The Tale of a Candle, Part 3 (and last)

The Tale of a Candle, Part 3

Now we come to the conclusion of the Great Candle Tinkering Experiment, wherein I discovered:

How not to add a taper to a cheap novena candle with a bad wick (The Tale of a Candle, Part 1)
How to dye a novena candle if the supermarket doesn’t have the color you want (The Tale of a Candle, Part 2)

And now we’re going to learn how to fix those ugly holes that form when a novena candle cools. It’s amazingly simple.

First, when you melt the candle for re-dyeing, chop up a little extra wax and drop it in. Don’t bother to add any extra dye. I have a big block of “container wax” — specifically for jar candles like this. You could break up a tea light and drop it in, if you wish. I forgot to take a picture of this part.

repour 2 — I didn’t think of adding extra wax until I remelted the candles to fix the holes. As it turned out, I didn’t have to remelt the candle entirely to get the hole to smooth out. (And I didn’t take a picture of the extra wax added to the candle before remelting, sorry. As you can see, a little of the now colored extra wax has been poured out. Now the candles will cool …

repour 3a — Once again, an ugly “sinkhole” has formed as the candle cooled.

repour 3b — I placed the extra wax in a pan of simmering water to melt one more time.

repour 3c — As soon as the water comes to a rolling boil, you can turn off the heat. Residual heat will melt the wax completely

repour 3d — Carefully pour the wax into the “sinkhole” and all over the top of the candle.

repour 3e — This may actually be a little too much.

3 thoughts on “The Tale of a Candle, Part 3 (and last)”

Any suggestions to keep the wick straight when making or re-filling a glass encased candle? Mine have ALWAYS gone wonky on me and it is quite frustrating as I am sure you can imagine.. lol Even attempting to wiegh down the wick at the bottom of the glass has proven unreliable. I shy away from making them nowadays and just stick to my hand dipped tapers. Which is a long process. Worth it.. but I would really like to just melt and pour.. lol

Miss Michaele says:

November 16, 2010 at 1:48 pm

Worst comes to worst, you can just do this: http://bit.ly/akeBoS

And then this: http://bit.ly/dkel1n

If you don’t have those fancy metal things across the top (they’re called wick bars, and they’re cheap), you can cut a short, lengthwise strip in a drinking straw and string the end of the wick through it.

Reply

D’oh, I meant “slit.” Cut a *slit* in a drinking straw.

3 thoughts on “The Tale of a Candle, Part 3 (and last)”

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