Pouring Candles

Today some mold release that I ordered from Brushy Mountain and a candle mold arrived on my doorstep. I was so excited that I had to try it out right away.

I was planning to melt wax tonight anyway since I'm trying to get a good wax block to take to the Ga Beekeeping Association Honey Contest. Keith Fielder, a Master Beekeeper - one of the few in Georgia, wrote me with some helpful hints so I poured this block using his hints - but he made me promise to keep his secrets, so I am not sharing them here.

Suffice it to say, my first effort was almost good enough and the second effort is solidifying in the oven as we speak. However it turns out, I will enter it in the show, if only to be able to thank Keith through my actions (using his methods to try for a good block).

I melted last year's wax block to make candles. Threading the wicks made me want to SCREAM. My wicks have been waxed (ie, I dipped the wick in melted wax) and that made it a little easier to thread them through the holes and the length of the mold. However, I couldn't get the wick to go through two of the holes - so I didn't make candles in those mold sections.


After threading the wicks into the molds, I tied them to bamboo skewers to hold the wick in the center of the candle while the liquid wax was being poured.

The directions that came with the mold said to put a wet sponge in the freezer to get it really cold and to set the mold on top of the frozen sponge. Thus when the hot wax leaks out of the tip of the candle which is against the sponge, the tip of the candle will quickly solidify! Who knew?

It was a messy process as you can see above. As the candles cooled, they shrank, leaving a concave space on each candle. I remembered from taking class with Virginia Webb that sometimes you have to go back and fill that area with wax, so I remelted some wax and did exactly that - see the picture below.

I don't think these candles will go to Ga Beekeeping meeting with me, but I am taking the wax block, my honey, my cut comb honey, my chunk honey, and I believe that will be all. It's a little silly for me to enter a state level contest, but I figure why not make the effort since I am going to be up there anyway and my honey is still bottled in good shape from the Metro contest.

In Which I TRY to Make Candles

I have a book on candlemaking that I've had since the fifth grade which was the first and last time I tried on my own to make candles. I took a class in beekeeping at the John Campbell Folk School. Virginia Webb taught the class. In between learning about the bees, we made candles, but I never had to wick the candle molds.

My wonderful daughter, Valerie, gave me a rubber mold for votive candles two Christmases ago and I haven't ever used it (I'm a little cowed by it). Today I got it out to make the effort. I tried and tried but couldn't for the life of me get the wick to go in the tiny holes punched in the bottom of the candle mold.

I called my friend Martha Kiefer, Georgia's 2007 beekeeper of the year. Martha makes gorgeous candles. Martha said to use a yarn or upholstery needle to thread the wick into the mold. Martha also advised me to wax the wicking. I was melting wax for my wax block so it was no big deal to add wicking to the leftover melted wax.

The waxed wick easily threaded through the eye of the yarn needle.


Then I poked the needle into the hole in the bottom of the candle mold.


I melted some of my lovely solar melter wax and look what I got as a result! I only made these four but now at least I know how to do it.

Then, feeling my oats and feeling quite inspired, I thought why not make dipped tapers. The examples below illustrate exactly why not. This was my first attempt. I can't wait and do plan to melt these back to liquid and try again.

The problem is that as I dipped the taper, a drip started lengthening on the bottom of the taper, thus making it harder to dip the taper as deep as I would like. There's got to be a way to avoid the candle growing in that direction.

I'll check the Internet and try these again. It was fun, just the end result isn't the lovely taper I was expecting!