The Recycapple Candle

[Hinotori]

Oh! My husband suggests buying some wick and some of the cool silicone candle molds you can get off Amazon. No glass to worry then. Just have a plate under.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

I saw a neat idea a year or so ago. Lay in a few high powered solar landscape lights. Put them out to charge in the day, then bring them inside, stick the posts in a bucket of sand, or a jar, and you'll have light for the night. Next morning, rinse and repeat.

 

[wyoDreamer]

For emergency lighting, my DH grabs his Milwaukee Battery Operated Light Stand from the garage, lol. He uses it when working out in the outbuildings. It sure lights up a small living room.

 

[flowerbug]

I used solar powered landscape lights during a hurricane and the 2 powerless weeks after. They were new and had never been exposed to the elements. I would put them in a sunny window during the day and they gave light until I'd go to bed. That was Hurricane Ike - quite a few years ago in 2008. Maybe they were made better back then. Oh....and I got them on sale - only paid a buck apiece!

lucky for you! i've seen 'em run a lot more than that for sure!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

That was "back in the day" prices, lol!

 

[HomesteaderWife]

@Nifty - I actually had some brand new wicks in a pack that were picked up at a thrift store. They weren't really wide or too small, just standard wicks. They've worked fine for that candle!

 

[flowerbug]

I used to make candles WAY, WAY, WAY back in my teens/early adult years. Now... I'm trying to recall the experience from 4 - 5 decades ago! IIRC, the secret to getting the wicks to burn well was to be sure they were soaked in wax before pouring the candle. I think I would dip/soak the wick at least 3 times to be sure it was well saturated, then place it in the form, and pour the candle. One of my favorite types of candles to pour was: Place a standard taper candle in the middle of your form. Fill the form with crushed ice. Then, pour a wax of a different color into the form. The resulting candle would look like Swiss cheese. When burning, it was important to put the candle in a good sized container to catch the lava wax that would spill out of the Swiss cheese holes.

interesting idea! for a more solid candle you could use a dark color for the first pour and then use clear/white to fill in the holes on a second pour.

i've only made a few candles in my life - would do it again sometime.

 

[flowerbug]

Nicely done. My asthma doesn't tolerate candles. I miss having them around. When power goes out, we do use them occasionally. I've heard that the soy based candles burn very well and are not as problematic for respiratory issues.

yeah, some scents i can't tolerate at all. Mom hates vanilla scented things (for some strange reason i've never figured out). between the two of us we just decided to avoid candles all together and if someone gives us one we have other relatives who will take them as a regift or we can rehome it...

 

[Lazy Gardener]

So, you are melting old candles down to try to combine them into a new candle? My first thought was that if you are using parrafin, without adding any stearic acid, perhaps the wax is not hard enough, the melting temp is not appropriate to candle use. But, if you are recycling candles, that is not your issue.

I guess this ol' bird is fresh out of ideas.

 

[flowerbug]

All the wicks I've been using have been from existing candles. In fact, I thought the easiest / most reliable thing to do would be to use an existing candle (tall skinny one) and put it in the middle of a jar, then pour melted candles around it... but this hasn't work in all the different ways I've tried it... and I have NO idea why.

I'm going to re-melt a few candles right now and see if I can get things to work. Any other tips / suggestions?

I have a MILLION candles of different sizes and shapes, so if there's a wick / candle type I can use for combining all into one, that would be awesome!

(melting on my wood stove in a pan of water)
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i'm pretty sure that size/type of wick does play a role. since i'd never looked into it more i checked out the wiki page for them. there is indeed an art/science to it a bit more than than i expected. if you are using thin taper wicks in a fatter candle you might need more than one.