Category: Candle Making

Candle Making Night

In a change of fortunes on our weather forecast, we have snow predicted for most of the foreseeable future. It’s been so dry till now that it was beginning to worry me for the coming summer. Warm weather has been scary as is, but we have not been building up a snowpack for summer irrigation for our farmers. There goes the hay prices!

Today’s work outside got the wood to the door and the hay to the animals. I have also been messing about with the DigiBoil to try to get the wax in it to melt. That has not been going as well as I would like. I put it on last night and have let it sit all night and all day today, and it still has not melted down. I started it out at 150F, and now have it up to 160F. Hopefully it will melt through soon. The heat is slowly climbing the pot and can be felt through the jacket. In fact, I think I can feel it in the jacket more than I can when I reach under to feel the side of the pot.

I had to take a break from writing about 30 minutes ago and came back to find I could stick a butter knife through the wax at the top of the pot that was still solid. That allowed me to make a flow hole and push the top surface wax down into the pot a ways, which I hope will melt it rather than making temperature barrier with it that blocks the top to allow it to solidify. I checked the temperature of the wax that flowed up and it was right at 170F. That’s a little to close to burning for my liking, so I have turned the temperature down a bit to try to prevent that, even at the risk of creating problems with the final bit of the wax melting. I’ll check it again in a bit and try to determine if I should have just left the temperature up. I assume the wax is convecting in the pot, and the hot wax will rise rather than just stay low and burn.

So while the melted wax was at the top, I set up a mold with some hemp wick and poured it for some six-inch candles. I’ll be watching them for color and I will probably test burn two of them and put the rest into inventory.

Now I have just topped the candles for shrinkage and noted that the wax that was spilled out on the top of the mold was an excellent color, very light, and quite where I want it for selling. Maybe I will do some more molds tonight to lower the level of wax in the pot so the next time I melt it all, it will be easier. I think about three-quarters full is a nice limit if I am to keep a solid batch in the pot between pouring days. It is really hard to say for sure but spending more than 24 hours to melt it all down again is a bit much. I think it is better to add a block when required and try to keep the pot between half and three quarters full. That’s a hypothesis at the moment. I will write it into theory when I have tried it and know more information.

I poured two molds then let them cool before I started this paragraph. Meanwhile, the wax melted completely. I have shut the melter down to 150F. I’ll see how it holds overnight. I’d like to leave it till tomorrow afternoon.

I learned a lesson while doing these two molds. I poured a little in each candle mold, then came back around and poured more, then again to top each off. Not pouring each to the top left a little line in the candles that looks like they could break on that spot. I’ll be using them for test burns or personal or both, really. I could melt them down and start again, but why not set them aside to test burn them to be sure I know what I am selling?

Overall, I am happy with the gear I am now running and the methods I have developed over the last little bit. I wish there was a way of getting the wax from the pot to the candle molds without spilling and cooling. That’s really the most difficult part of the whole thing.

I want to make some old-style furniture, especially come spring. But sticking to the ideas of tradition, candle making was a part of the life for people back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It’s how they lit their nights. I’ll also be making some candle boxes. It is only sensible. I plan to offer them in the candle shop. Just got to get the arthritic hands through winter first!

2024 Begins!

Happy New Year!

There are a lot of things to be done on the farm this year. There are a lot of personal things to sort out too! This Holiday Season is coming to an end for our household, and to be honest, while we really enjoyed the family time, our health in this house has been absolute rubbish. So, the first thing is to see about getting up and about and up to things. There have been good days and bad ones, and clearly, I am going to have to make some adjustments to deal with my changing age. But I have experimented, and I think I know what I need to do. But all of that is on the personal side. On the farm and professional side I will push forward with what we have spent the last few years setting up for, and get this place finished and operational. It’ll be a challenge, but meeting it will pay off, I think.

So, what’s the big plans?

