How to make a wick at home? Candle for your own candles

Someone is trying to acquire skills that will help survive in the conditions of a worldwide catastrophe. Someone just found a new hobby. And someone managed to turn this hobby into a profitable business, creating real works of art. What is it about? About self- made candles at home. From this article you will learn how to make a wick of threads.

Required part

If in the material for creating a candle you can still achieve some variations, then one of its components you will not be able to exclude in any way. It's about the wick. On how to make a wick at home, it will go further. And now just consider what kind of an important thread this is.

Origin of the wick

It may seem logical that the wick should be a contemporary candle, but it is not. The candles appeared a little later. Centuries that way in fifteen. At first, chips were used as a wick. Later they guessed to use pieces of cloth. This was at a time when candles had not yet been invented, and for lighting, small pieces of liquid fuel were used (mostly fat), which smoked mercilessly and disgustingly smelled.

However, if you think that the wick is the simplest particle that can be made from anything, then you are deeply mistaken. It is not as simple as it might seem. In order to know how to make a wick with your own hands, you must understand how and why it burns.

Processes in the wick

To make the wick qualitative, it must consist of several interconnected fibers. This is important in order to activate the capillary forces, which raise the liquid fuel to the source of combustion. The wick for the candle at the molecular level serves as a kind of pumping substation, which allows, among other things, it is better to saturate the liquid with gas. As a result, the vapor pressure increases and the flash point decreases . All these processes, of course, take place at a microscopic level, but this does not become less interesting. And their understanding will help to make a qualitative wick, the most suitable for an individual product.

From what you can make a wick

Throughout history, the wick has been tried with its own hands from everything that burns. Thin chips, pieces of fabric, braided threads and even pressed poplar fluff - that's an incomplete list of materials.

Today, the most reasonable option seems to be the use of cotton thread or fiberglass. The principal difference between these materials is that the cotton is completely burnt, and the wick of fiberglass remains. If suddenly you have a legitimate question about who and why it is needed, then, perhaps, you do not know the new fashionable trend - the production of figured candles with a frame. You bought, for example, a candle in the form of a cute kitty, and when it burned, you find a skeleton in the shape of the skeleton of this very animal. Some connoisseurs of such ideas are simply delighted.

Interesting detail

Considering how to make a candle for a candle, pay attention to the fact that its size and diameter must be selected in accordance with the size of the candle itself. If it is too thin, it will just go out. And if too thick, it will become merciless to smoke. At automated production facilities, these parameters have long been calculated. But when you make a candle for your candles with your own hands, you often have to reach the right proportion by trial and error.

Another trick is that the long wick is also smoking. And with the combustion of fat, wax or paraffin, it inevitably lengthens. In the Middle Ages, this problem had to be handled manually. In the houses there must have been scissors, which cut off the tips of the wicks. They were called wick scissors.

In our time, this problem was solved in a very original way. The candle wick (which in the vast majority of cases is a thread woven from fine fibers) was made using asymmetrical weaving techniques. Because of this, the tip is bent to the side and totally burns completely completely.

How to make a wick at home

If your candle is made of wax, you will need a thick wick with loose (not tight) weaving. If the initial material is paraffin or various fats, the diameter of the wick should be small, and the individual threads must be tightened sufficiently tightly.

This is done because these substances have different viscosities. In order for the wax to successfully climb the capillaries of the wick, it will take quite wide passages. If the same leaves for a less liquid paraffin, then it will simply lack the necessary traction, and the candle will burn dimly, unevenly, or even completely go out.

Required impregnation

When you make a candle for your own candles, remember the need to impregnate it before using it directly. This process is not particularly time-consuming. However, it will take time, as the impregnated wick must be dried well.

Impregnation is carried out so that the wick burns better and less waxes or waxes are formed.

Solutions can be used different. Here are a few options.

• For 500 ml of water: 5 grams of ammonium chloride, 10 grams of borax, 5 grams of sodium nitrate and 5 grams of calcium chloride.
• For 550 ml of water: 30 grams of hydrated lime and 8.5 grams of sodium nitrate.
• For 700 ml of water: 1 gram of ammonium chloride and 1 gram of sodium nitrate.

The wick is immersed in the solution for no less than 15 minutes. And then hang out to dry. It is recommended to dry billets for at least five days.

Among domestic craftsmen, a solution that requires fewer specialized chemicals is popular. And although the quality is somewhat inferior to the mixtures described above, but since it is still about how to make a wick at home (trying not to turn the house into a branch of a chemical cabinet as far as possible), we will also consider this option.

It is done in the following way: take 2 tablespoons of ordinary table salt (not iodized), add 4 tablespoons of borax and mix it all in one and a half liters of warm water. When the solution becomes uniform, it is possible to send blanks of wicks for soaking there.

For better preservation of the wicks, after complete drying, they can be impregnated with molten wax. To do this, you need to dip them into pre-melted wax three to four times. After this procedure, the wicks must be dried again. However, impregnation with wax will be needed only if you want to prepare yourself material for future use. You can perform your direct function in the candle you made without this last stroke.

Wide field of activity

After you have already figured out how to make a wick at home, think about where you can apply it. In truth, working with candles is very exciting. And from a nice hobby, it can easily be transformed into a decent income item.

Candles come in different types. The simplest are economic. Their only function is very mundane - to provide light in the event of a power outage. They have a simple cylindrical shape and a boring translucent white color.

Table candles are more attractive. When they are made, various dyes are used. Their shape varies from cylindrical to twisted. Such candles may well serve as an important element in creating an atmosphere for a romantic dinner.

Aromatic candles are made with the addition of substances that have a pleasant smell. In some cases, they can be used in aromatherapy. Thus, you can not only raise your spirits, but also improve your health.

Gel candles are very popular nowadays. Firstly, because they are unusual, secondly, because they are beautiful and, thirdly, because they burn absolutely without any smell. Make them simple. We need only a transparent container (preferably in the form of a plate), some colored sand, beads or decorative figurines (this depends on the flight of imagination), a wick and a molten gel mass, which the composition is poured into.

So dare! All in your hands.