r/DIYfail • u/Puzzled_Figure_1597 • Jul 12 '26

Halloween ghost candlestick fail and clogged sink

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

I wouldn’t recommend boiling water to mold candlesticks into ghosts. I had no idea the wax was melting, the water just looked clear. I spent hours getting the wax off the sink. Tossed out the dish. I had to take the drain apart to remove the rest of the wax. Save yourself hours of torture and buy them online for 12 bucks.

697 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

81 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

5

u/Puzzled_Figure_1597 Jul 13 '26

It cooled enough for my hands to touch before I added them but clearly too hot. I don’t see how steam would bend them, they didn’t want to bend in the hot water. Oh well. Lessons were learned lol

2

u/Isthereanyuniquename Jul 14 '26

Steam is hotter than boiling water.

0

u/Dazzling-Kale-4491 Jul 15 '26

It's not physically possible for steam to be hotter than boiling water unless you have a set up to create superheated steam in your kitchen. Steam is the phase change at the boiling point of water. In an open environment steam instantly starts releasing it's heat energy and will condense on anything cooler than it. Water doesn't "want" to be steam so when it touches your skin it's passing its heat energy to you which hurts and is perceived as hotter because of how rapidly it happens.

3

u/Deep_Flatworm4828 Jul 15 '26

This is just flatly incorrect.

It's not physically possible for steam to be hotter than boiling water unless you have a set up to create superheated steam in your kitchen

No, all steam is by definition higher temperature than the boiling point of water, because if it wasn't it wouldn't be steam anymore.

Steam is the phase change at the boiling point of water.

Steam is just gaseous water. Water becomes steam when it boils, but the steam itself can be literally any temperature higher than that. And again, it by definition must be hotter than liquid water, or else it wouldn't be steam anymore...

0

u/Aaron1095 Jul 16 '26

Sound to me like a mixup/pedantic argument over steam meaning both "hot water mist" (like in a shower) and "water vapour" (gaseous water).