Home > Prevent wax from sinking
5) How do you prevent the wax from sinking around the wick
while the wax is drying?
When making candles, it is normal for the wax to sink around the
wick while the wax is drying and hardening. In order to reduce the
effects of the sinking wax, after you insert the wick, let the wax
harden a bit, so that there is a thick skin of wax formed over the
top of your candle. Take a wooden stirring stick, or chopstick,
and poke two holes very close to the wick, going all the way down
the center of the candle until you are about ½ inch above
the bottom of the mold. These are called “relief holes”,
and their purpose is to allow the wax to shrink as it naturally
does while hardening, but to do so without forming bubbles and sinkholes.
As the candle continues to harden, keep poking through your relief
holes to keep them intact. Once the candle is completely hardened
and cooled to room temperature, you need to pour more wax into your
candle.
Melt more wax about 5-10 degrees hotter than you did to pour the
candle originally, and pour it into the relief holes. Let the wax
completely fill in the holes, and come up past the holes, but stop
pouring before you go over the level of your first pouring. This
second pouring of wax will now fill in the sinkholes and relief
holes you created, and eliminate the appearance of sinking around
the wick. It will also fill in any air bubbles that formed when
the original poured wax hardened.
|