We have got to get this farm running as a profitable farm of some sorts. The immediate thing to do is sell llama fiber, and to make plenty of firewood. There will be byproducts of all that, but on top of it, Missus will be opening her little shop soon for local buyers, and as a basis for her Etsy and online shop. We’ll mess around with products, but our goal is to make enough to get by on or better by making what we want from here on our place. It means to be home manufacturing at a higher level of quality than comes out of mass production. Face it, it is every homesteader’s goal. I will be getting things going at last on The Prospering Peasant, too. I already have the idea for the first proper post there, so check soon.

My projects on the farm will require a lot of work. I have cameras for some basic filming and hope to put some videos on YouTube showing those, and a bit of furniture making. Everything is dependent upon hos I get through this little health crisis I have been having this winter, of course. The arthritis inflammation can derail the whole thing. But I won’t before I get a chance to get started, so let’s take this as it comes. As far as the furniture making idea goes, even if poplar is the only wood I can get access to, building from solid poplar has got to be a step up from the rubbish sawdust wood that people get online. It’ll cost them more, and it will be painted because of it being poplar, but I plan on Milk Paint and the farmhouse style. And then there are wooden spoons and the like.

All of this can really get going come spring. I’ll do what I can in the shop in the cold, but again, arthritis. Meantime I have everything I need to get the candles going in the house. I have a couple of things to work out just before I get an Etsy shop going. There will be several beeswax-based products, including candles, tool-wax, and beeswax impregnated food wraps. The fabric is ready for cutting and dipping! As for the candles themselves, I am starting out with molded candles circa the Colonial American period. I’ll provide either cotton wick or hemp wick candles as requested. I have considered hand dipped candles and for some occasions I perhaps will, but if time is a constraint, those will be the first thing I’ll give up on.

I will also look to get my firewood piled up for the next two years so I can go a year in advance after that. Then I will try to do excess to sell. I’d be happy to do the same with the lumber I cut and don’t use once I am adequately stocked up in advance.

Projects that I need to do are a woodshed, a fuel shed, and it would be good to put the sawmill in something. Once those are done, I think making chickencoops would be a good side hustle. None of these things can happen in a vacuum. But also, again, arthritis. So let’s see how it goes.

Photography is a lifelong hobby of mine. I never quite made a business out of it. It has to be a part of this even if only for the purposes of listing things online. The photography is not to be trifled with. I intend to do that well.

So all this is what I have in mind for 2024. I will be happy if we can get by on our efforts. If we can do better than that, then I will be elated! Look for changes coming to my online presence soon. No more excuses. That is what I intend to be about this year. Life is slipping by too fast to mess about.

Wax Melter and Tractor Chores

So far the test on the wax melter has gone really good. It has melted the wax at a temperature close to what it says on the digital screen. I should put the thermometer in and see how it measures at the bottom, and see if that is accurate. It was off a bit when I measured at the top, which could be expected as there is likely more heat just down by the heating element. I adjusted the temp down and will see tomorrow or the next day how it does, but first, I have it shut off right now to see how it does at reheating a full pot. That is a lot of wax. It has cooled to the point it has solidified, but it is still warm tonight. I can see why one person I either watched or read or met said to put a large pot of wax on a stove in order to keep a room warm after the fire is out. It has been warmer up in that room since I heated the wax up to begin with.

I traded rear implements on the tractor today and scraped the driveway up the side of the house smooth with the box blade. It is not great, but the outcome is better than it was before when I would drive across that area and wobble left to right and front to back over all the bumps in the mud and ice. I also sorted out a pile of mud out by the mailbox and made that area smooth again.

The shop is a bit messy by the door, so I cleaned up in there a bit so I can get to the workbench and do some work there. It is cold, but I think I have a couple of decent days in the forecast to get out and do a few little things.

The animals got fed, the firewood brought in, and the only thing oreally out of sorts was a little extra chore today when I drove over to where I check on the llamas across the street and also looked for the source of some gunfire there. We don’t allow hunting on our property, but sometimes around here, people don’t really respect that, so I have put up signs which have fallen down and I have to go out and see what is up when I hear gunfire. Whomever it was turned out to be off our place, and from the sounds of it, shooting a .22 caliber. While I was sat at the roadside I scared a couple of pheasants up, which I suspect was what they were after. In the end, I never saw the hunter.

