I Have a 10 cm Diameter Jar — At What Point Should I Stop Testing Increasingly Large Single Wicks and Begin Testing Two Smaller Wicks?

The spend-stop rule, in rupees per arm

One arm is three candles of one configuration. At a labelled 450 g fill in the Apothecary 500 gm jar, each candle carries ₹178.20 of Blue Ocean, ₹210.06 of CSI 464 and a ₹212.40 jar: ₹600.66 before the wick. The wick adds ₹5.90 to ₹12.00 per wick. So the arms barely differ in candle cost; they differ in what you must buy to run them.

Read the stop line as a cash comparison. The candles cost the same either way, so the braid route needs ₹354.00 more cash than the 2 × C1 route (a ₹472.00 roll against a ₹118.00 C1 pack), for an unsized wick nobody can place above or below Cotton Braided in advance. The other-supplier route costs an unknown amount plus a shipment and a new wick to qualify. The 2 × C2 arm needs no new pack at all. Past Cotton Braided, every further single fails the rule.

Whether 10 cm sits in the zone where single and double should both be run is a separate question with its own answer (the run-both zone post); this page owns the spending consequence. The 4-inch planning view (one, two or three wicks before production) is the 4-inch jar post.

Why 10 cm pushes the stop point early

Pool area is π × r² on the inside diameter: geometry, not a burn prediction. A 10 cm inside jar has 78.54 cm² for one wick, 1.56 times the 50.27 cm² of the 8 cm jar in the cluster hub. Two wicks split it into 39.27 cm² each, which is the area of a single-wick jar about 7.1 cm across: squarely inside the range where CSI's single rungs are tested. That is why the pair, not a bigger single, is the natural next arm.

The 5.0 cm spacing is our labelled starting point, not a rule; moving it, and the trade between edge melting and glass heat, are the wall-gap post and the first-two-sizes post for 10 cm. The rough hour-per-2.5 cm rule puts a first full pool at about 4.0 hours for 10 cm, at the top of the commonly quoted 3–4 hours, so test sessions of 3–4 hours are the minimum that gives a single a fair chance.

The arm you should not buy: a C1 single

In the 8 cm hub, a C1 single is the low anchor: expected to fail, it closes the bracket from below. At 10 cm the C2 single does that job, and the 2 × C1 pair tests what C1 can do when it only has 39.27 cm² to melt. A C1 single in 78.54 cm² is the case where our judgement is firm enough to say: don't spend on it. Three candles in Apothecary jars cost ₹1,819.69; you would be paying to watch a small wick tunnel.

The same logic trims the top. If Cotton Braided passes at burn 3, keep the pairs burning anyway: a single that reaches the glass early can still run deep or hot in the final third, and the pair is your comparison if it does. If Cotton Braided fails, you have lost nothing by pouring the pairs on the same day.

The twelve-candle order

The 450 g fill is our labelled worked example for the Apothecary 500 gm jar, whose page states a fill capacity of "~500 g - 700 g": a 450 g pour leaves headspace under the dome lid. Weigh your own fill line, and keep the load at 8% of total candle weight (36 g of oil + 414 g of wax per candle).

Three notes on the lines. Oil: Blue Ocean is one of the oils that does not get cheaper in bigger bottles: ₹4.95 at 100 g, ₹4.96 at 500 g. Five 100 g bottles cost ₹3.00 less than one 500 g and hold the same oil; even the 1 kg costs ₹6.00 more than ten 100 g. Holders: the Wick Centering Device page says it suits openings "less than 4"" (about 10.2 cm), so it just spans a 10 cm rim for the singles; the Steel Wick Holder states a fit "up to 9 cm wide", so it is not the tool here, and the pairs are fixed with stickers through a paper template. Re-pours: a split arm needs 108 g of oil and 1,242 g of wax; the order leaves 68 g and 32 g, so a re-pour means one more 100 g bottle and a 1 kg bag plus a 500 g bag, bought only when an arm splits.

A singles-first route (C2 and Cotton Braided only, six candles: 100 + 100 + 50 g of oil, three 1 kg bags, six jars, two centring packs) costs ₹4,484.00 from nothing and leaves the pairs for a second order. At 10 cm we would not do it: the second order costs a delivery and a second cure for an arm you will very probably need.

Burning the singles and pairs side by side

A single large wick that overheats the centre of a 10 cm jar is its own diagnosis (the 10 cm multi-wick hub). The purchase rule here does not change: no production order until all three candles of one configuration pass the full life; how far down that is, the acceptance-depth post.

From the 10 cm winner to a production order

Wicks = candles × wicks per candle × (1 + allowance), from packs that add up to the count; the formula and gates are in the hub. Worked example: 80 candles a month, 5% allowance (our figures).

The wick choice changes the monthly bill by a few hundred rupees; the jar and the oil are thousands. The case for buying the pairs early is not the wick price, it is not pouring 80 jars of ₹212.40 around the wrong configuration. Per-SKU reorder points for a range with more than one wick are the reorder-point post.

What to buy for a 10 cm ladder, and what to skip

Five items, in the order the 10 cm ladder needs them, chosen on page statements, price and stock on 1 October 2026. CSI publishes no wick-performance data, so nothing is ranked on burn results. Oil candle counts use 36 g per 450 g candle and 12 g per 150 g candle.

Skip for this ladder: a C1 single arm (above). Eco Braided Wicks (₹472.00 for 5 m, ₹9.44 per 10 cm cut): unsized, and past the stop line; keep it for the case where both pairs fail. Performance Wooden Wicks (₹590.00 for 10): one listing, no widths; CSI does not sell a wider wooden wick. Steel Wick Holder: its page states a fit up to 9 cm, short of a 10 cm rim.

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