# need help with brown bw pillars



## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

That is a lot to respond to and I am about to leave the house - but it would help to know why your wax is brown. Did you add color or is this just dirty wax? If it is dirty, all of those particles that you saw are probably particles in suspension that are settling to the bottom over time. 
I would do a trial run using clean wax, poured around 160F and no air gap under the ice chest. Let the wax cool very slowly to prevent cracking. Once cooled, set outside overnight and allow the wax to contract in the cold air. You may want to do this with both of your releasing agents on different but identical molds to see if one performs better.


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## candlewren (Oct 26, 2010)

My wax is brown because I bought wax from an old-timer beekeeper (retiring/wrapping up 80 hives) who threw everything into the solar extractor and didn't separate cappings wax from brood wax. He said "wax is wax"...and got a bit heated with me in regards to the honey and slumgum on certain blocks. I should have walked away from it then. I didn't know what I was buying. It was $3/lb. Now I realize that's far too much (for the work I had to put into it) but I paid $10 for 14oz of cappings wax from another local keeper in my area and I thought that $3 would be a good price for candle wax. I was trying to get enough wax to learn candlemaking and make holiday gifts. 

After some research, I found that I had to learn to render it (though I was told that I only needed to melt it and filter through a layer of cheese cloth). I spent a week rendering 51lbs of wax and ended with 48lbs in varying colors of olive/bronze and a few mustard bronze. His honey was the color of the darkest molasses and some of the blocks had slumgum and honey oozing from them. The hole in the solar extract had a bent piece of window screen that filtered only large chunks out of the melting wax. 

I used quite a bit of cheese cloth initially for filtering but the wax didn't burn properly. So I rendered it in 8 quart pots of water with a cooling time of 12-20 hours. I was careful not to boil it so that it would settle properly toward the end. (There were some blocks that had to be rendered twice since they got boiled by accident and the resulting wax was still tacky.) When the wax hardened, I knocked it out of the pots. I then used a heat gun to warm the bottom of the blocks and a scraper to remove the sediment. 

Back to the initial question, I was sure this was a clean block since the melted pool in the Presto pot didn't have junk in it. The next time I used it, I found the sediment.

I made some hand dipped tapers (rough, first timers) but they have burned very well with #2 square braid. The molded ones (vintage taper mold) used 2/0 wicks and those are drippy. I had some difficulty getting those out of the molds but managed to remove all of them undamaged. The pillars are another story. Plus every block of wax I rendered would be a bit different....I melted all the colors separately.

That's my story and why I joined this forum...It took a while to be approved and able to post...and once that finally happened, I'd already finished rendering.


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## Bee Bliss (Jun 9, 2010)

I will do my best to offer my input which will be limited as I have not yet cleaned and used wax from a hive. I have bought all of my wax already clean to use and have made and burned a lot of beeswax candles. However, with what I know and read this is what I can say......

Your wax is not clean enough. Find a way to filter it through quality paper toweling using layers of at least one, two.....maybe more. Is this the wax you used hydrogen peroxide in? When summer comes, make or get yourself a solar melter. Honey, however, is another problem. The wax should have been rinsed well before putting it in the solar melter. In your case, you should probably use the water method and then put in solar melter if you think you still have honey in it. If honey is rinsed from the wax, usually the solar melter is enough.

Someone here mentioned boiling the wax vigorously in water to get out debris and honey. Then keeping it in liquid state for a long time to have gravity settle out things. Some swear by the solar method using paper towel to filter it. However, it is difficult to do with winter coming.

Your hand dipped taper was burning well inspite of the dirty wax because it had a very thick wick in it. Did it tend to smoke?? The 2/0 wick in the other one you made was the right size, but performed poorly as it was clogging up with debris. It dripped because the wick could not keep up with the melt pool. When you get your clean wax, use the 2/0 for the tapers.

You shouldn't be second pouring candles so late after the first pour. Pour the first time to the highest point, then wait 5 to 10 to 20 minutes and add more wax, but do not pour higher than the first pour. I learned about seepage from the first glass jar candles I made. The second pour was higher and it went down the side of the candle and looked goofy as it was a slightly different color (candle had pulled away from the glass and repour wax stuck to the glass). Keep your candle as liquid at the top as you can before you add the next bit of liquid wax. My poly and silicon molds have started to solidify around the edges when I add a small second pour to the center.