It’s 8:30, the kids are having more fun than any kid should be while doing dishes, and the cats are going nuts tearing through the house after each other. My goal will be to go upstairs soon to do some learning time, then go to sleep. With the end of the year coming on, I would like to do some resolutions this year for my own good. Those will include more shop time, and more time milling and making candles. Let’s see what kind of a business I can make out of those, shall we? On a down side, it feels like another cold is coming on. And I am not the only one in this house to feel it. What a season it has been!

New Wax Melter

Okay, I am trying again. This time I am giving a go with a Digi Boil to melt the wax for my candle business. I would like to see this one work and melt all the way up to the top-ish, so I can try dipping wicks to make dipped candles. It is a tall melter. But I will have to see how it does at melting the wax all the way up. I melted a large enamel pot of wax on the woodstove today and poured that into the Digi, and have since added 10 more pounds of wax blocks. We will see how well they melt and then I will have to either make some candles and refill or shut it off and let it go cold and hard. It’ll be interesting to see how any of this goes!

Today was a genuine rest day today. Loved it. Tomorrow things will be different for sure. I best get to sleep and get ready to get at it!

5AM Thoughts

The temperature took a dive last night into single digits. I am still fighting with the too recently split firewood burning a bit too cool for the weather. I mix it with wood that is drier and burn them together. The wet wood dries out and burns after the dry wood and is there to light the next load. It’s not great, but I am keeping an eye on the chimney situation ready to clean as necessary. The house was a little chilly when I went to bed last night, but by early morning it had warmed up ten degrees outside. There must have bene cloud cover that came in.

I have been catching up on some woodworking videos that were posted about two weeks ago by Lost Art Press to YouTube. The shop may be too cold to work in, but I can keep my head in the game. I have also been making candles and perfecting my method for the molded colonial style. I am quite content with the way I have worked out right now. I am able to wick the molds without using something like a wire with a hook to pull it through. It is a simple matter of priming the wick, then wiping it to narrow it take off excess. Then stuff it through the holes at the bottom and push them through. The holes have been enlarged with an auger and they would leak, but putting a piece of wax at the bottom to stuff the hole stops it. It has eased the fiddliest part of the job. I have also got the removal from the molds eased. That is a simple matter of running the molds under hot water to release the candles. Doing that works a treat and does not require any kind of mold release to be sprayed into the molds before. I like that. It keeps the candles pure and clean.

Christmas is getting close again. It feels like it is sneaking up on us again. I have my shopping done, nonetheless. It is card mailing that I am endlessly hopeless at doing. I’d like to make them custom to the farm with a nice image on the front. I’d like to have a pencil drawing of the front of the house and the shop on a white background. Trouble is, I cannot draw that well. Well, if I could. Maybe I can start from a photograph. If I were able to draw it, I would like a standard drawing for the year, and one with a snow-covered roof for the Christmas season.

Lately my ear has been turned to a few YouTubers whose expertise lay in Geopolitics and economics. One in particular specializes on the Chinese economy. For years it has been anticipated that China will overtake the United States in GDP. There have been problems. For one, they have millions of homes started in the country that cannot be finished by the developers. The companies are far overextended in debt and don’t have the capital to finish the work. Loads of people have their life savings invested and are likely to lose it. Factories are not ordering, and foreign investment is running out of the country. The Belt and Road Initiative is failing, which is great. China has been investing in economic imperialism, and building infrastructure in other countries who cannot repay the costs, leaving China in control of the infrastructure there. I am no expert, just learning and being made aware. The point of it all is that there is an opening for more US production, which hopefully opens the market here for small businesses to get started. I’d like to see more garage industry here, with better quality and makers who actually care about their product.

Well, that’s what’s on my mind now. See you in the next post.

