Solar cooker used to make candles

by Srinivasan Nenmeli-K
(Palo Alto,CA, USA)

Hello friends!
This is not really cooking;but I used a simple cardboard box cooker to melt wax paraffin,palm and soy to make candles on a small scale.Since waxes melt around 130 to 140 F, the time taken to heat and melt is only about 15 minutes on a hot day in California--that is Palo Alto where I am located.
In a single day ,I could melt about 1 to 2 lbs of candle wax in batches of about 0.25 lb each time.My cooker is of single cardboard box design,with plastic glazing and shredded paper as insulator below the enameled tray with pots containing wax.The cooker uses three reflectors with aluminum foil pasted on cardboard sheet on three sides.The size of the cooker is just 8in x 8 in square and 4 inch depth. I used a priority mailing box for the box cooker.Total cost of cooker is less than $10.
This is not only eco-friendly but reduces my use of electrical power from the utility.It is very convenient to place the wax pot and add ingredients and also measure the temperature of the melt.It is also safe to melt wax in the open yard.



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Greetings Srinivasan,

Thank you very much for sharing such a distinct and useful way of using solar energy and solar ovens.
It goes to show that a solar cooker can be used for so many different applications.

There are those who sterilize infested grains and even doctors who sterilize medical instruments using a solar cooker, but it had not occurred to me to use it for candle making.

Thank you again for your contribution.

P.S. If you have any photos, we would be happy to share it on our site as well.

Nathan
Admin.