The “chambersticks” of a few posts back ought to have an accompanying wrought iron snuffer, right?
Thus this:
candle
Recently got a couple right proper holders of candles. Here’s one sans candle:
The spike holds the candle in place, thus:
And if the candle is a bit off-center on the spike, well, the candle can be rotated to be slightly less likely to let molten wax be driven off by air currents when moving about.
At Siouxland I picked up this little “pot” that isn’t a pot. It’s a sort of lamp. A tea light candle works in it, if the cover/lid is left off. If the cover is set back in place, eventually the exhaust products (CO2) build up and snuff out the flame – though it takes a while and is slow. While it was during daylight hours, when it was on display there was an LED “tea light candle” in the thing. That wouldn’t care about the cover being on or not.
Practical for illumination? Not at all. Maybe with a grid atop it could keep a cup of tea or coffee warm. But this is really for “mood lighting” more than anything.
A little light…
Yes, a 3D printed spider and a tea light candle… but it looks like the thing is too integral and I wonder if the printed material will burn or melt as the wax is burned away. It doesn’t seem to be a metal cased tea light held by the print. And it weirds me out a bit that 3D printed stuff is for sale at RenFaires…
A bit of appropriate music[1] (It doesn’t really get going until 1:30 or 1:40):
Also: “Common Sense Gun Control” explained:
[1] The Haunted House – Ray Noble & His Orchestra
After the Let There Be Light post (guest post on According to Hoyt) someone suggested a post on candles. I took some pictures, wrote some words and submitted another guest post. Yesterday, Sarah must have really needed to take a break, as it was used. I do NOT claim it to be anything great. But here it is.
After the last post about the simpler (no pressure or mantle) kerosene lamps and lanterns, someone suggested a post about candles. This seems a bit strange, at least initially. Candles are rather simple things and who has not used one or at least seen one used even if merely for a few moments atop a cake? And yet… there are various sorts of candles, some better for light and some better for heat, as well as various holders and lanterns. And even so, while the modern era might go on about lumens for brightness, it’s candlepower that seems more readily understandable.
There are certainly many sorts of candles, but for “grid down” the purpose is light, heat, or both. It’s not about ambiance, entertainment, or who knows what else. This constrains things. The “birthday candle” doesn’t last long enough to be practical. The scented candles might be alright now and then, for some, but for any duration they can get overpowering. The big pillar candles might be alright for a while, but are subject to having the outside become a light-filtering wall as the center burns down. If they have multiple wicks, though, this might be mitigated and allow for a bit more light.
What it comes down to, at least for me, is unscented tapers, thinner pillars, and tea light candles. The tapers fit into various candle holders and even candelabras and, like the thinner pillars, are for providing light. Tea lights are made to keep things warm, and some can last several hours. Tea lights do provide some light and there are camping lanterns that use such. These are rather small and so the wall of the thing is close to the flame, thus it gets quite hot.
A few examples:
First, the tapers. A nice looking candelabra, with five candles so plenty of candlelight. And in the back a very simple candle holder. These are both “set it place and leave it alone” sorts of things. Moving them means the liquid wax at the top of the burning candle is apt to spill… possibly onto you. For paraffin and soy waxes this is annoying enough. Beeswax has a higher melting point/range and burns are all too likely. The ancient looking holder with the finger ring lets one carry the candle and any wax spills are caught by the brass, not the hand or arm.
The pillar in front is another simple holder, meant to be left where it was set and lit. The pillar contained all in glass can be readily moved around, just only grip well under the flame. The candle with the glass envelope does flicker some, but surprising little much of the time. It also seems to last quite a long time.
A couple candle lanterns. The one with the glass chimney is nice, but the lack of air intake (as manufactured) other than via the top of the chimney means it flickers quite bit. That’s unmodified. It was not unusual for a person to (with chimney removed!) poke a few nail holes in the base to let air in. One could also drill holes, of course. The other is a sort of “flashlight” and with the design of the handle, it can be hung on a nail or such. That’s a nice, fancy(-ish) thing made to look fairly nice. A larger soup can and some time with a metal snips and a bit of work to deal with sharp edges and it might not look as nice, but would also serve.
A tea light lantern. It’s not super bright (what candle is?) but there is some light.
But where the tea light really does well, is to provide heat, even if not very much. But if one provides some heat, more than one can provide more heat. An ideal heat source? Not really. Right, proper heaters certainly do better. But in a pinch something like this “dubious slapdash heater” might be enough to keep a small room if not comfortable at least tolerable.