First Snow 2023-4

This morning the snow is already on the ground the morning as I write this before sunup. The forecast calls for 8 inches over the weekend. I saw it out the front door a little bit ago, and now I am back in bed. I am still under the weather as far as the cold goes that has been going around the family. Nobody is really on top of it, except maybe our oldest daughter. She is doing fairly well. The rest of us are the dead walking.

I don’t think the snow is deep enough to use the new snow pusher on the tractor to clear it right now. Looks like it will be later. It’s a great day to have a cab on the tractor!

The new wax melters are out for delivery today. I cleaned out the burned wax from the new crock-pot and will be turning that in at the kitchen once it is washed up and ready to go to food service here at home. If the new wax melts are as good as they are meant to be, then the blue crock will go out of service too. I have one that genuinely keeps the wax melted at a temperature that does not discolor it. That one will be used for making beeswax food wraps. I look forward to getting that started later today if the delivery comes early. It should.

Wax, Warmth, and Colds

Wax working is on partially paused at the moment due to only one of my crocks keeping a temperature that does not burn the wax. My newest crock pot on its lowest setting has burned the daylights out of the block of wax I had put in it and turned it quite dark! That was unfortunate. I searched on the Internet for a wax melter but was not happy with the best I saw as it wanted to be cleaned out every time it was shut off long enough to cool. I finally found one that I could heat up and cool without having to drain it, and it has a temperature control knob that allows me to set the temperature where I want from around 100 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

I ordered a large one and a small one and will keep the one crock that runs cool enough to safely heat wax and keep it for a while. That one has been very reliable, which means that as a crock pot, it is probably broke.

Apart from that I have been enjoying the work with the wax. It has been slow because I am limited on what I can do, but I think I will speed up soon, and I may even be able to try dipping wicks to make candles that way, too. I’ll get everything set up when it arrives and go from there. No promises till then.

I have a new printer on the way that will allow me to print color photos and even labels for my candles. I decided I wanted to be able to print a photo from time to time, rather than just putting them up on the Mural. The Mural is great, but sometimes there is a necessary feeling of completeness in having a good old fashioned paper print in hand.

I ran us out of the wood that I had split a couple of years ago and had to resort to this year’s stock. Well, let me tell you, that did not go well. The wood I pulled from the freshest row is so wet that it hardly burns at all. It sure don’t put heat into the house. It is not worth much unseasoned, and would do well to sit a year, but I cannot when I need every little bit I can get to keep warm as winter settles in. Saying that, it seems quite warm this November. Warmer than any year gone by. Today was a short sleeve outside kind of day. (For some reason, it was chilly as can be in the house all day despite the almost temperate weather outside.

So, it is Sunday evening, and I am going to carry on making candles. I do have the one pot, and a mold that I think needs using quite a bit more before Christmas. It is down to the last hour or so before bedtime, though everyone has a cold here right now, and I am not so sure if anyone is going to school tomorrow.

A Lovely Sunday Candlemaking

Today was I made a batch of candles among all that relaxing, too. I did a few of the custom molds, and then I decided to take on a batch of the traditional primitive vintage candles. I have enough molds to make 36 at a time. Three of them did not come out, though, so I got 33 out of the batch. The other three had little flaws, like the tip of the candle was flat because there was a bit of wax I could not get out and other way that to try to melt it out with the hot wax of a candle. That did not work, so I put the mold on top of the wood stove after, and what do you know? I have it clean now.

The going rate for a six inch by 3/4 inch primitive beeswax candle is $3.75 each. I will sell the burnt ones for $3.25, and the fancy candles, which have been dipped a couple of times to smooth the surface, for $4.75 each, or so. I think I can get a good finish with only two dips in the hot wax. each dip is adding thickness to the candle, making it harder to fit in a stick, so I will try not to do three, though I know that comes out with a good finish. I may also do the 9 inch ones, as they seem to go for a good price, too. I have been reluctant to honestly because I don’t think of them as practical. But I am not my customers, so I will see how some of those sell. Maybe I should have more than one mold for them.

I have my method down for making the candles. It is not perfect, I think, but it does work, and is easy at every step. I’d like to improve how to secure the wicks and the pouring, as there it a lot of overspill.

