apart. All that would happen is when the candle burns down to the air pocket, the air will escape up through the melted wax. It would pass the flame and add oxygen to the flame, but a) this would not cause the candle to blow apart b) the air rising out of the air pocket would push the air above it away from the flame, so the flame would still only have the same amount of oxygen to burn. Don't forget the ration of oxygen in the air pocket is the same as the oxygen in the air around the candle flame, so all that would happen is air from around the flame would be replaced with air from the pocket.

I'm sorry, but you are never going to convince me that a sudden rush of air to the flame will make the candle go BOOM and splatter everything around it with boiling wax.

Kevie192

geordie_joe wrote: »

I'm sorry, but you are never going to convince me that a sudden rush of air to the flame will make the candle go BOOM and splatter everything around it with boiling wax.

I am quite simply giving you the facts and what I know to be true - before I was making them for money I have had candles explode on me and I know many others that have too. It is usually this kind of problem you see when candles create house fires too.

Having worked with the country's leading candle testing lab, I can assure you that this is a very real problem that candle manufacturers face every day.

Try googling "Relief Holes Candles" and see what you get.

I was simply trying to warn people of this potential problem. I have some experience in this area and was willing to share some tutorials and information on safe practices but if this isn't needed then I won't waste my time.

Kevin