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I Forge Iron

Beeswax and Linseed oil


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Dadant bee supply co (online) sells beeswax for $4.76/lb min order 25 lbs. If you are close to one of their stores you can buy single 1 lb blocks.

I've been building a staircase out of #14 rebar (1-3/4" diameter) and am using beeswax to finish. Heat w/ rosebud torch until bar turns "blue" and apply w/ 1 lb block and wipe off. Lots of smoke and dripped wax. Repeat 3 or 4 times. When cool, the bar is slightly sticky, then after a few days the stickiness goes away.

Cheapest canola oil from a thrift store works well, esp for food item use. Apply hot w/ brush and wipe off. Leaves sort of shiny coat. Looks good.

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I got a mess of nasty clean up and cappings from a beekeeper for almost nothing and boiled them out in the yard a couple of times to purify it and had several pounds of lovely beeswax still very redolent of the honey. My advice, Buy Local! Traded for a couple of hive tools later...

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  • 6 months later...

I'm planning on starting to keep a hive next summer. I'm really looking forward to it. If I get much honey from it I think it will just go straight into mead :)

I've used solid blocks of bees wax and rubbed them on to black hot iron. I have been pleased with the results from that. I have also been surprisingly pleased with using sprays like PAM. They were simply at hand and I wanted to get the pieces coated.

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I've even resorted to parafin wax candles when I've been at shows and forgotten my beeswax. Worked fine :) The colour was more black black than the brown black you get from beeswax and the coating was harder than normal too. Also, if its in a warm place teh wax doesn't soften, so it doesn't get sticky ;)

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I am with petersonj20 - but I can no longer say mine mix is equal parts -but that is about where I started. I managed to score a cast iron kettle at a Goodwill store for $6.00 so I put the mix in that and kepp it near the fire whilst forging to melt it up good in my unheated Wisconsin forge and just add a bit of one of the three ingredents from time to time and its working great. For food contact I simply go with Crisco.

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  • 3 months later...

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