[Sca-cooks] Re: candle wicks

[Mark.S Harris]

Okay. In period about all you had for candles were beeswax and tallow.
Sometimes a mixture of both. The beeswax candles got used in the Church
and perhaps some of the wealthy folks. Everyone else got stuck with
the slightly more smoky and stinky tallow candles.

Someday I'm finally going to get around to making some tallow candles.
(Hey, anyone can make beeswax or plastic ones. :-) ). Can you tell me
how the wicks for such tallow candles should vary from the ones for
the same size beeswax ones? Would the wicks be larger or smaller
diameter? More or less tightly twisted? Made of different size
threads?

Other than the braiding vs. twisted, I hadn't realized that how the
wick was done could affect things much.

Thanks,
  Stefan li Rous
  stefan at texas.net

> I could wax poetic on candlemaking, since I do that mundanely, but I'll save
> you all. But basically, yes, Alex is right-except that the WAX is the fuel
> being consumed.....if you consume wick at same rate as wax, you have a
> BIIIIG problem, and no wick!
>
> Amanda Blackwolf
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alex Doyle" <dubghaille at mail.wireweb.net>
> From what I understand of candles in general, you need to match your wick to
> the correct wax, because different waxes have different burning tempertures.
> The thickness of the candle will also be a factor.  If you have a good match
> you have wick and wax being consumed at about the same rate.  If you don't,
> the wick can drown in the melted wax or just lots of dripping wax
> everywhere.
>
> Alex