8 replies to this topic

[fishy1]

I bought a bunch of large candles a year or so ago, think large white night lights. I took one out tonight, intending to use it for lost wax casting. I took it out it's silver casting, where to my surprise there was a layer of white wax (paraffin) that you saw when you looked at while it was in it's casing. Below the white layer, there was a light browny layer for most of the depth of the candle. Further inspection of this layer reveals it is greasier than the normal paraffin wax, and it also is softer and has a strange smell. Is this layer tallow? I hope not, as I have a fair weight of it.

Anyone with ideas please help.

[lew]

I don't know what tallow is?

would you be so bold as to enlighten me!

[fishy1]

Tallow is a kind of wax, used for some candles, made from rendered animal fats.

[etrek]

It definitely could be, but I thought they stopped using tallow a long time ago. Does it smell like shortening?

[fishy1]

I couldn't tell you what shortening smells like.

[etrek]

I couldn't tell you what shortening smells like.

Ehh, good point.

[phildunford]

It's very unlikely to be tallow...

Yes tallow smells like cooking fat, but not so strong - it's still sometimes used as a flux in soldering lead for stained glass windows!

Most likely its undyed parafin wax. I've noticed that most modern candles have a core of (cheap?) undyed wax and are dipped with a thin layer of the main colour - obvious when it's a bright colour, but not so much when it's white...

The product is not so good, as you can often see chips of the underneath layer, and when it burns the resolidified (is that a word?) wax is much lighter than the main coating.

Another cheap mass market product I'm afraid, but the wax is probably fine for coating Iron Filings

[fishy1]

I don't need it for treating iron, it's for lost wax process.

[phildunford]

Should be fine!