[Carn]

Firstly, seeing Cyclo's post gave me a bit more confidence to post about my own wax making adventures I recently started on and second this thread is in no way meant to steal your thunder Cyclo...just thought I'd share my experiences as well

I too found lots of useful information both in Ben's Rubbish Boys thread over on DW as well as from Dom himself. I only cooked up my 1st batch last night after trying to find many of the ingredients...some of them are hard to come by in small quantities over here (> 25kg) and some of them are still on their way. Regardless of some of the missing ingredients, I really wanted to get started so I began with the recipies I had ingredients for.

First up some equipment I procured from the local supermarket. Didn't want to have issues with the wife if I happened to destroy her cookware and kitchen utensils

Trays for the samples


And some measuring cups


Other equipment used not shown is a kitchen scale, some glasses, pots and an electric frying pan.

Next up the ingredients, in no particular order

Bees wax


Montan wax


Candelilla wax


The infamous carnauba wax


And finally Coconut Oil and Paraffin


Ingredients I am still waiting for include some other bees wax, orange oil or limonene I think it is also known as.


With the ingredients out of the way my next mission was trying to find out how best to cook this stuff. Thankfully I had Dom and a few other guys share some tips and safety precautions with me so as to not burn down the house in the process.

From what I have found there is literally so many aspects involved in order to control the final outcome of the finished product. Cooking times, cooling times, ingredients and ratios, quality of the ingredients, order of ingredients, etc, it is no wonder most of this stuff is made in a lab and whilst not strictly high tech it is no wonder there is only so far a person can go at home over the stove. That being said however I don't mean to take anything away from the guys who have successfully made homebrewed waxes, with enough time, patience and determination anything is indeed possible.


Right, on to the actual cooking bit...From my initial research it seemed that the way to cook this was in a glass jar in a pot of boiling water on the stove so thats where I started. Whilst this method worked it was taking forever, I think I may have used to small a glass (a larger glass would have maximized the surface area lower down closer to the heat and possibly sped things up) or too small a pot of water.

Before getting on to how I made the other 2 of the 3 initial samples I want to share one other aspect that tickled my curiosity. From reading various bits and pieces all over the general concensus was to let the finished mixture cool on it own. Ben's original thread on DW pointed out that sometimes the waxes were crystally (don't think thats a word but anyways) so I wondered if cooling them gradually as opposed to tossing them out into cold pans might make a small difference.

With that in mind while I was preparing the first one on the stove I put the tray into the electric frying pan with some water to get that up to temperature for pouring the waxes into once melted on the stove. Needless to say I think the heat of the steel tray in the boiling water was ideal and after pouring the 1st finished wax into the tray we decided to make all of the others directly in the tray as opposed to in the pot on the stove. This seemed to work alot better and also avoided the transfer process which I was concerned about (hot wax and soft skin don't mix )


So onto the actual samples that were made. 3 Mixes were made varying only 1 ingredient at a time to see what effect they had on the finished product.

Mix 4 was as follows :
30g Carnauba wax
10g Bees wax
30g Coconut oil
30ml paraffin



Mix 2 was as follows :
30g Carnauba wax
10g Candellila wax
30g Coconut oil
30ml paraffin



And the final mix
30g Carnauba wax
10g Montan wax
30g Coconut oil
30ml paraffin




The really interesting part after all of this is how carnauba percentages are calculated in the real world. If we took the % carnauba by volume of the actual waxes in the product then these were all 75% carnauba by volume. If we took the % of volume excluding the solvent carrier it would be 43% carnauba by volume and finally if we took the % of total volume then they are roughly 30% carnauba by volume. Now I am no scientist but these 3 samples are all pretty hard which leads me to believe I either need to add more of the carrier oils/solvents or less carnuaba to make them softer. I think this possibly highlights and sheds light on Dom's initial claims in the Rubbish Boy thread that carnauba percentages are misleading, confusing and maybe all together bogus. Now I am not saying it can't be done, rather that in future I will not look at carnauba percentages in the same way. With that out of the way on to the actual samples again.


All of the above mixes seem slightly too hard although they do melt quite nicely (except for the montan mix) when rubbed between your fingers, spread quite easily and go a long way and also buff off nicely. Interestingly as well they don't seem to be so crystally as I imagined, maybe a result of the gradual cooling process or maybe simply the way it is. As a result of the paraffin none of them smell too fantastic but that will hopefully change when some of the other ingredients arrive. As far as testing goes I stole a page out of Ben from Rubbish Boys book so to speak and used cd's. The initial testing on the cd's didn't really prove very much, all 3 seemed very similar in apperance to a control cd with no wax as well as one coated with a layer of CG's XXX paste wax. Water beading and sheeting seemed fairly consistent between all 5 as well so I don't think this is the best method of testing the products at the moment.

