May 8, 201412 yr I have been buying wax from the foundry for my lost wax casting and it was a dark green but I was given a huge bin of black wax the otherday and I found it was much better to see what I was doing when working it, it is all used up now and I just bought a huge amount of micro crystalline wax from an oil company but its a light cream colour My question is I want to make the wax super dark so even when I wipe over it with a hot knife its still black, is there some kind of dye I can use? There is a posability the wax I have has charcoal dust in it but the guy who made it carn't remember.
May 8, 201412 yr I would do a search for candle or paraffin dye. You should be able to find dye that you can add to melted wax in NZ. Good Luck Brian Pierson
May 9, 201412 yr Use powdered mortar tinter to color your wax. Any serious mason suppliers will have it. Most of the big box stores do NOT carry it.
May 16, 201412 yr Author Thank you all for the idears someone elce recomended cement dye, I just hope its not too gritty, I will also keep a look out for paraffin dye I don't know where I would find that here tho.
May 16, 201412 yr In a pinch while doing stamped concrete I've sifted out the sand from color hardener to have a "smooth mix" to do repairs. However that doesn't remove the added portland that may give you issues. Dyes on the other hand are like working with talcum powder and can be VERY messy ( as if color hardener wasn't messy enough). Lastly are colored "release" agents used for colored concrete. Usually some sort of animal fat and dye mix. It's used to keep the rubber mats from sticking to the wet concrete when stamping as well as adding a 2nd color irregularly to the surface to give highlights. It's usually water repellant to a limited degree, and most likely NOT what you want. As mentioned a good industrial concrete or masonry supplier will have the dyes. If nothing else, check with any contractor who does stamped concrete or colored masonry and see either where they get their supplies ( we were a distributor and got ours direct from the manufacturer) or possibly if they have an opened or broken container you can buy. As far as it's suitability for what you want to do, I have no clue.
May 16, 201412 yr Simple fix, add wax crayons.... you can go for funky colors ,or add the whole lot and get a charcoal color. Ian
May 16, 201412 yr Author I have used crayons in the past but I want to make the wax so black even when you run a hot knife over it its stays black, Here is a pic of some of my old wax, It had some kind of heavy drty plant based die in it, enen when I bake the molds to ment the wax out they are stained black.
May 17, 201412 yr onetreeforge, A candleshop that makes their own would have an idea where to get it. Here is one in NZ that you might want to look at. http://www.candlecreations.co.nz/shop/Candle+Making+Supplies/Dyes.html Brian Pierson
May 17, 201412 yr Author onetreeforge, A candleshop that makes their own would have an idea where to get it. Here is one in NZ that you might want to look at. http://www.candlecreations.co.nz/shop/Candle+Making+Supplies/Dyes.html Brian Pierson Cool thank you for that link, I think if I put about 20 of them in with my 20 kgs of wax should do it
June 11, 201411 yr Author I found it! I got black pigmint used for making crayons, its made from burnt oil and is super black, the wax is as black as a bucket of tar now.
June 16, 201411 yr That's a neat look, for some reason it's got a very Alice in Wonderland sort of feel. Any pics of the casting?
June 16, 201411 yr I have carbon black for colouring wax, got a kilo of it very cheap on a certain auction site, it was known as lamp black and is very fine soot
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