The Wick Maker – BIG PLANS

All of you candle makers out there know just how important the candle wick is. It can burn too cold, it can burn too hot, it can smoke without help from the candle wax. Wifey learned that if she used a 100% cotton wick primed with the same 100% soy wax that was in her candle, she could be assured of a clean burn. Finding the correct wicking material took a little trial and error, but when accomplished, it produced a very very good candle.

Well she was making good candles fairly regularly now, even to the point of giving and even selling some to friends and relatives. Her candles burned every bit of the wax, they produced minimal smoke and it was mostly white smoke, not the black sooty stuff you get from most candles. They also had a goodly amount of pleasing aroma. My personal preference was called “Baby Power.”

She was now making great candles consistently, but I was a hero to her. At first she was spending more time making wicks than she was actually making a candle. Then I came up with the “Wick Maker”! This little devise allowed her to make perfect wicks by the dozens in a minimal amount of time. At first I just made one for her, then she wanted another, and after several weeks of nagging I made a third one. She really loved this apparatus that I had developed in the garage. Wifey was bragging to everyone how she made her own perfect wicks from 100% cotton wicking using 100% soy wax. Other soy candle hobbyist and candle makers just could not make the same claim. Many of the wicks you purchase on the web are either paraffin or a combination, sure they do burn hot, but they also smoke, a black ugly smoke. She just would not use them.

Back to her big plans. There is a large fall festival near where we live. There are over 500,000 visitors to this festival which goes on for 9 days. Hundreds of vendors, maybe thousands, set up to sell their goods and crafts in a festive atmosphere. Well Wifey decides she is going to be a participant and sell her candles at this event.

WOE IS ME! WOE IS ME! WOE IS ME! We had been picking up a few cases of 8 ounce jars at local big box stores. Now a few cases just would not be enough. Well her goal was to make 1000 candles by the time the festival started. Since it was only a couple months away, this was quite an undertaking. Now we need lots more stuff.

• We needed to buy 1000 jars $$$
• We needed to buy 500 pounds of soy wax $$$
• We needed lots of different scents $$$ (I did not know there were so many)
• We needed lots of dyes compatible with soy wax $$$
• We needed wicking material, clue dots, and bases for the wicks $$$
• Oh, we needed labels for the jars $$$

Now she was starting to make her candles in bigger quantities. We had purchased a wax melter of sorts, and she could melt much larger quantities of wax than she could on the stove top. I will tell you about this economical (cheap) melter later on. You may just want to for go those expensive ones that sell for hundreds and thousands of dollars.

The green candles are Granny Smith Apple. They have a great fresh smell. The orange ones are Fruit Slices and Dream Sickle, both have very pleasant aromas. Maybe she will be able to sell a few after all.

 

Holey Candles

The next day we got to burn a candle. Or, should I say we got to burn a hole in a candle. Yep you guessed right, our candle was a bust. All the books and research, all the candle making advise, did not help how this candle performed. A hole of about one inch diameter in the middle of her 8 ounce soy candle was the result. It was truely an ugly sight. She had made a candle just like the candles that she had always got upset about purchasing. Was it the wax? Was it the wick?

Well she had read how important it was to have the correct wick for the candle, so she assumed it must be the wick. And as a loyal candle helper, I agreed with her. So back to the internet she goes. She buys more wicking material (string). Since she is determined that she is going to make a 100% soy wax candle, she wants to use 100% cotton wicking material made with 100% pure soy wax. So she ends up buying a couple of different sizes of all cotton wicking material.

Believe it or not, after a couple more trials, she does make the perfect candle. It burned and it burned well. It had all of the right attributes. It did not smoke. All of the wax burned. It had a great aroma. Boy was she happy.

Oh crap! Now that she can do it, we need more stuff! Woe is me! Oh, woe is me!

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Woe is me Kitchen!

Well the kitchen never was a thing of beauty, but at least it had food going on. Wifey has a degree in Culinary Arts, so I used to eat some really nice meals. The kitchen looked like a kitchen should look.  But after the candles supplies came, things changed, a lot!

The first thing that happened was the kitchen table turned into a work table where all the candle supplies were laid out and organized. Ok, so I eat in the living room, no big deal. Then the gas range turned into a candle wax melter.

OK, I’ve eaten cold food before, not a big deal, but it is a deal. The sinks are then converted to a clean up the mess area. The counters are all turned into candle making areas.

 Now Wifey is too busy attempting to make candles to cook or even fix a meal. This is becoming a very BIG DEAL!

Well I am eating tuna from a can, cereal, and lunch meat. No steak and potatoes for this Candle Helper. I try to stay out of the way. Wifey cusses, oh yes she does. What is she doing, you ask, she is trying to make a wick. If it weren’t so damned funny, I would cry with her.

The books we bought said it was simple, just drape the wick material over a pencil and dip it in the wax. Ha, ha, ha, ho, ho, I’m laughing on the floor, not making many points. They look like white, skinny fishing worms, frozen in the act of trying to elude a hungry robin. They are not pretty, they are not straight, but they do look like waxed string. Ha, ha! But wicks?

