Is there a way to salvage pillar candles? What I mean is…?
I have several tall pillar candles that have burned part way down, but only in the middle. The wick is now too far down to cast any light, but there is still a fair amount of candle left. Any ideas?
If you are meaning the sides are too tall you can take a heated butter knife and cut them down to the size you want. You can shave off a little or quite abit, you just have to make sure your knife is HOT, so it cuts but doesn’t break. You can also take the hot knife and carefully round off the edges so it doesn’t look "homemade". Just take your time and go slowly at least until you get used to the method.
The pieces you cut off can go in a jar for on a candle warmer. That is if they have a scent. There would be no light, but the warmer would cause the wax chunks to melt and the scent to come out.
March 17th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
take a knife and cut the wax waste away you now have a usable candle.
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March 17th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
You can purchase plain white unscented votive candles, and place inside the pillar candle and light them. This will allow the scent of the original candle to come through as the wax walls warm. However, once the votive has burned down to the base, carefully remove the metal disk that is at the bottom to hold the wick. Also, before you put the votive in, make sure you remove any stickers that are on the bottom of the candle, because they could be a fire hazard.
You can carefully cut the top of the candle off. Light the candle and once the wax is warm, blow out the candle and use a table knife, that you have run under hot water to heat it, to cut the top of the candle. If you really like the candle scent, you can buy wicks at an art store and then make another candle out of the cut off wax. You take a clay pot (or other safe container), like a little plant pot (make sure you plug the hole with something nonflamable), melt the wax, set the wick and pour the wax into the clay pot. If you don’t have enough left with just one candle, layer the wax from different candles, just make sure the one layer is solid before you add another layer.
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March 17th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
But I will take a small hand saw and saw off the excess wax at the top until I get down to just above the wick level (I don’t go down farther than that to avoid wax run-off). As long as there’s wick left, you should still be able to use the candle just fine.
The up side is that your candle should still function nicely.
The down side is that it might not be as pretty and decorative as it was before. If decoration is your main purpose for the candle, but you still want to light it now and then, try using a long taper candle as the "lighter". I always keep a back-up, junk taper just for such purposes.
Enjoy!
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March 17th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
If you are meaning the sides are too tall you can take a heated butter knife and cut them down to the size you want. You can shave off a little or quite abit, you just have to make sure your knife is HOT, so it cuts but doesn’t break. You can also take the hot knife and carefully round off the edges so it doesn’t look "homemade". Just take your time and go slowly at least until you get used to the method.
The pieces you cut off can go in a jar for on a candle warmer. That is if they have a scent. There would be no light, but the warmer would cause the wax chunks to melt and the scent to come out.
References :