I know I haven’t been blogging lately but I’ve been busy. For our Christmas series starting this weekend (X: the Christmas story you’ve never heard), we needed candle. Big candles. There will be more to come about this series but for now, I will let you in on the candles we wanted to use for advent.
Apparently, large large candles are hard to come by and expensive when you can come by them. So we had to create our own. What we landed on was 12″ in diameter cardboard cylinders, 3 feet tall with paint cans and books in the middle and some sort of large, visible flame on top. The large flame was also hard to find, but eventually I settled on using a 70% solution of isopropyl alcohol… it burns visibly and clean with no biproducts to set off the alarms.
Here are some pics of the process… I will post the final product after this weekend. They aren’t fully decorated yet so they just look like giant cigarettes.
DK Snyder
HEY! THOSE ARE MY BOOKS!
ryan guard
i burned Pagitt’s book too
Adam
woo hoo.. you are still alive.. i was beginning to wonder. happy belated thanksgiving.
Scotty
Good work on those man. They looked better than I thought they would.
Mark
Let me gets this straight. You are trying to create an oversize candle, so you have decided to you use a 12″ cardboard tube (flammable) as the base of the candle. Then you decided to use isopropyl alcohol in a can as the flame (the catalyst). Then you decide to raise the flame up for a realistic look, which is a nice touch, by setting it on top of books (flammable) and paint cans (flammable). And then to top it all off you will set, I am sure, a few of these things on the stage, which is made from wood and carpet. I am not trying to be a negative nancy but you might what to check your local fire code on this one, remember the architect and you fire safety consultant did not plan for Nick Asolas candles. I am just thinking you don’t want to burn the sanctuary down until you get the new one. Good luck with you candles.
Nick
@Mark – ha! trust me, we thought of all that stuff. I even ran it by the contractor who installed the fire system in the building and he ok’d it. still, just to be safe, we have a fire extinguisher set just behind it on stage. thanks for your concern though buddy!
Mark
Make sure you have somebody filming the services in case the candle does ignite everything on fire, either way i will need to see the candle in action.