Candle Making

[LONER]

This is what I have so far... I will have to finish Saturday morning, as I have to go to bed shortly, I have to go to the "far away" office tomorrow and also won't get home until late...so here goes.
The following web sites were used to put this together, although as you can see they were not used verbatum:
http://www.ehow.com/how_5936_make-own-wicks.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_14274_prepare-candle-mold.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_14273_melt-wax-candles.html

Ok, how to make a candle.

General Warnings:

Be very careful when using hot wax. At its boiling point, it is flammable. Never use water to put out a wax fire, as it will just spread the wax and thus spread the fire. Instead, use a fire extinguisher or baking soda to put out the fire.

ALWAYS use a double boiler when heating wax. You can make a double boiler by heating the wax in a large tin can set inside you pot of water. This way, you don't ruin your double boiler pan!


Always keep children and pets away from the candle making area.


Never pour hot wax down your sink. It will cool there and plug the pipes up.


Don’t leave hot wax unattended, even if in a double boiler.


Things You’ll Need:
Cotton twine
Wooden Skewers
Candle Molds
Wick Tabs
Wicks
Baking Soda
Paraffin Waxes
Silicone Lubricants
Baking Soda
Chopsticks
Pot Holders
Scissors
Fire Extinguishers
Pot holders
Wicks

First you will need a mold. The type of candle you make will depend on what you chose for a mold. You can use small milk cartons, jars, mugs, coffee cups, empty juice cans, or buy an expensive candle mold! Let's say we are going to use an empty juice can. First, make sure it's nice and clean. Juice cans come in metal or cardboard, with metal tops and bottoms. The cardboard kind is what you want, because when the wax is hard, we are going to tear the cardboard off. To get the cardboard clean, rinse it out and then dry it well, so it doesn't go limp. Set this aside for now.
Next, you will need a candle wick. You can either buy wicking, or make your own. To make your own, you will need either cotton twine, like kite string, but that's kind of thin, so I would suggest actual twine, you can buy a roll of good sturdy twine for mailing packages, or buy it at the hardware store. I think that will work better than kite string. But hey, try both! See which one you like better. OK, got your twine.
Now, to make your wicks "candle ready," follow these instructions:
STEP 1 To get started making a basic braided wick, take 3 strips of heavy cotton string or cotton yarn and soak them in a mixture of 1 tablespoon of salt, 2 tablespoons of boric acid and 1 cup of water for 12 hours. (Or if you prefer, you can use a mixture of turpentine, lime water and vinegar.)
STEP 2 Hang them to dry, using clothes pins and a line you rig inside the house. Let dry for five days to be sure it is completely dry.
STEP 3 When dried, braid the three strands together to make a wick.
STEP 4 Use a paper clip tied to the end of your braided string to dip the string in melted wax three or four times, coating it completely. You will know when it is saturated because it will start to release bubbles. (Use a large paperclip to dip them so as to not burn your fingers.)
STEP 5 Remove them from the wax, pull them tight, and dip them into water, then lay on wax paper. Dab the excess moisture off with a paper towel. Let them dry on the wax paper for at least 30 seconds. For a stiffer wick, it is recommended to repeat this step more than once.
Hang it up to dry as before. Alow to dry 5 days.
STEP 6 Store wicks rolled up in a newspaper.

To make your candle wick burn with it's own special color, add ONE of the following chemical to the solution of table salt and borax, in the warm water in Step 1.....

Add 1 tsp. of ONE of the following chemicals for colored flames:
strontium chloride for a brilliant red flame,
boric acid for a deep red flame,
calcium for a red-orange flame,
calcium chloride for a yellow-orange flame,
table salt for a bright yellow flame,
borax for a yellow-green flame,
copper sulfate (blue vitriol/bluestone) for a green flame,
potassium sulfate or potassium nitrate (saltpeter) for a violet flame
or Epsom salt for a white flame.
USE ONLY ONE CHEMICAL ON A WICK.....MIXING EVERY THING TOGETHER MIGHT GIVE YOU A BIG BANG!!!!

