Author Topic: Make Beeswax Polish how? Any other uses for beeswax?  (Read 1439 times)

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Offline stuckinthemud

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Make Beeswax Polish how? Any other uses for beeswax?
« on: November 06, 2021, 03:31:02 pm »
I am lucky enough to know a beekeeper and have a pound or two of pure beeswax. There are several recipes for polish, using white spirit, turps, linseed oil, boiled linseed, and so-on.  Even olive oil. What do you recommend?  Also, what other uses do you have for it?

Thanks in advance

Andrew
« Last Edit: November 06, 2021, 04:34:37 pm by stuckinthemud »

Offline PatM

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Re: Make Beeswax Polish how? Any other uses for beeswax?
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2021, 06:28:00 pm »
That will entirely  depend on whether you also may want to use it for food contact items.

Offline stuckinthemud

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Re: Make Beeswax Polish how? Any other uses for beeswax?
« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2021, 06:44:07 pm »
No, not for food contact items, I always felt wax wasn't hard wearing enough for the kitchen.  Fab for furniture, decorative items and things like bows and bow strings though. Although it is a great finish in its own right,  I particularly like to use wax over an oil finish.

Offline Hamish

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Re: Make Beeswax Polish how? Any other uses for beeswax?
« Reply #3 on: November 06, 2021, 08:07:21 pm »
From memory...use a double boiler to melt the wax. Take it out the heat and add a little white spirits and mix together, until it becomes a stiff paste at room temperature.

Natural beeswax is brown, refined beeswax is white. The type you use will give a slightly different look.

Offline bassman211

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Re: Make Beeswax Polish how? Any other uses for beeswax?
« Reply #4 on: November 06, 2021, 08:52:42 pm »
Look on tube ,and you will get recipes  for bow finish. Can't remember how much turpentine , and linseed oil was added to a pound of bees wax, but it will make  a bow finish. You heat your bow limbs ,and add wax until wood stops sucking up the wax. Do it a couple times a year.  Fumes are bad to breath, so do it outside with a good mask. Doesn't smell good either. Maybe try doing away with the turpentine. Next time around I would.

Offline Pat B

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Re: Make Beeswax Polish how? Any other uses for beeswax?
« Reply #5 on: November 06, 2021, 08:55:24 pm »
I make pitch glue for hafting stone heads and blades with hard brittle pitch, beeswax and finely ground charcoal. A good leather dressing can be made using beeswax, animal fat and pine pitch and bow string wax using beeswax and pitch...and don't forget candles.
Make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes!    Pat Brennan  Brevard, NC

Offline JW_Halverson

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Re: Make Beeswax Polish how? Any other uses for beeswax?
« Reply #6 on: November 07, 2021, 12:18:03 am »
From memory...use a double boiler to melt the wax. Take it out the heat and add a little white spirits and mix together, until it becomes a stiff paste at room temperature.

Natural beeswax is brown, refined beeswax is white. The type you use will give a slightly different look.

New beeswax is nearly white, but as comb is used/chewed up/reused, it gets mixed with propolis, feces, and other dirt in the hive. By the time it is brown, there is very little wax whatsoever left in it. I know, because I tried to refine 30 deep frames of brown comb and ended up with less than an ounce of deep yellow wax.
Guns have triggers. Bicycles have wheels. Trees and bows have wooden limbs.

bownarra

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Re: Make Beeswax Polish how? Any other uses for beeswax?
« Reply #7 on: November 07, 2021, 03:11:22 am »
I get beeswax off my friend who has kept bees for 50 years. I use it for a finish and string wax. Mixed 50/50 with pitch is wonderful string wax.

Offline stuckinthemud

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Re: Make Beeswax Polish how? Any other uses for beeswax?
« Reply #8 on: November 07, 2021, 05:29:44 pm »
Pitch, as in coal tar pitch?

Offline Hawkdancer

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Re: Make Beeswax Polish how? Any other uses for beeswax?
« Reply #9 on: November 12, 2021, 04:25:02 pm »
Likely pine pitch, the hard dried stuff.  But I reserve the right to be wrong! (lol)
Hawkdancer
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