She now has six of these white wormy looking things. That means she draped three and cut them in half. There has to be a better way! I will find it for her, when I get off the floor from laughing so hard. Now she has to pinch a little square metal tab onto one end of the wick. By the way, even though she only has six wicks, she has a whole bag of these base things. They were really cheap, so she got a bunch of them. The next step is to put a little clue dot onto the bottom of the base where it attaches to the wick. She is a pretty good clue dot sticker.

Now we are on a quest. We are for sure going to make a candle. But she must first get the wick stuck to the bottom of her candle mold (a juice glass). She eyeballs the bottom center of the glass and trys to stick the base to it. She finally gets one pretty close to the center, then uses a butter knife and a pair of sissors to push it down tight, so it will stick good. Wow! We have a glass with a wick in it! She has only been at this task since early morning, its now only just past lunch. You noticed I said past lunch!

Back to our wax melter stove now, where she used to cook lunch. She still has wax in a pouring pot where she had melted enough to make wicks and pour candles. She has the wax in a liquid state, so she adds some dye to give it color, and some fragrance to make it smell good. When all finished with the mixing, she pours the melted, colorful, smelly wax into the glass with the wick in it.  It is now late in the day, we have a candle, no breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I guess, in some ways I am lucky. For one, I do not have to go through the kitchen to get from the living room to the bathroom, and I really do like cereal. So now I settle down, with my bowl of cereal, in front of the TV. I chuckle (to myself), I wish I had taken more pictures, I wish I had taken some movies.

The candle has to cool over night, so she tells me. Tomorrow will be the big day, we are going to burn the candle!

Let’s Go Surfing

We finally get home to do a little web surfing. LOL, little just does not come close to describing just how many hits came up when I search “soy candles”. Well it looks like Wifey may be able to find what she is looking for after all. I add ‘wholesale’ to my search, (hoping to catch a price break), that knocked the list down to about 100,000 search results.

After several hours of sifting through the garbage, I find there are still quite a few reputable looking web sites and web stores to evaluate. Remember she just wants to make a few candles, mostly for herself and maybe a few for friends.

Wifey goes web shopping. Well, a few hours later she has purchased stuff. A melting/pouring pot, soy wax, wicking string, wick taps, glue dots, dye buttons, and fragrance.

 

I know it does not look like much! And, really it isn’t. But she is happy, so I guess that makes me happy too. So now another couple hundred bucks later, she has the capability to make candles. You will notice that I said “capability”, not ability!

My First Mistake!!

Well now being an unkowing dedicated helper in training, and frustrated with throwing money away, I say if you don’t like the candles you are buying, why don’t you make your own! Woe is me! I thought, what could be so damned hard about pouring wax into a jar.

 

OK, color me stupid! So now she has a great idea, she is going to make her own candles. She is going to make Soy Candles, because those are the ones she likes. Off we go to the local “Books a Million” store. We purchase a couple of books on candle making. Now we know it all. By this time you are probably thinking, now instead of throwing away Ten spots he is throwing Twenties. You would be right! But, I am about to move up in the world. If you think you can make candles out of books, you are very wrong. We need more stuff.

The books tell us almost nothing about making soy candles. Even the advise on making wicks is pathetic. I know all of you candle makers out there in Candleland, have heard the method of drapping the raw wick over a pencil and dipping it into the wax. What a hoot!

After leaving forty bucks at the book store, we stop by the local “Hobby Lobby” store.  Wow, sticker shock! It would a cost over $100 just to attempt to make a few candles. So in my frugal fashion and a misguided attempt to save face and money, I say “let’s just go home and do some research on the internet.”

How I became a Candle Helper.

Let’s get one thing straight from the start! I never in my life wanted to be a candle helper. I did not even know what a candle helper was, and did not want to know.

It all started when I got married. Yep, that will do it. If you don’t want to be a candle helper, don’t get married.

This lady I married, really liked burning candles. In particular she liked Soy Wax candles. She said “they burn so much cleaner than paraffin candles”. Well, whenever we were out somewhere like a flea market, gift store, festival, or car show; she would always buy some “soy wax” candles. Oh, woe is me! It seemed like more than half the time, she was complaining because the candles did not burn right.

Mostly she would purchase the 8 ounce candles. She would pay anywhere from $4-$10 for each one, and then complain about everything. Either they did not have enough scent, they did not burn right, or they smoked too much.  As a pretty smart “candle helper” in the making, I knew she was spending way too much money for bad candles. Sometimes she would lite one of these candles, bark about the way it burned or smelled and throw it away. In my eyes, I saw a Ten spot hit the trash. Woe is me!

Hello world!

Woe is me, the life of a “Candle Helper” is much more complicated than it would seem on the surface. Just what does a candle helper do?

We sweep the floor. We unload wax and jars. We clean-up after the “Candle Maker”. Generally speaking, we kiss butt and say, “is there anything I can do to help.” The one thing a candle helper does not do, is make a candle. 

I welcome all of you other Candle Helper’s out there, to join with me in helping the Candle Hobbyst, thereby making our own lives better.