Cleaning Pour Pots

[CareBear]

I'm tired of wasting paper towels - the cheap ones don't pick up the wax and the expensive ones are... well expensive. Plus throwing away so much paper makes me feel bad.

I found a last pass with cheapo tissues is a good thing to get the final residue.

What do you all wipe them out with?

[artcwolf]

I use paper towels, to wipe them clean after i pull them out of the oven.

[Vio]

Old socks. LOL Great use for old socks that have holes in them.

[eugenia]

I'm tired of wasting paper towels - the cheap ones don't pick up the wax and the expensive ones are... well expensive.

Stock up on the good ones when they are on sale.

e

[southern.scents]

Right now I am using the double boiler method of melting candles (awaiting my turkey fryer.) do one batch and after I am through pouring candles, I pour the boiling water into the pot, swirl it around to get the last reminents of the wax and FO out, and then dump the water into a bucket that is outside our backdoor. I then wipe the pour pot out with rags that I get from a laundering service. The bucket then gets the water drained off later and the wax goes into the trash at a later time. I don't know right off hand how much the service cost me but you would probably save money if you went with it. I also get my aprons from there. I don't have to worry about washing them or ruining clothes if something accidently gets tossed in with them. Most of the places that deliver rugs all offer the aprons and rags.

[Dolphin146]

I heat my pour pot up and whipe out with a paper towel. It works well for me. And I allways try to buy the paper towels when there on sale. Regina

[Meridith]

I use paper towels and baby wipes.

[candlebug]

I turn the pots upside down on a cookie sheet and use my oven to melt the residue. A great tip I learned at J.T.'s first Texas Candle Conference is to spray with Odorless Mineral Spirits then wipe out. I also leave them in the oven a couple more mintues after that.

[MissMary]

Paper towels still - Sam's Club... does WONDERS in saving money!

[Fire and Ice]

I heat the pour pots with my heat gun and whipe clean. Then Save the wax covered paper towels for getting fire started in my wood burners!

Fire

[earthfriendly]

I use Viva paper towels. After each pour which is 5 lbs at a time, I wipe down the plastic pitcher, the measuring cup and the stirring spoon before the wax hardens. Then I put the wick clips on. Viva does a great job at absorbing the wax.

[CareBear]

see my problem is that I am still pouring a lot of testers, so I clean the pour pots 10 times a night - and that is a LOT of paper towels. The environment is NOT happy with me lately.

[Stella1952]

When I am doing a lot of "lab work," I keep my old electric skillet going with a little water in the bottom. I can put pour pots in there to keep warm or I can put them in upside down to get every droplet of wax out. I also put them in the oven (set on 200°F - turn off when the pots go in) upside down on old newspaper sections laid in an old baking pan. The newspaper absorbs the melted wax and wicks it away from the pots. I use a lot of paper towels and save them for use in other projects. They can be shredded for use in papier mache type creations or used as stuffing or packing. While this doesn't totally curtail the use of paper towels, it does extend the usefulness of the product. Using old rags that can be simmered in water to remove the wax, then reused is another option.

Using washed out veggie cans as pour pots is another way to avoid using paper towels... simply dispose of them after pouring.

I do not always feel the need to totally, perfectly wipe out my pour pots. Heating them and slinging the residual wax droplets into a trash can is usually sufficient. HTH

[CareBear]

Thank you everyone for your ideas - and thanks Stella - your specific advice is, as usual, priceless.

[bunkie68]

I heat my pour pot up and whipe out with a paper towel. It works well for me. And I allways try to buy the paper towels when there on sale. Regina

I do pretty much what Regina does - I heat up my pour pot and wipe it clean with a paper towel. I use Cajun Clean on the paper towel, and it works well. I also find that the more I heat the pot, the easier the wax is to clean up (within reason - I don't want to burn myself on the pot!). If I feel like they (and my molds) need a thorough cleaning, I'll set the oven to a low temp and turn them upside down on a foil lined pan. The wax melts, and a good wipedown gets them nice and clean.

[MissMary]

see my problem is that I am still pouring a lot of testers, so I clean the pour pots 10 times a night - and that is a LOT of paper towels. The environment is NOT happy with me lately.

I didn't mention, but I reuse the same paper towels. When I keep the pour pots hot on the griddle, I can use one paper towel to clean out several pour pots, as long as there isn't a lot of extra gunk. Extra gunk, I pour it out in the trash first (going there anyways with the paper towel if you'd used one). There's only a few drops left in each pot.

I stick a wooden spoon inside the paper towel, circle a few times, reposition the towel on the spoon and move to the next.

[mystical_angel1219]

I use cheapo Dollar Store babywipes after I heatgun the pot to get it hot again.

Paper towels don't take the scent out of the pot as well.

[Dana Mae]

Yes that was kind of my question on all this.....not the left over wax, which seems easy enough but the leftover *scent*....apparently this doesn't seem to carry over and isn't much of an issue?

Thanks,

Dana

[barncat]

I rarely clean my pots! The little residue was that is left is not enough to make a differnce in the next pot as long as it is the same basic color. Any pots with red left can be used for orange, brown, navys, greens, etc. Now if we are making whites, then we take a cream color pot and heat with a gun and wipe clean with rags, and reuse rags until they can stand up. Been doing it this way for years and never a problem.

[Stella1952]

the leftover *scent*....apparently this doesn't seem to carry over and isn't much of an issue?

If the residual scent is REAL strong and the next thing I want to pour is a delicate scent, I MIGHT do a slightly more thorough job, but usually I don't worry about it. Haven't had one ruined yet... at least not from that...

[SatinDucky]

I do not always feel the need to totally, perfectly wipe out my pour pots. Heating them and slinging the residual wax droplets into a trash can is usually sufficient. HTH

I'm the same way. Though I usually do wipe it some at least. If it's a really strong scent, I'll wipe a little more, then zap it with the heat gun to "burn" off the rest of the scent.

I don't buy expensive paper towels, usually Sparkle...lol. Then still use it to wipe out at least 5 pots...LOL. Then they go in a stack to use in wiping the bottoms outside of excess or other oddball things that purity isn't a necessity.

The only time I go for super clean is if I've had a blend in there and want to work on mottles.

[tootie04]

Here is what I do....I use the glass coffee pots from the coffee makers(thrift stores have em for about 2.00 each). I have one for each scent I pour so I dont have to clean them often. When I do I heat up water to boiling and pour into the pots then take the pot OUTSIDE to the woods and dump it out and then use papertowls to wipe the pot out.

tootie