candles won't stay lit

Hello all,
I am new (5 years) to beekeeping and also candle making. I did already find answers right here to some of my questions. I have made some 3" wide pillar candles with beeswax using #60 wicking. The candles just won't stay lit. They just burn down the center a little and then drown in the wax. I have ordered some new wick after reading about the square braid type of wick in different sizes to see if that helps. The wax is nice and clean. I melted it several times in water to get out the gunk. Any ideas as to what may be wrong. Thanks.
Pat in WI

Hello Pat,

The wick you are using is too small... you need to use a thicker wick. I use a square braided cotton wick that I buy from kerzenidee in Germany (I am based in Australia). They are really good people to deal with.

This page on their website will tell you a bit more about the correct sizes of wicks for various candle widths: http://www.kerzenidee.de/index.php?a...te&sprache=eng

Essentially what is happening in your case is that the flame is burning up the wick too fast - the wick doesn't have enough body to allow it to feed the flame with the surrounding wax. Therefore the wick becomes smaller and smaller eventually drowning the flame in the liquid wax and forming a tunnel effect - with a lot of un-molten wax still present at the edges of the candle.

Thank you so much. The website and your info is just what I need. Hopefully one of the new wick sizes I ordered will work.
Pat in WI

Pat in WI...

Try candlewic.com for a USA based company. The have all sizes of sq braided wicks and will gladly assist you in finding the proper sized wick.

Thank you also snl. I think it would be pretty hard to order from Germany and shipping would be awful. But there is some useful info there. I see at candlewic too.
Pat in WI

We pour the 3" also. make sure if you buy from candlewic that you get beeswax wick. parrifin wicks are much thinner.dadants or glorybee both have what you need. Bigger wick.
Nick

I have read that the first time a pillar is burned that it should burn one hour per inch of diameter to condition the candle. Supposedly after the first burn, then the pillar can be burned for less time at a time. They stated if this wasn't followed that the pillar would tunnel. So a 3" pillar should burn about 3 hours till almost the edge of the candle.

I agree with the others that small wicks tend to drown as they have enough umph to keep melting the wax, but not feed the flame fast enough. Therefore, they drown in the melt pool.

Candle hugging the edges is also recommended by some.

Thanks all. I have ordered some new wicks, a few different sizes to try. Sooo hopefully that will fix the candles. I just love burning them, even just having them sit next to me. The smell is delicious. Thanks again.
Pat

Hi Pat, I see you melted the wax in water to get the large debris out of it, but did you filter it through any fine cloth.
Very small particles can clog the wick also.

Hi Dan, thanks, yes I did strain it thru several layers of cheesecloth. Maybe a t shirt would be better. I will restrain as I pour into the molds, when I get the new wick, just to be sure it is clean enough.
Pat

Strain it thru old nylon curtains. Works like a charm. You get them cheap at thrift stores..

I may have something like that around the house here. I will have a look. Thanks. New wick should be here today, so maybe tomorrow I will be making new candles that will burn properly. Yeah.
Pat

You can also filter through paint filters. They have some that are very fine. You may need to reenforce the screen because the wax is so hot it can break it loose from the size of the filter funnel. I save this for the LAST filtering otherwise it clogs up too much and difficult to get all the wax through. The larger mesh ones are better for the midlevel filtering.

Thanks all. I have gotten some new wicks and they burn fine now. I was able to but several different sizes from Peak Candle. They have 10 yard packs for a reasonable price, so I finally got it right. I also refiltered the was as I poured to. Thank you all so much.
Pat

Pat What size wick did you end up using? I am having the same problem with my 3" pillars with the 60 ply wick. Thanks David W.

Hi David
I was originally using the 60 ply wick and that is what also did not work for me. I ended up with the number 6 square braid from Candlewic. It was nice because I could buy a small packet of different sizes of the square braid from them. I started with their number 3 and worked up from there. Good luck with yours.
Pat

Thanks Pat I will have to give that a try. The 3" pillars are the only ones we have problems with.