I’ve been putting a lot of effort into this lately. I’ve made several candles and then I’ve tried burning a few, with mixed results. What has become clearly apparent is that “Pillar” candles, as in, ones that are not in any sort of container, made of Soy Wax, do not work. Soy wax melts at about 40 degrees and in a pillar candle this cause the sides to collapse and the melt pool to escape, making a right mess.
Now I’ve also got some new moulds to play with. A Santa Claus mould that works really well, although he is rather small. Naturally it will need painting, a “some one else” job I feel. The other mould is a “Pine cone”, which is again a Christmas feel. This is not a good mould as the individual spikes of the cone are not consistent. I’ll look again but am concluding that anything come out of China is crap.
I’ve got a load of Paraffin wax to make the Pillar candles, and things like the Hexagon candle comes out really well. I’ve also got some colours to try. Black, and Cream. It was slightly confusing when I find the Cream is actually deep Orange. I did some research and this is indeed correct. I made a candle, and it came out Cream.
So, with regard to a burn test on a Soy Pillar candle, here is the result after about an hour.
I also fired up one of the blue Hexagon Pillar candles, but this quickly ended with similar results.
So the Soy based Hexagon and Rose candles have been melted back down. Meanwhile I have been provided with a load of various containers to make into candles. A couple I had to discard as they would have cracked or exploded due to the flame getting too close to the glass. However, for the others I have been busy, creating many container based candles using Soy.
I have created a page, a Candle Vault, of pictures and descriptions of my journey so far.
And on a slightly different note, as we burn a lot of candles I experiment with making new designs using all sorts of things. We had one candle that was made in a Twigglets container. It was a big candle and it lasted well, but it was on its last legs. So I melted what was left and this time used a small Pringles container. There wasn’t enough wax to fill it up, even after adding all the bits and pieces of wax I had in the box. So I let it cure, then made a new batch of wax in a different colour to top it off.
This candle was made blind, as in, no wick. So to add the wick I drilled a hole down the centre. Took a length of wick, which had been dipped in molten wax and allowed to cool, thus making it ridged. Then it was inserted into the wax and a small amount of molten wax poured in to seal it in.
The sides did not come out very good due to being cast against cardboard, so I had a hot plate that I can reflow the surface of the candle by rolling it across the plate. It worked well enough for our needs.
And here it is, actually burning. My candles do work!
