I’ve used plenty of paste wax in my woodworking adventures and never worried about the ingredients until I started making utilitarian items. My finishes for bowls, cutting boards, or any other item to be used with food are solvent free and 100% natural. I thought I’d share a recipe for non-toxic paste wax. The best part is it’s super easy and you get to melt stuff!
So here’s the catch, you married men should first request clearance to the kitchen. We’ll be melting wax in a double boiler on her stove top. Godspeed.
Assuming you have permission to use the kitchen (I don’t want any messages from angry wives, they scare me) you will need a few items.
- A pot to boil water in (can be one of her pots as long as you have permission)
- A metal container in which to blend your melted wax and oil (I used the same container for storage)
- A heavy duty grater (seriously, don’t use the cheese grater you got as a wedding present)
- Bee’s Wax
- Carnuba Wax
- Tung Oil / Walnut Oil
- 1/3 cup measuring cup
- The most important item! Pliers or vise grips to remove the mixture with.
- Something to stir with. Non melty is a plus!
The least fun part of this project is grating the wax. Especially if you have a wimpy grater. Had I considered how hard wax is compared to cheese, I would have coughed up the extra cash and bought a good grater. Oh well. The recipe I used is pretty simple.
- 1/3 cup Bee’s Wax
- 1/3 cup Carnuba Wax
- 1 cup Walnut or Tung Oil
Enough of the wordy stuff, let get on with it already.
Before you start melting wax, add enough water to the pot so that the water level is about 1/2″ below the top of your melting container.
Add the wax and oil to your container and turn up the heat. You can go ahead and crank it up, but be sure to turn the heat down before the water starts to boil. You don’t really want water in your paste wax, so try to avoid it. A little won’t cause any major trouble, but just be mindful that the less water in your paste wax, the better.
Once everything is melted, you can take the container out of the pot of water with pliers. The stuff is kinda hot… Spilling is not recommended.
As the wax cools, keep stirring the mixture so that the oil does not separate. Putting the container on a cooling rack helps to speed up the cool down process. I’ve also put the container in the fridge for about a minute at a time when the mixture is fresh out of the hot water.
Once the wax is cooled, it’s ready to use. Be sure to write down your recipe so that you can repeat it once you run out, or so you have a starting place for changing up your paste wax recipe in the future.
This is a basic recipe and you can certainly add colorants or metallic flakes to the wax for a different effect. However, depending on what you add, your finish may no longer be food safe.
I hope you enjoyed the post. Let me know if you try it out for yourself and feel free to comment or ask any question you may have. Thank for reading, y’all!
Jeff Levings says
Thanks for putting this recipe out there. I make wood cutting boards and finish with a tung oil and orangs solvent mixture to finish and use a commercial product with tung oil,bees wax, and carnauba wax mix after tung oil sets up and use it as maintenance on all my cutting boards and advise my customers to do the same. Your recipe will save me alot of money making it myself and be able to offer to people who buy my boards. Thank you again
Jeff
Mike says
Hi Jeff,
So glad to hear that!
Cheers!
Susanne Karlsson says
Hello Mike!
Yes finally I have find the mest a brilliant way to do carnaubawax in a very healthy way, non toxic at all, so good!!!
I have bought:
Bee’s Wax pellets (white)
Carnuba Wax pellets and light expensive Walnut Oil haha
I Will guess it wont be and become an yellowish tone like other several waxes.
Ok, as You say you do not want it to shiny, neither Am I, I want it to bee a silky matt finish not shiny at all, so I guess this is this is the very right way to it, then, but how are you meaning change recipy? – do you mean for example take just a little bit more of the bee’s wax?
Thank You so much for putting out this brilliant way of how to do it!! :)))
Bye from Susanne in Sweden:))
Susanne says
Hi !Susanne again..
* most brilliant
Forgot to meantion I Am going to polish concrete ( bowls for an example)
Bye again and Thank You:)))
Mike says
Hi Susanne!
First off, so sorry for taking this long to reply!!! Yes, that is exactly what I mean by changing the recipe. Just tweak the ratios of materials you use in your wax.
Regards,
Mike