BLO & Beeswax mixture?

[Ruston Hughes]

Like others, I too mixed up a small batch of BLO, beeswax and mineral spirits last night after reading this post. I was too impatient to shred the beeswax and wait for it to dissolve in the mineral spirits so I just melted it in a double boiler and poured it into the mineral spirits and then added the BLO.

Some things I learned:

1. a course rasp will not shred beeswax, but it will clog with beeswax very quickly and effectively.

2. adding melted beeswax to room temperature mineral spirits will cause the wax to gel into goopy lumpy mess. Putting the lid on the jar and shaking will coat the inside of the jar evenly with a thick later of goopy lumpy mess. Adding the BLO and shaking until your arms turn to rubber will eventually produce the desired mixture.

3. a couple of coats on a scrap piece of walnut looks very nice and was very easy to apply.

[Bill Brehme]

I also mixed up a alternate batch last night. This time I just went w/ Garrett Hack's basic recipe of beeswax and enough BLO to the consistency of melted butter.
I had an equally hard time "shaving" the beeswax w/ a sharp pocket knife... it just gums up both sides of the blade.

I combined 1/4 cup of BLO with a 2oz wafer of beeswax (only 1/2 shaved, the rest broken into chunks ) into a mason jar set into a pan of boiling water (no lid on jar so I could stir).
I also noticed that while stirring and cooling, the wax wants to form a crust higher up on the jar.. Aw hell, at that ratio there should be plenty of wax in the mix. I'll just use the wax crust as a 'more pure' wax second finish coat!

I will be applying this to an old #5 plane w/ #0000 steel wool to both remove rust, wipe off, then finish coat both the cast iron and rosewood.

Stay tuned...

[James Tattersall]

Does anyone have a recipe for this mixture?
I was recently perusing "The Handplane Book" by Garrett Hack on plane restoration and seen mention of using a mixture of BLO & beeswax w/ steel wool (0000) to restore and preserve both the iron and wood of handplanes.
Well, if its good on planes then why not other hand tools?!! My shop is just a rust cave... This seems to be an old school way of fending off rust w/o spending alot of $$$ on your T-9s, renaissance wax, camillia oil etc...

Has anyone tried this? You likey? Dislikey?? Recipes???

Thanks in advance, Bill B

There are a lot of good posts elsewhere in the thread on BLO/beeswax recipes. But if you just want to wax some of the larger tools after use, consider simply wadding up some wax paper and giving the surfaces a quick rub.

[Don C Peterson]

Now that I have given the Tung Oil/wax mixture time to dry, the end product seems indistinguishable from applying Tung Oil. Is there a practical benefit of mixing the two?

At first I thought it was a good way to "kill two birds..." but then I realized that, at least with Tung Oil you need to wipe the residue off or else it becomes cloudy. So that effectively wipes most of the wax off. After letting the piece dry, there was not enough wax to buff to any kind of luster.

Finishing with a sealing coat of oil and following on with a few coats of wax is probably my favorite finish for most woods, but I can't help but woner if trying to do both at the same time isn't just a waste of wax because it just gets wiped off with the excess oil? Am I missing something?

[Bob Smalser]

Tung oil dries hard and can be applied in several coats.

The BLO mixes become soft and gummy with too many coats.

[greg stuart]

Hi All,

I like the sound of this concoction... nourishing and protecting in one..... and pretty simple......
now I am in Australia, and have an outdoor table and chair setting made from hard Australian hardwood (some sort of eucalypt) that I have inherited from a family member... that currently has to sit outside in our hot climate...

questions....
1. would this mixture be able to penetrate into a REALLY hardwood??? would I need to modify ratios in any particular manner???

2. Would it be suitable for an outdoors table and chairs????

Thanks....

GReg.

[glenn bradley]

I need to correct my previous post "The formula I've seen from two different authors is 1/3 each BLO, mineral spirits and beeswax." . . . it was turpentine, not mineral spirits. Sorry about that.

[Bill Brehme]

Phew!!! Thanks for the correction Glen... Tomorrow I was going to dump in some mineral spirits.

[Bob Smalser]

Remember linseed turns black with UV light, usually by the second summer. Substitute tung oil if that's not OK.

[Don C Peterson]

I need to correct my previous post "The formula I've seen from two different authors is 1/3 each BLO, mineral spirits and beeswax." . . . it was turpentine, not mineral spirits. Sorry about that.

I already tried Mineral Spirits and Beeswax and it seemed to work just fine. Disolved and made a nice paste then I added Tung Oil and it worked great.