Don't leave a gap at the bottom of the cooler. I feel for your frustration in making quality beeswax candles for gifts. If I think of things I will add.


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## Bee Bliss (Jun 9, 2010)

Cracks in your pillars means they cooled too fast. Are both the taper molds and the pillar molds metal ones? Beeswax in contact with aluminum for a long time can become discolored.


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## honeyshack (Jan 6, 2008)

I would re render the wax and boil it in water, minimum 5 minutes and then turn the heat down and let it settle. Keep enough heat the water does not boil and the wax does not start to harden on the top. let set for minimum 2 hours then strain. I use the 100 mesh honey straining cloth layered many times. When i get the liquid wax into the basin where it will harden, I add boiling water. The water then adds some more time to allow any particles which missed the straining to settle out. This by no means is the only way to render wax but here is a link to how i do it
http://www.youtube.com/user/thehoneyshack#p/a/u/2/80MSXRu9O0o
you can find part two on the site as well

As to cracks..., yes it can mean it cooled to fast. It can also mean there are air bubbles in the candle. I sell my candles. Air bubbles will lessen the quality of the candle. Every once in a while, I will take an axe and split the candle in half length wise. It is very enlightening what one will find; especially with the problem candles.
You need to retop up sooner. I top up as soon as the top hardens a bit. When you pour pillars, tip the pillar on it's side and pour as if pouring a can of coke and minimizing the foam. Stand the pillar up right as you pour. Try to minimize the jerky pours as that creates air bubbles. As well, try not to split the pour through the wick. When you do that it creates an air bubblel.

As to sticking in the mold
1. poured to hot
2. mold not clean enough. 
3. I have found that air bubbles contribute to candles sticking in the molds as well as dirty wax
4. trying to remove the candle to soon. When the candle is ready, it will separate on all sides but maybe part of one. With tapers, a gentle tap with the flat side of the wooden spoon will release the mold or if a pillar a gentle scrunch with the hand will release the mold. If all sides are stuck to the mold, 9 times out of 10 it is an air bubble

When your wax is dirty and it is melted for prolonged time, the debris will heat and burn. This will change the properties of your wax. It will darken the wax and even give it a different smell.
If you are making dipped tapers, add about 2-3 inches of water to the vat. The garbage will settle between the layers. 

hope this helps


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## berkshire bee (Jan 28, 2007)

one thing I do is continuously filter my wax as I'm pouring candles. I start with clean wax, melt in a presto pot 155-160 deg. I open my valve and run the wax through a filter into the pouring pot and pour my candles. what doesn't get used goes back into the presto pot, and when I'm ready to pour again, it all goes through the filter before going into the pouring pot. In my humble opinion, you can't overfilter your wax, but if it isn't filtered well enough, you'll have problems with your candles


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

Candlewren,

In post #3 I couldn't tell if you used water in your rendering process. Like others, I would start with cleaning up your wax. Wax that is full of honey, protein and other debris needs to be rendered in boiling water if you want to get water soluble components to partition in the water stage. An easy test for this would be to melt a couple of cups of wax in a couple cups of water and let the water boil through the wax for a couple of minutes to insure complete mixing (don't boil over an open flame). Place the mixture in a half gallon milk carton and let settle in a warm place over night. Tear the carton open and inspect the bottom of your wax block for crud. The type and amount of slum gum and the look of the wax will give you an idea of how dirty your wax is. If you have a quarter inch of junk, thats not bad. If half of your block is crud then you have some rendering to do. Some people add a little vinegar to the water to drop the pH while others add salt. In either case, contaminants in the wax phase become more water soluble and move out of the wax phase in favor of the more highly charged solvent (salt water of acidulated water). Several people on this forum use H2O2 to lighten the wax. Either way, the wax sounds like it is still dirty and need to be cleaned further. If your test sample proves that it is dirty then scale up the rendering process to suit your equipment.
Note - I also use straining. I think Dadant has the 128 thread count nylon used to strain honey.


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## candlewren (Oct 26, 2010)

Sorry to be late in replying...I didn't realize there were more posts.

>Is this the wax you used hydrogen peroxide in?

This is the lot of wax that I took a small amount out of to try to bleach. That particular block was re-rendered and it separated into three layers. I will be scraping off the bleached layer and discarding it -- (I used bleach, not peroxide, 'cuz I didn't know better and the keeper bleaches his frames...etc.) 

