The books / Candle Making / chapter 6 of 14
Rolled tapers
All chapters
- The hardest of the waxes
- Never above eighty-five
- The wick chart
- The burn test
- Reading the pool
- Rolled tapers
- Dipped tapers
- Votives and tealights
- Pillars and the topping pour
- Container candles and the cure
- Bloom is not a flaw
- Rushing the melt
- Balms, salves, wraps and polish
- What a kilo is worth as candles
Rolled tapers are the easiest candle in this book, and the only one that needs no melting at all. You start from a sheet of beeswax foundation, the same comb-imprinted sheet used to give bees a head start drawing comb, cut to the length you want the finished taper to be.
Lay a length of primed wick along one edge, and roll the sheet around it, keeping the roll even and reasonably tight so the finished candle burns evenly rather than lopsided. A whole batch takes minutes rather than hours, since there is no pot to heat and no pool to cool, and the only real skill is keeping the roll straight and firm along its length.
It is the natural place to start: it teaches wick placement and diameter before you have a burner and a thermometer to also keep an eye on.