Now, you have made your own wicks, which is a skill in it's self!
Remember,,,,,you are going to let your wicks dry for 5 days after they have been dipped in the wax.

Now, we are finally ready to put it all together and make your candle.
STEP 1 Spray the inside of your "mold" with either a silicone spray...available at a craft store, or with vegetable oil, like Pam. This will lubricate the mold and allow the candle to not stick to the mold its self.
STEP 2 Measure the length of the mold and cut the wick 3 to 4 inches longer than you will need when it's finished.
STEP 3 Fasten one end of the wick to a wick tab (USE A SMALL PAPER CLIP for your wick tab) and place the tab in the bottom center of the mold.
STEP 4 Hold the wick tab in place with a spot of melted wax.
STEP 5 Pull the other end of the wick up to the top and tie it loosely to a pencil or chopstick that spans the opening at the top of the mold.
STEP 6 Be sure the wick is straight and centered. You are now ready to pour the wax

The wick can be inserted after the wax is poured. It's a matter of choice. This is done by sinking the wick tab in the hot wax, using a wooden skewer, to push the wick tab to the bottom of the mold. I prefer to have the wick already in the nold myself, as you can cause air bubbles if you push it down afterwards.


Will finish on Saturday......

[Emily]

Wow - Thank you!
I will read through this and post questions tomorrow.
My neighbor just called and needs my help - have to run.

[Saul Mine]

Non-molded candles

Use canning wax in one lb boxes. It comes in four slabs. Dip two slabs in melted wax and stick them together. Stick two more slabs together. Cut a groove in one of these and lay the wick in it, being sure the top end sticks out far enough (Couple of inches will do). Now stick them all together so you have a 1 lb block with a wick in the middle.

Melt some wax and add bits of crayon until you get an interesting color. Dip the block in that and set it aside to cool.

Melt a small amount of wax with brown crayon. Cut lines where window frames and door jambs ought to be. If you want a different color for doors, shave off the color in that area. Trowel the brown wax into the lines and dab at it until it resembles wood. Now you can refill the door area with a different color wax.

Melt some wax and whip it with an egg beater until it looks like snow. Trowel it onto the block, piling it up in the shape of a roof. Put some at the tops of the window and door frames.

Mix up some hot chocolate and admire your little city. Caution: figure on about 20 to 30 pounds of wax for this project, more than one box of crayons, and a 2' by 3' board to put it together. Yes, it's so much fun you will easily make that many little houses!

[Salal Sue]

Saul, do you wear your favorite barn clothes while making your candle village? (See Saul in full dress in the barn fashion thread)!!!

Now, back to the OP, this reminds me to add twine to preps! Boric acid too--multiple uses for both!

Will look for your next installment on candles--great information!

[Emily]

Look what I found online:
http://www.smooth-on.com/Candlemaking/c1237/index.html

How to make your own candle molds from anything you have that you want to make into a candle and watch the Martha Stewart video demonstrating how to do it using gourds for Thanksgiving.

How cool!

[LONER]

WOO HOO! Now that is cool! I have seen some stuff like this, but what you found is a LOT more advanced! Great Catch!!:mrgreen:

[Emily]

WOO HOO! Now that is cool! I have seen some stuff like this, but what you found is a LOT more advanced! Great Catch!!:mrgreen:

Thanks! I found the site that sells it and a local distributor here.
I will try calling them tomorrow.

I am going to have so much fun with that stuff - if it isn't too expensive.

[cyberiot]

Awesome, Loner--thank you so much!

I can't wait until after Thanksgiving to try this. Forgive me if I bug you with questions--I'm a Candle Newbie--but your instructions look very thorough to me. You really know how to write a "how-to." Please consider submitting articles to Backwoods Home magazine. They LOVE content like this!

Lucky you--you know how to teach. Teaching is a separate skill and talent. I can DO stuff, but the only person I've been able to TEACH is my dd, and the only reason that has worked is because she's half me.

