Sunday, September 05, 2010

None of Your Bees Wax, Part II



Continuing with yesterdays topic, when I have a bucket of miscellaneous bits of wax I place them in a solar wax melter I built. It is a box with a small double pane window. On the top section I have a 9-inch square baking pan with a hole to train the melted wax on one side. The melted wax drips out of that pan into a bread pan. I place the solar wax melter at an angle to collect the maximum amount of the suns rays. After one batch melts I'll add more wax through out the day.



After the sun goes down the wax solidifies into an ingot that I remove from the pan. This wax is pretty pure, but it still has some impurities in it that need to be further refined by placing the ingots in a pair of nylons and reheating in a double boiler. Once refined again I pour the wax into forms that produce one-ounce ingots. This measured amount makes it easy to add the proper amount of wax into formulas that I use to make creams and balms.

Many people produce candles and I'm sure I have enough wax on hand to produce at least a hundred of them, but I use my wax sparingly because it is a rather precious commodity.

8 Comments:

Anonymous auntie said...

i was hoping you would write something about your birthday today. silly me

7:16 AM  
Blogger JustRex said...

Birthday?? (perks up and looks around) It's your birthday? Yay! (dances around in a little circle) Happy happy birthday! Happy happy birthday to the one and only biiiiiiig Guuuuuuuuuuuuuy!

Question: If the bees make those combs to put things in, why aren't there things in there? Do you have to empty them out? Where's the nectar and the grubs?

8:15 AM  
Blogger Tango's Going Ons said...

Yes...what Auntie said!! ^^^

10:04 AM  
Blogger The Guy Who Writes This said...

Thanks all for the b-day greetings.

Darev, there is some nectar in the comb which is being dried into honey.

6:57 AM  
Blogger richpix said...

I wonder if you could streamline the wax refining process. Could you set it up so the wax drips through the filter (nylons) and then into ice cube trays? Maybe you could eliminate the double boiler step and go to putting raw product in the top and removing finished ingots at the bottom.

1:57 PM  
Blogger The Guy Who Writes This said...

Rich, I've found it best to refine in stages. There are some expensive wax melters, but the expense far out weigh the benefit for someone on my scale. There is a lot of unwanted stuff in the first refinement. It's called Slum-Gum. It's dark and icky. I've heard of people electrifying a metal screen, but there too it lets in a lot of impurities.

5:39 PM  
Blogger dalia said...

i want to purchase more of your lipbalms, and an UNSCENTED missbehaving, if you have any... i LOVE that stuff.

2:08 PM  
Blogger The Guy Who Writes This said...

Dalia, I should be making some more soon. I'll email you when it's ready.

5:36 AM  

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