When you have one of those big candles, and the wick breaks off at the base and is too short to light, how do you fix it?
Can you use a knife or skewer to gouge out some wax and expose a bit more of the wick?
Well, here’s my idea off the top of my head: Get some cheap birthday candles. Break one up and pull off the pieces, like unstringing beads. Once you have the wick, take a piece of coat hanger and heat it up over the stove, and when it’s hot enough, push it down into the candle right near the wick. Push the piece of wick you got from the birthday candle down the hole you just made as far as it will go, the trim off the wick to about 1/2" long. Eventually it will burn down to where the original wick is and it will take over.
It doesn’t work, because after you light the candle, when the wax melts and cools it fills in the hole you made, and the wick is again too short to light.
Not if you gouge out enough of it. I find it easier to use heat to do the digging. Hold the candle upside down, and play a cigarette lighter or propane torch over the surface until enough wax is melted to expose the wick, and to about the same depth for an inch or more around the wick.
It’s also possible that you got a candle with a crummy wick; one which is always breaking off and going out. If that’s the case, you buy wicking material at a local craft store. Drill or melt a hole through the candle with a hot coathanger. dip your new wick in some melted wax, and thread it through the hole. Light the candle.
I usually just hold the candle upside down and hold a lighter to it, letting the wax drip away. When I finally get it lit, I dab up the excess wax with the corner of a paper towel.
Take a match, and stick it into your candle right beside wick. Light the match and it will act as a wick.
They do sell wicking needles. The needle is heated and pushed thru the body of the candle with the wick on the other end. You use to place wicks in poured wax scultures.