[Freeholder]

You can make candles without molds, by dipping. It takes more wax, because you have to keep the level of wax in the pot up, or your candles get shorter and shorter, and it's also more time-consuming, since you have to stand there and dip, cool, dip, cool, until the candles are thick enough. But we used to make a hundred or more pairs in a day when we were selling them -- if you make dipping racks that hold several pairs of candles at a time, and have something to hang them on to cool while you dip a few more racks full (I think we usually had four or five racks going at a time), the process is pretty efficient. It may actually be easier to do a year's supply of candles this way, because if you are using molds, you'd either need a lot of them, or have to wait for a set of candles to cool off enough to take them out of the mold so you can re-use it. All you need is a large pot to heat the wax in (a double boiler arrangement is best, but you can just set your wax pot into a larger kettle with something to keep it from touching the bottom of the larger kettle); the dipping racks; and wicking. We mostly made long tapers, but we had some Civil War reenactors who requested short candles for their candle lanterns, so we made those, too. It doesn't work well to dip candles in really hot weather, as the wax needs to cool fairly rapidly or it all runs back into the pot. But really cold weather doesn't work, either -- the wax will cool so fast that it cracks.

You can make dipped candles (or molded ones, for that matter) out of tallow, or mix tallow and wax. Keep tallow candles in something that mice can't get into!

Kathleen

[Salal Sue]

Where does one get tallow?

[studergal]

I remember making dipped candles at school in the fourth grade. The parrafin wax was melted in coffee cans on top of the radiators in the classroom. Radiators hot enough to melt wax would not likey be allowed in todays classrooms for safety reasons. This was in California during World War 2, so we were making them to use in case of enemy attack resulting in disruption of electrical service. It was probably part of a history lesson aout early America and pioneer times.

[Freeholder]

Where does one get tallow?

It's the hard fat that is rendered from a beef, sheep, or goat carcass. (Or deer, moose, etc., but wild game doesn't usually have much fat on it; bear fat is somewhat soft like pork fat.) You can buy it at a butcher shop, probably, if you don't do any butchering yourself.

If you need light, and can't get wax or any kind of hard fat, but do have soft fats available (such as pork, goose, chicken, fish oil, etc.), you can make grease lamps like people used to use -- think of the little Roman lamps, and that's what a lot of them looked like. Then there was the 'betty' lamp that was used up until after the Civil War by most people (oil lamps didn't come into widespread use until after that war); it's a hanging grease lamp made out of metal. You can still buy reproductions made for the reenacting market.

When I was at college, one of the Eskimo boys showed us how to make an Eskimo lamp with a large clam shell (quahog, or horse-neck clam), a strip of cloth from the bottom of his cotton t-shirt, and some vegetable oil. It provided light in the Forest Service cabin where we were having a retreat until the second boat-load of stuff got there with the oil lamps. There are a lot of wild plant fibers that the Indians and Eskimo peoples used for wick materials -- you can do some experimenting to see what grows in your area that will work.

Kathleen

[Saul Mine]

I remember making dipped candles at school in the fourth grade. The parrafin wax was melted in coffee cans on top of the radiators in the classroom. Radiators hot enough to melt wax would not likey be allowed in todays classrooms for safety reasons. This was in California during World War 2, so we were making them to use in case of enemy attack resulting in disruption of electrical service. It was probably part of a history lesson aout early America and pioneer times.

We did that same exercise when I was a kid, except the teacher didn't actually know anything. She got some sort of fat instead of the suet we were supposed to use. She didn't even have the presence of mind to substitute paraffin. We ended up with grease balls.

