Carnauba wax

Re: Carnauba wax

Dwight Rutherford

Over the years I have dropped or had my carnauba wax snatched from my not so nimble hands. I put the pieces in a small aluminum foil loaf baking pan. Use an electric plate or stove set at a medium low heat. The pieces will melt and form a single solid piece of wax. Let cool and pop out a nice bar of wax.

Re: Carnauba wax

David Walser

Yes, the wax will melt easily in a double boiler. (Please do NOT do this over a gas flame.) Once melted, you can pour it into the mold of your choice.

Warning

Ellis Walentine

I recommend strongly that you not melt wax in the kitchen. I used to make my own wax concoctions, and I always did the melting on a cheap hot plate on a cinder block in the driveway. This after a friend started a nasty kitchen fire while melting wax. Better safe than sorry.

Ellis

Re: Warning

David Walser

Ellis -- Your warning is valid. Wax is very flammable. When melted, it spreads easily and sticks to just about anything -- think napalm. So, taking it outside and using an electric hot plate is a sensible precaution.

However, I think melting wax can be done safely inside. Just be sure to keep everything well away from an open flame and to use a double boiler. That's how my mom melted wax for sealing her homemade jams and jellies and its how I've been melting wax for other purposes over the years. But, it wouldn't hurt to do it outside in the middle of a large cement pad. That would be safer still. Of course, here in Arizona, on most days I could simply put the wax outside on the sidewalk and it would melt.

Re: Warning

John K Jordan

This is the same hazard as melting other waxes. I melt a lot of beeswax on occasion. I do it outside and in an old crock pot.

I remember an experiment we did in the '60s to illustrate the flammability of paraffin - melt some in a spoon over an open flame. Yikes.

David's solar comment may be another option. Beekeepers commonly use solar heaters to melt and remove the good wax from the junk - just a wooden box with a glass top, the whole thing tilted slightly. It seems like you could put all the broken chunks of the carnauba wax in a mold and set it in a glass-covered box in the sun. Some aluminum foil could make a mold. A heat lamp borrowed from the chicken house would probably work. :-) Or even a heat gun (I'd do this outside too.)

JKJ

Re: Grease Fires

William Duffield

My mother-in-law once had a grease fire on her stove in what is now our kitchen. The damage has long been covered up, but we still keep an open cup of table salt in a cupboard close by. It is the most effective way to quickly extinguish a grease fire. Just throw the salt into the middle of the flame. Of course, we also have an ABC fire extinguisher close, too. Once melted and ignited, wax and cooking oil act very similarly.

I melt wax in my hot hide glue pot, which is effectively a double boiler. The inner, interchangeable containers are jelly jars, with mason jar screw on lids, which can hold hide glue or several concoctions of waxes (e.g., carnauba, beeswax, paraffin, or IKEA styrene candles), pigments and solvents (e.g., turpentine). The pot can also warm CA glue and liquid hide glue (Old Brown Glue). I keep all this stuff in my shop refrigerator between uses. If I'm heating anything flammable, I do it outside the shop, on the driveway, on a concrete block.

A very recent addition to this "system" is a cap with an orifice for a hide glue brush from Lee Valley, item A, http://www.leevalley.com/US/gifts/page.aspx?p=74679&cat=54&ap=1

Re: Warning

David Walser

To put things into perspective, carnauba wax melts at about 180 degrees Farhenheit and has a flash point of about 540 degrees. (Gasoline has a flash point of negative 45 degrees.) (Yes, I had to look those values up.) So, you'd need to heat the wax up well past the melting point AND add an ignition source to have a fire.

A double boiler will ensure the melted wax doesn't heat up beyond the boiling point of water (no where near the wax's flash point). Avoiding the use of a gas burner to heat the double burner will prevent a fire even if you spill the liquid wax onto the burner (assuming you've not set the electric burner above 540 degrees). There's no need to set your electric burner above 250 degrees with a double boiler!

Yes, the process can be dangerous if you're not careful. Isn't that true with turning at the lathe?

use an electric skillet

john lucas

I set the temperature as low as it will go and still melt. I use this to dip wood into to seal the ends. The wax melts far below it's flash point and there isn't any flame to possibly ignite it. They usually come with a lid which is both handy for storing the melted wax and the unit and you could use it to put out a fire.

If you want to melt carnauba wax just put the broken parts into a glass container and set it in the skillet. It will melt into that shape and can safely be removed.

or use a potpourri crock pot

John Kaner

I use a electric potpourri pot with lid. Looks like a tiny crock pot! Easy to melt wax. I did this with beeswax and added some carnauba wax to it.

35 mm Plastic film canisters

John Kaner

Not as available as they were, however, they are excellent at molding and storing your freshly melted wax. Wax pops right out when hardened. Slips back in for storage...

When I worked at a 59 min Photo, we gave away thousands of these canisters...

Teachers really love them. I've stored about everything in them. No more loose screws in bottom of toolbox! REI even sold salt and pepper caps that fit on the canisters...

Re: 35 mm Plastic film canisters

John C Lucas

Cant tell you how many 35mm cannisters i recycled over 30 years as a profrssional photographer. We also ran a full service photo lab for most of those years. I really miss being able to just grab a few when we needed them

Re: 35 mm Plastic film canisters

George Balock

Yeah John, I hear you. I still have a few stashed away. But Amazon does sell them. Best price looks like about 80 cents a piece.

Re: Exactly

William Duffield

I built my hot hide glue pot (mentioned in my Grease Fire post above) out of one of those potpourri crock pots.