I boiled some of my wax vigorously and then I found conflicting information online stating that you should never boil it or you'd ruin it. So, I started the gentle melting...etc. Some of the boiled batches has huge amounts of webbed wax debris...what I mean by that is there was a lot of trapped sediment and water that formed as an inch layer (a lot of water trapped in the wax) underneath the layer of sediment. It obviously didn't cool slowly enough.

>Hand dipped-tapers

I did use larger wicks but the color of the wax was different. I think my wax had time to settle so I got better results.

>re-rendering

Yes, you're all right. I thought I had done a good job but it wasn't enough. I made a set of dyed/scented (bayberry) pillars with 60 ply flat braid wicking. I haven't been able to get a good burn...no smoking but the flame weakens and the melt pool doesn't reach out far enough. I also found the black gunk on the top of all of them...I might have mentioned that in my previous post. So I melted them down yesterday, strained through paper towel into a silicone baking pan. Then I took that disk and put it in my 8 quart pot full of water and boiled it. I took it out this morning. The water had a light amber tint, as though I had melted honey it in! There was a lot of brown sediment. I scraped the bottom off of the disk...it was at least a quarter inch. There was white stuff also floating in the water. The wax is still green (not as dark) and scented. 

So, I've started the rendering process again and made up two more pots---about 50oz of wax in one and 65oz in the other.

>When your wax is dirty and it is melted for prolonged time, the debris will 
>heat and burn. This will change the properties of your wax. It will darken 
>the wax and even give it a different smell.

I'm sure that's where this debris and bits came from this time around with my candles. Some of this wax smelled like smoke or had a weird fragrance to it. The best way I can describe it is the fragrance they use in pot-a-potties/chemical toilets! When I burned the green candle, it had a chem smell as an after-note to my bayberry fragrance oil. 

I truly believe that the keeper burned some of this wax in the solar extractor by leaving it in too long or not cleaning between uses. I saw the extractors and they were just cold frame boxes mounted on a slant with a bent piece of window screen hovering over the hole (not filtering anything but BIG stuff). There was a LOT of black slumgum and burned debris in the boxes. 

I'm going to post pictures of the wax. You'll all probably want to smack me for even buying it. I had agreed over the phone to buy 50lbs because I was told he had all colors and kinds. He said it all depended upon what he threw in the extractor that day. I asked for the golden yellow wax and didn't get what I wanted. I didn't know it would be such a chore to clean this wax and had never seen this grade of wax before. I've already lamented about it. My husband has told me several times that he didn't think the guy deliberately tried to screw me with this purchase...he just didn't care about what he was doing with the wax and said, "Wax is wax." The keeper had said several times, "I know I could filter it better...but you only have to filter it through cheese cloth before you use it..."


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## candlewren (Oct 26, 2010)

Here is a link to the web album with the wax, before (as it came from the keeper), and after I rendered it the first time:


http://picasaweb.google.com/spinningalpaca/Beeswax?feat=directlink


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## candlewren (Oct 26, 2010)

>one thing I do is continuously filter my wax as I'm pouring candles.
>the 128 thread count nylon used to strain honey

My presto pot doesn't have a spout so I'll need to rig a strainer with a filter. Do you think I could use paint strainers? I think that's nylon mesh. I used yards and yards of cheese cloth and it wasted a LOT of wax. I had to boil the fabric to get the wax out of it.


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## Bee Bliss (Jun 9, 2010)

Hi candlewren,

I see beauty in some of those colors of wax! But, it needs to be clean to make candles that burn well! Maybe you shouldn't fight the color, but just make it clean and work with what you have. Buy some lemon yellow for your other candles. 

For now, clean the brown and olive green waxes and pour tapers and molded pine cones. I am currently making pine cone candles (3 inches tall) and 5" Christmas tree candles from molds and some of those colors would work. Maybe you would want to try that.


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## Bee Bliss (Jun 9, 2010)

check out the medium and dark brown candles here....

www.naturalbeeswaxcandles.com/indexppk.html

www.philoxia.com

I am currently pouring yellow candles and dipping them once to color them Forest Green and pinecone brown.


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## beekeeper_sd (Oct 30, 2008)

True, you can make candles with brown beeswax however, the wax has to be clean enough for the candle to burn.

