Candles

Projects
Participants	Narya
Skills	Not Being on Fire
Status	Active
Niche	Other
Purpose	Fun

Making candles with (mostly) left-over material.

Ingredients

• Candle leftovers
• Toilet rolls
• Carton board (e.g. an old box)
• Wood glue
• Cotton rope (e.g. roulade rope)
• Au-bain-marie setup (pan in a slightly bigger pan)
• Tweezers

Prepare the molds

Glue the toilet rolls to the carton board.

Melt the candles

Put water in the bigger pan and put the smaller pan in the bigger pan (preferably with something on the bottom of the bigger pan to support the smaller one). Melt the candle wax in the smaller pan. Remove old wicks, pieces of metal and other rubbish with the tweezers.

Ze smelten de kaarsen

Make the wick

• Cut strips of about 5mm of cotton cloth (turned out to be too flexible)
• Use roulade rope
• Dip the rope in the molten wax

Strips from an old t-shirt do not work well as wick

Prepare wicks

Make the candles

Pour a bit of molten wax into the molds and let it solidify. This will seal off the part between the toilet roll and carton board. Pour in the rest and wait till it is completely solid. The wax will shrink, so you have to fill up the last bit after the candle has completely solidified.

Pour wax in molds

Remove the carton. Drill holes, put the wicks in the candles and quickly melt the ends with a piece of hot metal to fix the wick in the candle.

Candle light

Improvements / plans

• Stretch rope and fixate it, after this pour the wax into the mold
• .. or, use a thick piece of iron wire with a bend end. Pull the rope through the candle with the wire when the wax is solid
• Make a 3D model, print it, use clay/silicone/something else to copy the shape and use this as a mold
  • http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-silicone-mold-from-common-household-materia/?ALLSTEPS
  • http://www.pinterest.com/imacraftydiva/mold-making-casting-diy/