This is a 5 by by grid of tea lights on an old cookie sheet, with a ‘cooling rack’ holding up a copper plate and a heat-powered fan to spread the heat around the room. The copper plate is admittedly expensive (fancy thing for using cast iron on a glass top range without worrying much about it) but aluminum is also a good thermal conductor – if it was not, why are most heat sinks aluminum?
There are some specialty tools for dealing with candles, which are not really necessary, but I’ll be complete and mention them. There is a wick adjuster, a wick trimmer, and a snuffer.
The wick adjuster might seem to be something to keep a wick straight up, but that can be the wrong thing to do. A taller flame is a brighter flame, true. A too tall flame is a sooting flame, however. Self-trimming candles have wicks that curl some and thus the end of the wick is burned away. If the candle is not self-trimming, adjusting the wick to have it burn off might be called for.
The trimmer is a fancy scissors that can catch the trimmed wick. Trimming is done before the candle is lit (or after it is extinguished). The wick should start about ¼ inch high.
And the snuffer is just that. A little bell to cover the flame and snuff it out. This has the advantage of not getting burnt fingers from pinching out the flame, or possibly spattering wax from blowing out the flame.
If you really wish to delve into things candle, there are plenty of texts on how to make your own or how they are made. For “what’s going on” there is The Chemical History of A Candle by Michael Faraday. You can find that on Project Gutenberg.
Oh, I rather like the image (I presume AI generated) that was used atop the post:
In late 2021 I began posting here semi-regularly rather than very intermittently. I made a couple posts in very late December and somehow that began a routine of daily postings. At first I was curious if I could keep it up for a year or so. I did. And then again. And then some. This entry is the 1000th daily post since the start on 30 December 2021.
When the “Let There Be Light” bit on kerosene lamps posted on AtH, I was a bit surprised to see a suggestion (or two?) that there ought to be a followup regarding candles. My initial reaction was “Candles? Doesn’t everyone already know about all they need to?” But then I thought about it and while that is likely true, there is a bit more. Folks are aware of candles, certainly, but like many things what seems simple isn’t necessarily. Nothing truly complicated, I suppose, but there is a depth that is readily overlooked.
I have a taper candelabra, and a curious thing that is a tea light candelabra. I have a couple different designs of candle holders and/or even candle lanterns. I’ve made the “dubious slapdash” heater powered by a small array of tea lights. I even have a set of “candle tools” that are not really needed, but might be of interest (wick adjuster, wick trimmer, snuffer). Maybe I should write up something and have a few pictures?
Did I miss anything? What ought be covered in a post regarding candles? What ought NOT?
And, I suppose I could also include an older ‘technology’ – the olive/cooking oil lamp. I have the “Aladdin’s Lamp” style things, but I’ve also done the improvised version that was thrown together in a couple minutes. Am I missing something?
As Sarah will be travelling in early October, there might be a dearth of AtH posts and even something as mundane as a bit about candles and cooking oil might be used as filler. I just want to be sure that I do not “fill a much-needed gap” with a pointless post. Thoughts?
As part of The Most Commercial Time of The Year, Amazon had a listing for 5-candle candelabra that was not $50+. I sprung for it, as I’d been wanting a decent candelabra for a while but didn’t care to spend a crazy amount, nor settle for some dubious looking lash-up. Thus this:
It arrived in pieces to be assembled, which made for a smaller a shipping box, and less precarious shipping. The instructions were minimal but sufficient. It felt unstable during part of the assembly, but as thing were being finished up, that went away and it feels solid now. My only problem was that it’s a five candle model and I had only four candles for it. That is a minor thing, though it wound being another Amazon order as the local source was out of stock when I checked – and I checked a few times.
It’s rather impressive how bright five candles are. When I had it in the kitchen, it seemed to outshine the Mansfield hanging “saloon lamp.” I am not sure I can say the candles were a mere five candlepower. Light depends on flame size and the flames seem fairly tall, so even as much as 10 cp is not entirely out of the realm of possibility. I think this setup puts out more light than some of my Dietz lanterns (certainly more than the Comet) but the Dietz lanterns are portable, and this is very much not.
