Wax Munky said:
It's been no secret that I don't work with Soy.I won't even comment on the container formulas they have.
In some cases it's true that you can use pillar wax for containers.I use Paraffin and make containers for my own personal use.
It does have one huge flaw..Wetspots. If you can live with that,get the wicking down for the container.I personally see no problem with it.I use the largest Zinc Core wick,and depending on the size of the container.Sometimes just the votive size wick works just fine.
Depending on the look that I want to achieve I decide if I'll add additives or not.
So aside from the wetspots,they burn very nice.If you look real close at some of the leading candle suppliers,they have wet spots to.Weather has a lot to do with the appearance of containers.It's not just the formula.
So all in all you don't have to use wax in one particular way.Manufactures just say that as just a general guideline to sell wax.
Munky.
OHHHHHH!
I don't know what a "wet spot" is, but I don't think it would matter to me since my candles are used right away, and they are judged on heat, not appearance.
I was beginning to think that, about the guidelines being to sell wax... though clearly you couldn't use container wax, the tallow type stuff, for pillars.
I got the soy because of my lakes of fire. I had to laugh when I read your post in the wood wick thread, about how it would scare you if your candles were making crackling sounds.
Well, you should hear the sound when a lake of fire cracks a container! It's better than the "hard crack" you get making candy if you've failed to recognize the "soft crack".
I thought the lakes of fire resulted from me using left over pillar wax in my containers, but now I think it was because of the sand.
When I was a silversmith I used sand to dampen the heat so that I could repair things without bits melting that I didn't want to melt.
So, I put sand at the bottom of my jars so that the flame wouldn't break the glass when it got to the bottom. In commercial candles the flame periodically breaks the glass in the last moments when it's hot on the bottom.
I think that what happened was that the whole of the wax infused sand caught fire because the sand became so hot.
I immediately put stones on top of the sand so that there wouldn't be enough air to support a fire, and that has worked great. The other thing the sand does, you see, is raise the fire so that it's closer to the bottom of my pots of water.
But, even though I solved the sand problem by using the flat stones, I kept thinking the problem was the pillar wax being used in containers.
I have a bit of brain injury from a fall I had when I was living in the hydrogen sulfide, so my thinking is much slower than it used to be, and SO frustrating.
Now, I think that my switch to container wax was misguided...
(I love making votives, by the way. Are votives container candles? or pillars? I've been wondering about that. One votive rewicked is enough to make coffee and cook brown rice.
)