[LONER]

You can also make candles from bayberries:
http://www.djroger.com/bayberry.htm
Bayberry fruit is actually a "drupe" which is botanically equal to a cherry, peach or plum. Each fruit is about 1/8 inch in diameter and quite hard. The important part of the fruit is the grayish white waxy coating over the inner seed. It is the coating that creates the interest in the fruit. Like the
foliage, the coating is also aromatic and can be removed from the fruit to add aroma to candles or other wax items. The wax is removed from the berries by gently boiling in water. Allow to cool and the wax will harden at the top. The wax can then be added to candles, etc. The fruit ripens in September and may remain on the stems of the plants until the following spring.
Here's what they look like:http://www.armofthesea.info/images/flwrgallery/bayberry_lg.jpg

[Disastercat]

We made candles one year when we had sheep. We made the tallow/lard by simmering it on the solid fuel stove slowly for a few days until all the meat bits came to the top and were skimmed off. Then we strained the fat through a couple of paper towels and saved it in blocks. When we made the candles we re-melted the tallow and experimented with molded, dipped and glass jar candles. We used anneto (achote) for a golden color, you can use crayons too, but regular food coloring doesn't work with fat based candles.

The best results were from the jar candles, these really turned into oil lamps and burned for a very long time. The next best were the dipped candles, which burned quickly but gave good light, they also broke pretty easily, though we got enough to the UK for DH to win a prize category at a SCA (re-enactment style) event. The molded ones did not do well as the sheep's tallow was just too soft to burn well and hold any kind of shape. I suspect a mix with paraffin would have done a lot better.

The jar candles work best if you hang the wick from an old nail and weight it with a screw or rock so it stays down, even after the candle liquefies. These will burn for hours, I think we kept one going for nearly two days, and you could add more oil (olive oil works best) if you needed to. They work the same way as emergency olive oil lamps where you take a pudding dish, some cotton string a rock and screw or nail. Wrap the cotton string (braid it if it is thin) around the rock to hold it down then loop it up over the screw which is resting on the rock and partly out of the oil. Light the wick and it will keep going as long as you keep filling the oil. This is exactly how Roman lamps and the Eskimo lamps work.

Warning on all tallow candles, they sure smell funny. You get used to it after while, but I can see why paraffin became more popular or why people often went to great lengths to scent their candles, even in ancient times.

You can get fat from almost any butcher if you call ahead, pig fat is better for cooking but is way to soft for candles. Candles work better with sheep or beef fat.

Happy candle making!

Oh and as a child in California, we used to make candle molds with beach sand. You could probably do this with CLEAN cat litter from the shop and use the rest of the bag to stuff door snakes, to keep the cold drafts out.

[Emily]

Very interesting information Disastercat! Can you tell me how the cat litter can be used for mold making?

[eeyore]

very good thread thank you for the information

[Emily]

I found another rubber mold making compound at this site: http://www.polytek.com/

[Disastercat]

Use the kitty litter (which is clay/sand) with a bit of water to make it more like wet sand. Modern "green" mix litters wouldn't work, and clumping litter might not either. I have never tried this, so the clay mix might not work either but it might be worth a try. I know you can use clean kitty litter to stuff "door snakes" (knit or sew a long tube, decorate as you like, put on the bottoms of doors and windows to keep out drafts). I haven't tried that either here, because our climate so wet, I thought the sand might rot the fabric over time. But in a dry cold (like Colorado) they would work fine.

As my mom, Studergal says, coffee cans work well as do cardboard milk cartons. I think both work better with paraffin than tallow, though you could try a mix of the two. Another California trick is to fill large shells (like abalone) or clam shells with the wax and insert a wick. If you layer different colors of candles they can look really nice as they burn, the same it true for colored milk carton candles .

Really, almost anything that can take the heat of the hot wax will work as a mold. But it needs to be something you can tear off and throw away (like the milk carton) or something you are keeping the candle in, like the sea shells. The nice thing about beach sand is you can use it over and over.

As for dipped candles, they look really cool but you need a lot of work to make them right. If anyone decides to do this, be sure and read up about the 18th century technique for twisting the wicks together. That little trick is thought to have changed history because the candles burned so much longer than they had before. This let people stay up later, read more and gave even poor people more access to light.

Somewhere DH has an article he wrote on candle making, I'll see if he still has it somewhere and post it if I find it.