So, at the moment I have nearly everything to start an online shop and see how it goes. It is a small inventory, but I can always make more.

Wax Works

I went out to pick up some hay today. Had a good talk with the old hay man I had used when we first moved up here to Idaho. He’s a good guy, lives down on the Utah side, and has a convenient place to pick up hay when I need it, and when the local farmer does not have any for sale. It is good to have that redundancy. The old hay guy said to just pay him $8 a bale, rather than the $10 he has it posted for. I think he has seen other people have come down and wanted to follow suite. I am glad he did. I would rather buy from him. He has good hay and is a good person.

This evening I have been pouring wax and working on prototypes of how to sell candles to the public. I have added a couple of steps, and now I might refine them down a little if they are not necessary for a good looking candle. What I added was the option to dip a molded candle to smooth it out and make it look a little more elegant. I think it is a trick that would have been just about obvious to any chandler back in the day, and something they would have done in order to improve the appearance of their candles for someone wanting something that looked a little more refined.

I have refrained from dipping cotton cloth as I don’t yet have my pinking shears. When they come, I have a cutting matt that I hope I will be able to use to good effect to make some proper sized squares to dip then sell as reusable food covers. At the moment, I think I will include a free one to wrap candled bought in groups of six. That way the candles are packaged fancy and in something someone can have a sample of with the reminder that there are more for sale online. If someone stocks their whole kitchen by buying candles, what do I care? It will get covered in the cost of the candles!

I also experimented with dipping birthday candles. I started out with a six inch wick, but I think that was too long, and will try something smaller and for a more uniform set in order to create loads for people to buy and feel proud of. I am definitely not happy with how long they have come out so far.

Right! Writing is making me sleepy! Off to bed now! Doing some photography tomorrow, so maybe after heling Missus with hers, I can shoot some of my product for the site.

For now…

Worked on the Trailer Today

It’s meant to rain tomorrow and Monday. It would interfere with work on the trailer, so we got up and got at it today. My main focus was to build on the backing and top of the shelf Missus is using to set the checkout on. I wanted ti to come out pretty good, so I gave it a bit of effort to give it a decent finish. Missus wanted the end that sticks out towards where a customer would come in to be rounded to reduce chances of injury, so I did that. It was a nice challenge for me as I was using a saw that makes straight cuts. (Resaw blade on the bandsaw; some rounding mut not much.) Then I gave it the correct finish with a handplane and finally 120 and 320 grit sandpapers. It came out right.

That’s bee most of my day today. Not the rounded pine board worktop, but the whole shelves to cabinet and then worktop thing. I did mow quite a bit of the grass this morning, and I cleaned up where the memorial garden used to be. It is set in a wagon made from a likely pre 1920’s truck frame converted to hay wagon which has since fallen to disrepair. The earth under the wagon had become hilly and impossible to mow, so I leveled that off with the tractor and made it so the grass there should recover fast, and the area be easy to manage.

Our weather forcast for today topped out at 81F, and over the next ten days it is not forcast to get higher than that. We are genuinely in get things done season! At least for a bit! Cooler outside, cooler inside! So if it rains, I can always go work on the den and get it ready for the cool season, and to do some candle-making and hopefully get started on some leather work, too. I would like to spend the winter doing those things where I have ready access to plenty of heat! The shop is hopeless, and will get too cold to work in for several months.

Finally, it is September now. The summer will end in just over two weeks. I gathered firewood yesterday and the day before. Well, some of it was for the saw. But I always have scraps to burn from that, as I cut off generous slabs to get right down to the lumber and make sure I have good pieces to add to the cordage. What’s more, I always grab a few rounds to top the trailer off and come home with something to split, too. Even when I am gathering primarily for the mill. With the weather cooler, now is the time to get all the last of the wood gathered and split, and some for next year too, if I have it in me to do it, and there is time. I have a yard to clean before the snow falls, and I have a lot of jobs to get done. I won’t list them, just say when I have done them.