How to line pottery with beeswax?

[Renius]

I've purchased some pottery from Rusty(SOTW) and need to line it with beeswax. I read of one method of heating the pottery in an oven then rubbing the wax on the item but that is not practical for items with small openings. I'd appreciate any tips on how to melt wax and pour into the pottery. Thanks much.

[rusty myers]

Warm the item in the oven to about 200 degrees. Melt the wax in an old coffee cup beside the item in the oven. Wearing gloves and using all due precaution, you can now pour the wax into the container and shake it for several minutes covering the openings with the gloves.

Danger from: Heat of wax and item...

Using wife's good christmas coffee mug to do this.

You can do this one a cool item too, but the wax will not soak in as well. Using this method will work nigh on perfect. It takes just a little wax to coat most things too.

Rusty

[texascavtrooper]

Rusty, you the man!! you took the words right out of my mouth. I have done this many times and it seems to be the best way if you heat both items.
Bryan

[richsc]

You have to be extremely careful: wax has a very low melting point and a very low flame point. It might do just as well, if you can, to melt the wax outside on a hotpad, then bring the jar from the oven (with mits of course) and pour the wax in outside.
A few years back people were wondering about encaustic painting, and used open fires to melt the wax: really bad idea. Instead, I found that an electric hot pad was a lot safer.

[rusty myers]

ummm I get safety, but I personally do not have an open flame oven, and 200 is pretty low. Never had the wax flame at all, and once left it in for over and hour... but that did smoke up the oven and also got me in trouble (see aforementioned coffee mug). Heating pad or not, just pay attention to what you are doing. Don't wander off and start another project (I am somewhat notorious for this... as I had patience once, but found it entirely to slow...)

[Rufus]

I use an old crock pot to melt wax in. You can set it so that it never really gets in danger of flaming up. Can pick one up at the Goodwill or Thrift store. I also heat whatever I am lining with wax like Rusty does, then I ladle the wax in.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Crock pot? Like an electric cooking pot?

[richsc]

Crock pot? Like an electric cooking pot?

Yes. I suppose "crock pot" is an American English term for an electrically heated low temperature cooking pot. I don't think 'crock pots' can get over 200 F.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Now you've got me thinking.....I wonder if you can still get those SS poached egg pots....the ones with the removable little egg cups.

You could do the whole palette at one shot.....

[richsc]

poached egg pots....the ones with the removable little egg cups.

If you can get them that sounds better than my practice of using small cat food tins/cans (very clean of course) to hold each mixture of wax/pigment. At least they're easy to store that way.

[M. Demetrius]

Even on a gas stovetop, you can rig a double boiler by putting a regular pan of water on, set an empty soup can or similar in the middle of the water, drop a rock or other weight in the can, and add wax. Turn the fire on, and the wax can't get hotter than the water. It doesn't harm the regular pan unless you go outside to do something and come back like three hours later (q.v. Rusty's experience related above...guilty as charged I am) to find the wax smoking the whole house up.

I was fortunate to arrive about ten seconds after the wife. Nuff said. :roll:

But before that, the wax was peacefully melted in the can. Use pliers or a heat pad to pick it up, though. Boiling water is still pretty hot to the fingers!

[Matt Lukes]

Right- paraffin wax, for example, has a melting temperature of about 60C (140F), and what burns is hydrogen gas released by heating, so indeed too much, especially with an open flame is not the ideal to be sure.

I use the double boiler method myself, an old coffee can cut down holding the wax...