The first challenge was figuring out a way to reliably cut bottles. I looked at many methods described on the Great Wide Web, and decided to try this bottle cutter first:
It scores a fine line around a bottle, and then you use alternate dipping or pouring of hot and cold water to break the bottle. My clean-break percentage with this method was pretty abysmal, maybe 30-40%. I struggled with many variations on the theme before abandoning this method as just plain unreliable and frustrating.
It seems like the gold standard method is a wet tile table saw, a large free-standing piece of equipment that needs a constant source of water. There are some tool rental places in town where I might be able to try this for $$, but this was far more trouble than I was looking for.
I learned some people cut glass with a Dremel with a diamond blade, so I decided to spring the $100 for a Dremel and optional blades, reasoning that it could come in handy for other household tasks.
It took me a while to figure this one out, too. You have to mark the bottle carefully all the way around at the desired cut point with a sharpie marker, then cut the bottle under a small stream of running water (trying to keep as much water off the bottle label and the Dremel body as you can). Where the blade is cutting the glass it gets red hot, so the water is needed to cool and lubricate the cutting. I usually do this in the laundry sink. You have to change the blades periodically since they get dull fast. Off course, you have to be very careful with this and use proper eye protection. I use a mask, too, since breathing glass dust is a health risk. Here I am with a friend getting ready to cutting bottles (for you safety nuts out there, I put my eye protection on after we took the picture):
Even this method is not entirely reliable, and the cut surface is uneven. After cutting, I sand the edges with a series of wet sandpaper in diminishing roughness.
Once you have some cut bottles, the candle-making can begin. I use soy wax flakes I get from Amazon in 10 lb bags for around $25 or $30:
I've done just a little experimentation with scents, but really not much. Good quality scents are expensive, and unscented are much cleaner- I like to burn these in the kitchen and other places without having them stink up the place. I've used wick and metal tabs that I buy from a craft store based on the diameter of the container I'll be using. At some point, I might look into higher-quality wick (many of the candles have some tunneling), but this works fine enough for now:
You have to weigh down the pour pot (I use a bacon press) because the wax is lighter than the water it's displacing, and the pot wants to float up.
When the wax begins to melt it shrinks and you have to add additional flakes several times.
In the meantime, I prepare the bottles with wicks. Cut the wick so that it is the height of the bottle plus a couple of inches. Thread the wick through a tab (by the way- save your tabs from spent candles- they can easily be reused). I use a little round of masking tape to secure the tab to the bottle bottom. I've tried a glue gun in the past, and the glue seemed to melt with the hot wax and the tabs floated off the bottoms of the candles. I thread the wick through a disassembled cheap writing pen to press the tab down to the bottom of the container:
Then I use wooden skewers that I've twist-tied together to hold the wick up in the center of the container. When the wicks are ready, heat your containers in the oven at about 175F for a while- you want to pour your wax into hot containers, or the wax can unevenly adhere to the glass and have the appearance of "wet spots." Once your wax is melted to the right temperature (look this up based on the wax you buy), you can pour it into your containers. Wax can drip, so do this on newspapers.
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