Busy Week in the Waxerie

I spent a good deal of time and effort this past week processing beeswax and shellac wax in preparation for the upcoming Handworks 2026 in Amana IA over Labor Day Weekend.  My polissoir inventory is lacking and my broom maker is struggling with some health issues so I do not know exactly how that will be resolved.

Since the shellac wax arrives already purified straight from the factory in India, all it needs is to be melted and cast in the silicone molds I made for this purpose.

The beeswax is a different story as it is the opposite of purified when it arrives.  My end product is something that is purified using essentially old-fashioned technology.

I start with a block of raw beeswax, straight from the honey processing plant.  As I recall, the slang of the bee/honey trade is to call this mass of by-product “slum gum.”  It’s got residues of honey, lotta dirt and bee body parts.

My first step is to break up the blocks of slum gum and melt the mass 50/50 in a water bath in my largest cooking pot.

I then pour the molten mass through a kitchen strainer to get the larger particles and body parts out.  Downstream from the strainer is a cake pan, into which the remainder goes to cool.

A day of work yields a stack of cake pans that cool over night.

Stay tuned for the second day.