The candles are ‘dripless’ and that is true, if they are perfectly vertical, and in still air. Even moving the candelabra a short distance when lit causes draft that results in not only flicker, but drips. If you are lucky, you don’t get hot wax on your hand. And if you are very unlucky, the candles are beeswax which has very hot drips that can cause burns rather than mere annoyance. These are paraffin, for what it’s worth.
Yes, this is meant to be set somewhere, lit, and not moved. A “candlelight dinner” of course comes to mind. But maybe not in the exact center of the table. If two are opposite each other, would they wish to view each other though the candles and flames?
I have the totally unshielded ‘classic’ candle holder (pretty much a small plate with a ring to hold it by), the glass-chimney candle lantern (that benefited from added air holes at the bottom so there could air drawn in from there rather than the top – which results in flicker or pulse). And the partly shielded “handle can hang on a nail” which was the most recent purchase.
The first has the sole advantage of raw simplicity. The second is a bit more draft-resistant. The third nicely (or potentially) shields the eyes of the user and the handle is away from the rising heat from the flame. I have not seen, nor even heard of ‘cold blast’ candle lanterns, though I suppose by the time you get that involved you might as well just go with oil/kerosene and get the added brightness.
What would an “ideal” candle lantern be? ‘Fully’ enclosed for at least some resistance to breeze, partly shielding/reflecting, and able to be hung up on a lantern hook, and maybe also have the nail-in-the-wall option. Alright, what would that look like?
Start with the glass chimney lantern, and have the intake air holes from the start rather than a customer/user addition later. Reflection and light shielding could be had if the chimney was “silvered” (more likely aluminized) on one side. The bail takes care of hanging it from lantern hook. That doesn’t take care of the hang-on-a-nail (or screw or…). If in addition to the baseplate there was a ‘half can’ attached or even just a side handle (the reflecting chimney already doing the shielding job) that would add a handle away from the heat and provide the nail hanging option. Alternately, the ‘half can’ could be the reflector and a standard glass chimney used.
The aluminized chimney would have better reflectivity, but would cost more – as would replacements should one break. I’m not sure the reflecting chimney would make heat tolerance even worse or not.
I don’t see trying to make this thing, but it was an interesting thing to ponder for a little while.
At Riverssance this past weekend I spent money on tips, on food, on drink, and on this:
I had to supply my own candle, of course. The lantern is not as tall as the common taper, so I pulled the one I had used in the candle holder I mentioned some time back. That one had burned down some, and so was a good fit for this. The copper reflector does reflect some light, but it’s hardly as effective as polished silver or aluminum. The main thing is that it blocks light such that it’s not blinding (for candle values of… yes) when carried.
Or just viewed from behind when not carried. The handle is longer enough to be easy to grasp with the whole hand, and has ‘decorative’ holes that make it easy to hang on a small screw or nail not fully into a wall. The long handle makes the mounting on the wall that bit more stable, too.
And, yes, this was the only 100% “durable good” purchased. I am a bit surprised, myself. I do have a couple bottles, but drink came in those, so, they do not hit that 100% mark.
A few months back I did a bit of digging and found suggestions to de-flicker kerosene pressure lanterns and applied them to mine. One developed black spots on the mantle, indicative of over-firing the mantle. I dealt with most of that then, and set things aside. This past night I (finally) got around to finishing the job. A slight ‘overpressure’ (more pumps to pressurize than truly required), a significant working of the cleaner/pricker before lighting – and after use, and a full hour runtime to be sure things were hot. That was the de-flickering, but the pressure wasn’t quite as high as the first round, and the remaining spot on the mantle eventually faded away. Huzzah!
As I am using the annoying Klean Strip 1-K in such, there was a residual “kerosene” odor. I’d use a deoderizing candle that works well to deal with that, but I seem to have misplaced such. So, since “light a match” and “burn a candle” to deal with odors is still a thing even if not the ideal candle for such, this was employed. Or deployed.
It’s not the most practical thing, but it’s pretty and the price was right at the time. The candle is in a sort of bowl, cover barely visible on the left. Being so wide, it’s apt to tunneling as the flame “drills” down into the wax. This can be mitigated, some, with long burn time. Evidently the “rule” is to burn a candle for one hour per inch of diameter to get things warm and flowing. I suspect even doing that would not make the best use of the wax here. A container this big might call for multiple wicks to make best use of the wax. Then one could choose between more light, or more duration, by number of wicks lit. I might well eventually re-use the container and make my own multiple wick candle in it. It will not be anytime soon, however.
The Elegant Ungulate 