Candle Making Wicks
By Udh Ris

Crafting Your Own Candle Making Wicks

Although you can get everything you need for candle making at an arts and craft stores or an online supplier, it is nice to be able to not really need them.  If you are thinking o making your own candles, then you are probably interested in how to do it in the most economic way possible, using other materials you may be able to find easier than specially packaged material sold as candle making wicks or oil candle wicks.

Materials You Need

Many toy stores and hardware stores often sell kite string.  This makes excellent candle making wicks, as long as you pretreat the kite string properly.  You could also try regular twine, which is easier yet to find in department stores, hardware stores and even dollar stores.  Some large supermarket chains also sell balls or rolls of twine.

First, you need to soak your twine or kite string in a solution of four tablespoons of borax, one and a half tablespoon of regular salt that you probably have in your cupboard, and one and a half cups of warm water.  This solution will be good to soak a one foot section of twine or kite string.  After fifteen minutes, your candle making wick is ready to dry.

Now, you need time and patience.  You need to hang up the kite string to completely dry.  This takes about five days, whether you hang it up indoors in a sunny spot or outdoors in a stiff breeze. 

Coating

When your prospective candle making wick is completely dry, get some wax that you would use for your candles and a paper clip.  Some people use very thing tongs, put other people think they don’t get the job done as well as a paper clip.  If you get into candle making for a long time, the tips of your fingers will get numb and you could even use your bare fingers.

You need to melt the wax in a Dutch oven, double boiler or whatever you're going to use to make your eventual candles.  You're going to need to dip your prospective candle making wicks into this melted wax a few times.  You want to do this so many times to be sure the twine or kite string is well coated.

Now, you need to hang up the candle making wicks like you did before.  Again, it's going to take a couple of days for it to be dry.  This might take longer for some people and not as long for others.  Finally, your have candle making wicks.