Talk:How to Make Candles

Some points

"Although it is possible to make candles without any means of determining the temperature of the fuel, it is not advisable to do so as the likely result is the production of a high percentage of poor- quality candles."

I've never used any temperature detection, and never experienced any quality problems with moulded candles. Dipped are a different matter, but even there its not hard to tell when the wax is too hot or cold.

"Thermometers for use in candlemaking (such as a mercury-in-glass thermometer or a sugar thermometer) should have a range of DoC to 1 DDoC."

eh?

"Although it is possible to produce uniform candles using this method by discarding the lower 10cm or so"

All one need do is dip the thicker section back in the wax tank, holding it in long enough for some of the wax to melt off.

Priming is used for commercial production, but is unnecessary and can happily be ignored for home production. The result is occasional flame flicker. If the wicks are wet its worse, but then there are much more effective solutions to that than priming.

"It is possible to use either dyes or pigments (or, in certain situations, a combination of both) to colour candle wax."

It should be cautioned that in a lot of cases use of pigment causes problems with burning. Choice of pigment is issue-ful.

Finally I notice no mention of animal fat use in candles.