I like to burn a candle for a portion of the long hours of winter and early spring nights. For some time I have been working on ways to use tea candles and also to use the puddles of candle wax left by others in shelters.
Desiring a bit more robust candle than the thin aluminum tea candle, I tried my hand at making a candle out of a round Altoid's tin. However, the wicks have a tendency to melt circles of wax instead of using all the wax.
Then I ran into the Nuwick candle. It comes in a 44 hour and a 120 hour version.
I was fascinated by the movable wick of the Nuwick candle, which allows all the wax to be burned.
I read the patent here:
http://tinyurl.com/4zrhn
And I quickly made several little wicks to burn on the a half inch of melted candle wax I had put in the round Altoids tin.
I also cut out a piece of aluminum flashing 1/3 of an inch wide and 5
inches long to use as a pair of tweezers to move the wicks around. (It is folded end-for-end to make tweezers and can be stored in the altoids tin for use.)
The advantage of the movable wick, is that it can be moved from spot
to spot in the tin of wax and it does not get drowned by the wax.
At first, I did not have any cotton pipe cleaners. The plastic ones burn and do
not work, so I took some wisps of cotton from a cotton ball and coated
the upright portion of the wick. It worked OK. I also tried winding
the upright with some cotton kite string. that also worked OK.
However, the next day I found some cotton pipe cleaners at a cigar/tobacco shop. These pipecleaners, when dipped in melted wax make a great wick. They burn for many, many hours.
I fully support the Nuwick concept and product. I recommend their candles.
http://www.nuwick.com/
But if the tin I want to usefor ultralight hiking is a little smaller and lighter than the Nuwick candle, I now know how to make the wicks for my container.
As I understand the Patent Laws, it is legal for a private individual to make a working copy of a patented item like the wick for evaluation, but it would be illegal to sell such copies. Fortunately, these handmade wicks are easy to make and use without much fuss.
As a disclaimer, I neither work for Nuwick, nor do I sell any candle products.
Walk Well,
Risk