Anybody make beeswax candles?

[osage outlaw]

Does anyone make beeswax candles?  I love the smell of beeswax.  I was heat bending a bow today and for some reason it smelled like beeswax.  Maybe I just got my shop a little to warm and it got my chunk of wax smelling good.  It sure seemed to be coming from the osage though.  How do you make them, just melt it and pour it in a mold with a wick?  Do you have to add anything to it? 

[JW_Halverson]

I just got a mold for doing 6" taper candles, but I used to do all my candlemaking as "dip" style tapers. 

Dip style is best done in winter when it is cold outside.  You start with a long piece of candlewick.  You dip it in wax and pull it out.  A little wax will harden on it.  Dip again and again until it is almost as big around as a pencil.  Now you have to roll the squiggley thing straight on a flat table top.  Easy peasy, you are on your way.  Dip and wait for it to harden.  Repeat until the candle is as thick and long as you require.  If you dip too many times in a row the candle will actually heat up and begin to melt, getting thinner and thinner. 

Thats why it is so nice to do on a winter day....outside.  Dip a few times to build up and then hang the candle while you work on the next one.  The colder it is, the faster the wax will build up with each dip.

ALWAYS make sure that the wax is melting in a double boiler.  NEVER heat wax directly in the pan over heat...if it gets too hot, it will flash over and you will have fire.  In this case, FIRE BAD!  For a barbecue grill, fireplace, or ring of stones at a camp then it is FIRE GOOD!  But a big old pan of blazing candlewax is not good.  The copious black smoke burns the eyes and makes wifey mad. 

I don't have a wifey anymore. 

But I still make candles.

[Mohawk13]

Jas. Thownsend Co. In Indiana sells mold, beeswax, and candles. Good quality. They sell many early american products.

[bowtarist]

I usually take my wax off the heat or have on very low heat to dip candles.  Like JW said, the wax will re -melt the already started candle if it get too hot. I have a mold,  but have never used it. When using molda you don't want the wax really hot either or it will shrink as it cools in the mold leaving voids or hollow candles. Pretty simple practice if you do your research.

[JW_Halverson]

Those gang molds for candles sold thru Townsend are not intended to actually mold candles.  They leak terribly!  I wasted dozens of hours and many thousands of btu's of heat trying to make candles from the two that I bought from them.  Eventually I contacted a gentleman in Williamsburg that is a professional tinsmith about the molds.  He said he could make a 4 candle mold, but it would be $300.  They are very difficult to make correctly, what with all the seams and joinery. 

I now use latex molds.