Discussions > Instrument Design, Construction and Repair
Making reed wax
Broadland Boy:
Set up to make some reed wax this afternoon,
60g resin powder, 60g beeswax, 5ml olive oil
Heated the wax in a glass jar stood in a sucepan of boiling water (with a nice little ali takeway tray shroud to keep in the heat)
When melted, drizzled in the resin powder a spoonful at a time while stirring to avoid chilling the 'brew'
when all submerged, shot in the oil.
Heated, stirred, heated, stirred, stirred, stirred (ditto repeato for 3 hours)
when my patience finally ran out I had a thick gooey lump in the nice runny wax which felt like that pulled toffee and seemed to be getting stiffer (as I expect when making turners cement which this will be used for) and a mildly discoloured wax - with the resinous element extracted and cooled it looks like one of those dried figs or as Kim observed when she finally got into the kitchen to start tonights meal, some sort of animal dropping ::)
Any idea whats gone wrong ??
First thought was I should have left the oil until last (have I made some sort of polymer ??)
Second thought, had my heat retaining shroud dropped condensate from the water into the brew
Final thought, do people usually start with powdered or lump resin ?
Unless advised otherwise I shall try again by stirring lumps of resin into the hot wax!
Academic at present but what method of casting sticks is common ? I had corrugated some cooking foil with a view to pouring wax in the vees as I do when casting solder or turning wax - any other bright ideas ?
Note to Theo, if I had put some propolis in the mix I might have expected this, the jar of propolis on hand to add when the proper mix is poured satisfactorily so you may yet still be able to try some out........
Richard
an bosca ceoil:
--- Quote from: Broadland Boy on July 13, 2010, 07:07:53 PM ---60g resin powder, 60g beeswax, 5ml olive oil
Unless advised otherwise I shall try again by stirring lumps of resin into the hot wax!
Academic at present but what method of casting sticks is common ? I had corrugated some cooking foil with a view to pouring wax in the vees as I do when casting solder or turning wax - any other bright ideas ?
--- End quote ---
Think personally that this is too much rosin.
Melt the rosin first - then add the wax.
Best way I have found to make sticks - Pour some molten wax onto a tray of hot water - when cool you have a sheet of wax. Score it - chill it - snap it into sticks.
Theo:
I've mafecthe occasional bowl of gloop too. It seems to be less of a problem if you add the oil after the wax and rosin have melted together.
To make sticks I pour the wax into a flat container the slice with a sharp knife and straight edge. The temperature has to be just right for this, too cold and the wax is brittle and cracks as you cut, too warm and the cut heals after the knife has passed. A warm room temp seems to work so I'd guess about 20 to 25 C.
Broadland Boy:
Thanks both,
I had seen several ratios of rosin to wax in the old forum postings and since Theo and Rees of this parish indicate 50:50 is a good mix thats what I used, although I hadn't seen anything regarding which to melt into which, I had assumed the rosin would melt into the wax more easily than the reverse - Wrong !
Having tried to cut thicker wax cleanly before I hadn't considered cutting a thin sheet warm or casting it on a hot water bath and cooling, I was thinking of casting the finished sticks like you would cast your own foundation and I can see other applications for this (:)
No progress on the old Hohner today - I had mistakenly thought at least some of the reeds would be fitted tonight and I've a visit to the hospital tomorow so probably Thursday before I get round to another meltdown session.
Will advise progress - or lack of >:E
Christopher K.:
Interesting thread. Experimenting with resin recipes looks like loads of fun. There's also pre-mixed/oiled/formed Hohner reedplate wax available here:
https://www.shopssl.de/epages/es117831.sf/en_US/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es117831_stringsandboxes/Categories/%22Akkordeon%20Werkstoffe%22/Stimmplattenwachs
I'd be interested in making my own to compare the results with some "prefab" wax that is supposed to work as it should.
(The link is to an English translation of the page, and the original German page is here: https://www.shopssl.de/epages/es117831.sf/)
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