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p-burn-session

P-06 four-hour burn session

2026-08-25 · By The Candle Bench · Repeats 3×

The core procedure behind every hourly curve on this site. One candle, one room, four hours on and one hour off, repeated until the record reaches its stated test length. The point of the four-hour cap is that a longer session stops measuring the candle and starts measuring the room.

MethodCapped multi-session burn with hourly dimensional readingsRepeats3×equip5Quantities produced4Environment controlStill air, 21-24 C, 40-55 %RH, no draught and no direct sun

Procedure

  1. 01

    Trim the wick to 6 mm and remove the previous session's mushroomed carbon with a wick trimmer, not scissors. Photograph the top surface before lighting.

  2. 02

    Light at the recorded minute, note it, and start the clock. Record pool diameter and flame height at hours 1, 2, 3 and 4 using the steel rule laid across the vessel mouth.

  3. 03

    At hour 4 extinguish by capping the vessel, not by blowing. Blowing throws soot across the top and invalidates the soot index for that session.

  4. 04

    Cool for one hour, then re-trim to 6 mm and repeat. Record the number of the session on the vessel so a later session can never be attributed to the wrong record.

  5. 05

    Weigh the vessel before the first session and after the last, in the same ambient condition. Consumption is the weight difference divided by total lit hours, to two decimals.

Every published burn record names its wick series, its vessel and its ambient condition, because those three variables move the pool diameter by more than any difference between two waxes of the same family. Change any of them and the record is no longer comparable to the others on the site.

Sessions are run in pairs on the same day so that the room never drifts between the two halves of a record. If the ambient temperature moves more than 1.5 C during a session, the session is abandoned and repeated, not corrected.

Session length单场时长
Instruments logged per session每场记录仪器

Instruments used

  • Steel rule, 300 mm, 1 mm graduationsKlein 615-300
  • Bench scale, 0.01 g resolution, 3 kg capacityOhaus CS3000
  • Digital hygro-thermometer, +/-0.5 CTesto 608-H1
  • Wick trimmer with a carbon catch trayno brand
  • Vessel lid, tight fitting, steelmatches the test vessel

Sampling table

Candles per record 1
Sessions per record 8 to 10
Total lit hours as stated on the record

Quantities produced

  • Pool diameter, mmhorizontally across the widest axis
  • Flame height, mmfrom wick tip to the top of the luminous zone
  • Consumption, g/hweight difference over lit hours
  • Soot index, 0-10blind-scored from the top-surface photograph

Environment: Still air, 21-24 C, 40-55 %RH, no draught and no direct sun

Protocols cited