Thats basically it for the moment, I will post some more pics and experiences later when I have recieved the other ingredients and made another batch. Overall this has been a really fun experiment and I have a new found respect for the guys and gals cooking these waxes up in a lab someplace

Big thanks to Ben for his thread on DW and Dom in particular for sharing some of his knowledge on the subject with me

[Dannyk]

Wow, pretty neat. Things are really boiling now with these recipes , very interesting. Good Luck. Its interesting also with the oder issue, nothing has been said about the original oder when being processed. I guess thats why something is added to mask the original oder? Thanks.

[Cyclo]

The only original odor I have is from the beeswax, and it smells like ... honey.

[pirex]

Watermelon would smell GOOD! Just like Divine

[Carn]

We tried vanilla essence in one of them but it is obviously not oil soluble as we found out last night. There are lots of aroma type oils one could add for fragrance but we will have to see how they smell after we try the new ingredients before resorting to that

[Rubbish Boy]

Blimey you're all at it now!

I chose CD's to test with mainly to check that it would spread and buff and not cause damage doing so. To check for looks and beading etc, then there is only one way I'm afraid and that's real paint and bodywork.

Controlling the heat up is very hard in the home lab, but I don't think there is too much issue here unless, like I said on cyclo's thread, you are using powdered micronised carnauba. Cool down though can make a huge difference to texture. Not only temperature but also what you do to it as in stirring etc. One of the nicest texture waxes I have made involved a very complicated cooling process that would be nigh impossible to implement in a home lab style production run and nigh on impossible for me to be bothered to do it for more than a couple of jars of wax.

And I think, like me, you have discovered pretty quickly that carnauba percent claims suck, in fact I think you could make a lot nicer wax without any carnauba at all. Still if you measure your carnauba percent using the unmelted flakes in relation to the final ml of wax it would probably be a bit closer to what some manufacturers claim.

[Carn]

Originally Posted by Rubbish Boy

Blimey you're all at it now!

Sorry Ben, once the bug bites you know how it goes. I think I am somewhat like you (I don't know you personally so no offence) in that I like to see and know how things work and why. I was also really intrigued as to whether or not I could actually make something useable in the kitchen

Don't mean to take anything away from the guys like yourself that have invested alot of time and money into doing what you do

Originally Posted by Rubbish Boy

I chose CD's to test with mainly to check that it would spread and buff and not cause damage doing so. To check for looks and beading etc, then there is only one way I'm afraid and that's real paint and bodywork.

I figured as much based on my 1st trials. They all went on quite nicely and actually a very little went a long long way. In terms of buffing them off again they all seemed very similar. The montan wax mix however seemed to be the most gummy if I could put it like that.

Originally Posted by Rubbish Boy

Controlling the heat up is very hard in the home lab, but I don't think there is too much issue here unless, like I said on cyclo's thread, you are using powdered micronised carnauba. Cool down though can make a huge difference to texture. Not only temperature but also what you do to it as in stirring etc. One of the nicest texture waxes I have made involved a very complicated cooling process that would be nigh impossible to implement in a home lab style production run and nigh on impossible for me to be bothered to do it for more than a couple of jars of wax.

That was some of my thinking when putting the pan into the hot water. The idea was to try and control how slowly it sets by reducing the heat in the pan (and hence the water) as well as the fact that the water would cool slower than the pan would have in the open air. They all seemed to be nice and smooth with only minimal graininess to them.

Originally Posted by Rubbish Boy

And I think, like me, you have discovered pretty quickly that carnauba percent claims suck, in fact I think you could make a lot nicer wax without any carnauba at all. Still if you measure your carnauba percent using the unmelted flakes in relation to the final ml of wax it would probably be a bit closer to what some manufacturers claim.

Just looking at some of the numbers presented by manufacturers makes me wonder after last nights experiments. I won't for a second flat out state they hogwash because I am not a chemist and do not have access to any of the very high tech equipment or extensive scientific knowledge they may have. What does strike me however is that there is only so much carnauba one can put into a wax. In it's natural state it is rock hard and useless as a car wax IMHO. Definately more to it than the simple carnauba content people are fixated with.

Thanks again for all the input Ben, your knowledge and advice has been invaluable in getting me started. Much appreciated

[P1et]

This is so great, well done! I'd love to see the application process, the removal and the beading. Also, durability would be fantastic to see.

[DanPonjican]

Subscribing!

[Buddy]

Way to go. sounds like you know exactly what you are doing.