I know you probably don't want to hear this but I don't think you are going to be able to get the wax candle usable. The only thing I think you will able to use the wax for is dipping pine cones for fire starters or such. I know you have invested a lot of time and money in the wax and that is not what you had in mind to make but the wax is obviously not cappings wax and probably will never be candle quality unless you find someone that can pressure filter it and that's only going to cost you money again. 

Scrap the wax and move on. I don't mean to sound like I'm just trying to sell you something but, if you are still interested in making beeswax candles, I do sell GOOD beeswax cappings. PM me if you are interested.


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## HONEYDEW (Mar 9, 2007)

I agree with beekeeper sd I would contact a bee supply co. and see if they would give you some cash for the dark wax or credit towards foundation. Not to be negative ,but if you keep it up with trying to use that dark wax your candles are going to halve to sell for 100 dollars a pound....


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

I would tend to agree. The fact that you have made some soap out of your wax by adding bleach, and that there are so many color impurities, starting with good wax is a better way to go. I like to melt my ugly wax in a pan with wood shaving and roll into little balls for fire starters. At least the wax gets used.


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

Something else to keep in mind is that brood comb often has chemicals in it which you might not want to use in candles. We would not consider brood comb as candle quality due to this risk of chemical contamination plus the smell of wax rendered from brood comb is distinct and unpleasant.

As mentioned, you could trade it to bee supply houses for credits towards purchases or some will purchase outright. It can also be used for industrial use such as in furniture polish or leather conditioner.
Sheri


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## candlewren (Oct 26, 2010)

Thank you, all, for your expert opinions. That's pretty much what I expected. My husband wanted me to write it off for candles too. Even if I could get it all to burn, what you said about chemical contamination is an issue. I can't guarantee that it didn't happen because this keeper has 80 hives and had trouble keeping his queens alive. We asked what type of bees he had and we were told, "Ahhh, I don't know." (He didn't even know why we showed up at his door that day, even though we had an appointment.) Call him to ask would give me an aneurysm...

I did find the the mustard colored wax that I re-rendered yesterday (with vinegar in the water) looks the most like cappings wax of any I got. A significant amount of crud came out of that one too. I will try that particular batch for a small pillar or votive to test for my own use. The rest of it--well, I wanted to make some luminaries/wax hurricanes. I'll probably give that a shot. I will also be making some ornaments and molded plaques from cookie/aspic molds. I also have some large 6"-8" tall pine cones that I can dip (like dipping bears) in dyed and scented wax. My husband makes Shaker style small furniture, so we're going to make a small batch of furniture wax. I'll try to use this beeswax in a non-candle applications, as suggested.

As far as the bee supply option, I don't think I'd get enough compensation. I'm sure that shipping on 45lbs of wax to a supplier would cost me too much --considering, I paid $150 for the 51lb lot.

Thanks all for your support...I'll chalk this up as a learning experience and keep going with my wax crafts.


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## summer1052 (Oct 21, 2007)

I'll add this into the "for-what-it's-worth" column: I intensely dislike those "antique dip style" aluminum taper molds. I have a set in the garage that are permanently affixed to the taper inside. Or vise versa, as the case may be. 

I have tried everything. I have boiled them, frozen them, set them in the Texas summer sun  and tried to soften them. Those tapers are not coming out. Only thing left is to boil the <deleted> thing until I completely melt the wax. It's the one and ONLY mold I have trouble with. Period. I do usually need a brief (5 min.) chill in the freezer, after the candle is completely cool, when using _*metal*_ molds.

For those of you who comment that cracking means your candles are cooling too quicky, what do you recommend? My votives tend to do that, cooling at room temp (72-76) with no other influence. No fridge chill, no cold packs, nada. Should I rinse my votive mold in boiling water a la a teapot before I pour, and HEAT it, thus slowing down the cooling?

It's interesting. In my rural area, the natural unbleached beeswax candles out sell the bleached ones 4:1. To the farmers around here, bleached wax is assumed to be paraffin.

GL with your wax crafts!
summer


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## Bee Bliss (Jun 9, 2010)

Summer, what temp are you pouring those votives at? That can also be a problem. When I pour poly or silicone molds, I stay on the lower end of the scale for temps and then I will put a coffee filter on top and then a hot pad. Pouring too hot or pouring too cold...... both can be a problem. Are your votive molds metal or what?


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