Fired Up
CENTER TWP — Tim and Marie Uncapher do more than burn their candles on both ends.
They make their own candles to begin with.
Married for 37 years, the couple co-manages Lake Arthur Country Club in Franklin Township — co-owned by Marie and siblings Hank and Kathy Bartony. The Uncaphers host weddings and banquets there and have gone on marriage encounters together.
"They enjoy finding things that are unique to do. They like to be active," Kathy Bartony said. "But they have to do it together. They enjoy it that way.
"They won't have it any other way."
Three years ago, while on a getaway weekend in Lancaster, the Uncaphers visited a candle shop, where they witnessed a man making a candle.
Tim was intrigued.
"The man offered to have me stay with him for a week to learn about candle making," Uncapher said. "I wanted to bring my wife and he said just one of us could do it.
"That turned me off."
But the couple remained turned on to candle making. So they proceeded to teach themselves.
Tim ordered some videos on the subject. He and Marie attended a two-day workshop in Philadelphia. The two picked up tips here and there."I guess you could say we're self-taught," Marie said, chuckling. "Tim even took a carving class. There was a lot of trial and error involved."There hasn't been much time available to exercise the craft, however. Running a golf course ties up nine months of the year.The couple takes one day off a week — Thursday — during the golf season. Some evenings are available, along with the winter months.The wonder of wax and wicks has come to be a labor of love for the duo."I do the cutting and molds, Marie does the coloring. She has a knack for what mixes work," Tim said. "There's a true touch in developing those colors.She's good with colors. I'm better with the knife. We're a team."Tim's mold cuts are numerous. His arsenal includes basket, butterfly, angel, bows and ribbons, bows and sashes, and a lighthouse."It's like anything else ... When you do it often enough, you get used to it, and you get a little rusty when you haven't done something for a while," Tim said. "I get nervous when I'm cutting a candle for the first time in a while."
His wife scoffs at such a notion."It's like riding a bike for him," she said. "He's pretty precise."Lake Arthur Country Club hosts a handful of wedding receptions each year. The Uncaphers present a personally crafted unity candle to the bride and groom as a keepsake.The family's basement in their Center Township home has turned into the couple's candle-making factory."It can get kind of messy down there," Tim said. "We've got stuff all over the place."Marie says they can make four candles in an hour "if we're really in tune.""Twelve would be a good day," she said.But what they make, they sell.Over a three-year period, the Uncaphers have made about 150 candles. All but about 15 have sold and they can be found displayed in the pro shop of the country club.One candle they haven't sold is the first one made by the pair — a small white candle that pales in comparison to the others on display."I keep that one around because it shows how far we've come," Tim said.The couple's candles are sold through word-of-mouth, friends, family members, craft shows and through the pro shop."Craft season is in the fall and we try to have a bunch ready for those shows," Marie said. "We've done shows in Mars and Zelienople and sold a few."
They also do specialty candles — small angel candles for confirmation, pink candles with an angel on the front and butterfly on the back for breast cancer awareness, even black-and-gold Steelers candles."We sold a ton of those the year they won the Super Bowl," Tim recalled.They've incorporated seashells from trips to Aruba and North Carolina into some candles as well.The dipping process is as precise as the cutting."I'll dip 25 to 30 times per candle," Marie said. "I've dipped 50 times for a candle, trying to get it just right."Bartony has bought 40 candles from her sister and brother-in-law over the past two years."When golf slows down in the winter, their candle-making picks up," Bartony said. "When they first told me they were getting into this, I wasn't sure how serious they'd be about it."I had a chance to see them in action and I was impressed. The twisting, the cutting, the turning — I loved the technique."They have vats with different colors of waxes, the dipping process ... It's all very well organized. They are very thorough," Bartony added.A few of the candles have made it to Rome.Stephanie Lubinsky, a longtime neighbor of the Uncaphers, has a son who lives in Italy. She bought her son and daughter-in-law a candle for their wedding."Six of their candles are over in Italy now," Lubinsky said."We've officially gone international," Tim said, smiling.
Lubinsky has bought 20 candles from her neighbors over the past couple of years."Marie and I are in card club together and she started talking about it one night," Lubinsky said. "She seemed so enthused. I had to go over there and check it out."I fell in love with their work. I bought my niece an angel candle for her first communion. I bought one for my sister for her birthday."Lubinsky isn't surprised at the quality of the Uncaphers' work."When they decide to do something, they go all in," she said. "And the more they do it, the better they'll get."The Uncaphers do not refer to their candle-making as a second job."It's more of a side hobby," Marie said. "The time and resources aren't there for us to truly count on this as second income. We'd love to get involved doing candles as fundraisers for schools, etc., but that may require a lot of volume."Right now, this is something fun we can do together as a couple in our leisure time. We like it like that," she added.
Here are the major types of candles most candle makers will encounter and/or make:• Container Candles — A candle in which the mold and container are the same thing. The candle is poured into the container.• Votive Candles — Among the most used, they are free-standing. Once they're lit, they melt enough to take the shape of the votive holder they're placed in.• Pillar candles — A type of molded candle where the wax is rigid enough to burn freestanding on a heat-resistant plate or pan. If wicked correctly, it should burn evenly.• Dipped candles — A piece of wick is dipped into the wax to get out the air bubbles, then dipped some more to build up layers of wax.• Rolled candles — Made with rollable sheets of wax with a wick at the center. They are considered one of the easiest candles to make.Source: About.com
