My Two Wicks Lean Toward Each Other and Create Excessive Heat in the Centre — Should Wick Spacing Be Changed Before Wick Size?

Is it the lean, the spacing or the size?

The worked example: your jar is 8.0 cm across the inside (CSI lists no 8 cm-wide jar; about 8.7 cm outside on a 0.35 cm wall), filled to 200 g with 8% Fresh Strawberries in CSI 464 (16 g + 184 g), on two Eco C2 set 4.0 cm apart: each wick 2.0 cm from the glass. You pour 20 at a time. In use, the two flames drift toward each other, the centre of the pool gets very hot and deep while the edges lag. Before buying anything, look at an unburned candle from the same pour.

Measure the tips at the set surface with a ruler: centre of one wick to centre of the other, and each to the glass. On our 8 cm example, tips 2.5 cm apart sit 2.75 cm from the glass instead of 2.0 cm: more wax left at the edge, two flames feeding one hot centre. Which way to move the spacing, and how far, is not this page's job; a template for setting it is the spacing-to-purchase-spec post.

The lean test: what to buy and pour

If you hold the oil and wax already, the test costs ₹350.00. From nothing but your C2 and jars, it is ₹1,069.80. Each re-pour candle uses ₹67.97 of oil, ₹93.36 of wax, ₹18.88 of wicks and ₹5.00 of stickers: ₹185.21 in materials, excluding the jar, labour, freight, packaging and GST.

Reading it is simple. Straight tips and a cooler centre: the lean was the cause; buy holders for production. Straight tips and the same hot centre: the fixture was not the cause; go to the spacing test. Tips still leaning with holders on: the wick itself is bending as it sets, a finding worth sending to us on WhatsApp with a photo.

How many holders production needs

The rule is: holders = candles per pour × pours that overlap during the hold time × (1 + allowance). The allowance covers holders being cleaned, bent or mislaid; 10% is our worked-example figure. The hold time is yours, measured in step 4 above: CSI publishes no set time for its waxes, and it changes with room temperature, fill weight and the season.

Because the price is flat at ₹50.00 a holder, the pack you choose changes nothing per holder; pick the combination that reaches your count with the fewest spare. Holders are reusable, so this is a one-time purchase per line, not a monthly one. Spread over a single month of 440 candles, the 25-pack is ₹2.84 a candle; over a year at that rate, ₹0.24.

Three pouring plans, priced

The worked example makes 20 double-wick candles a pour and measures a six-hour hold time. Three ways to schedule a day, each with the holders it needs:

Plan B buys ₹1,000.00 more holders than Plan C for the same 40 candles a day. If your hold time is shorter, say on a cool winter day in North India, Plan B's overlap shrinks; on a warm day in the Indian summer (roughly April–June) it can grow. Re-time the hold in each season rather than assuming.

Reusable holders, consumable stickers

A pair needs two base fixings per candle, every candle. At 440 double-wick candles a month (20 a day over 22 working days, a worked example), that is 880 stickers: 22 sheets of 40 at ₹100.00, ₹2,200.00 a month, or ₹5.00 a candle. The 100-sticker sheet (₹236.00) is out of stock on 1 October 2026; check before planning around it. The holders for that same line cost ₹1,250.00, once.

Two honest points. Single-hole tools like the Wick Centering Device (₹472.00 for twenty) are cheaper per piece than steel holders but cannot hold a pair, so they are not an alternative here. And stickers only fix the base; they do not stop the top of a wick bending while the wax sets. You need both, which is why the test order has both.

From a straight pair to production wicks

When the re-poured candles pass, the production purchase is holders for your pour plan plus the same C2 as before, sized by the series formula: wicks = candles × wicks per candle × (1 + allowance). At 440 candles a month and a 5% allowance that is 924 C2 (₹8,722.56 at the flat ₹9.44), covered by one 500, four 100 and one 50-pack (₹8,968.00, 950 wicks). Like the holders, C2 costs the same per wick in every pack: no saving from the 1,000-pack.

Reorder point, worked example: about 42 C2 a working day; with eight working days from order to bench and five days of safety stock, reorder at about 546. The lead time is yours to measure; CSI dispatches from Pune and publishes no lead times or stock depth, so confirm dispatch on WhatsApp before a festive run. Diwali is 8 November 2026.

An approval still needs the full life: the re-poured candles should burn to about 1 cm left with the centre in check before you scale the pour. Whether the centre stays in check through the final third is a burn question, not a fixture question; the cluster hub lists which symptoms justify which purchase.

What to buy, and what to skip

Five items, chosen on page statements, price and stock on 1 October 2026. CSI publishes no fixture or wick-performance data, so nothing here is ranked on burn results. Oil candle counts use 16 g per 200 g candle and the standard 12 g per 150 g candle.

Skip for this problem: Cotton Braided Wicks and Performance Wooden Wicks: a construction change cannot fix a fixture fault. The Premium Candle Wicking Needle (₹472.00) is a wicking tool; its page describes "flawless wicking of your candles", not holding a pair upright while the wax sets.

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