On my most recent visit to the Post Office to mail some family packages I was informed that they are no longer projecting packages to arrive before Christmas due to bottlenecks throughout the system. That’s good to know, so if you were planning on sending any of my wax or polissoirs for Christmas I can mail them immediately but do not expect to receive them before Dec 25th. Early December is the only time of the year where I regularly go to the post office more than once a week to mail packages.
Much to my surprise I made it to this date with a bit of my dwindling inventory remaining, I had my doubts. It’s been a few months since I received any new polissoirs since my broom maker has been dealing with some serious health issues and has not had the strength to sit and make brooms or polissoirs. At this point I am down to about a dozen of each model in stock (way fewer than in this picture). I’ve got plenty of wax blocks and can always process more, ditto Mel’s Wax.
I spoke to the broom maker last week and he is determined to get back into his shop this week. I hope it is true because that means his healing will be nearly complete. That will be great as we can start building excess inventory to prepare for Handworks 2021 on Labor Day weekend.
Recently I have been working with planemaker and friend Steve Voigt to help him create a wax polish for his exquisite new historic-style wooden planes. Well, Steve has been doing all the work, I am just supplying the materials and a few formulations based on the results I’ve had in recent years. His desire was for a beautiful appearance and a non-slick surface so that his planes could be handled with the tiniest bit of tack against the bare hand.
Based on some correspondence and a recent Instagram post, he has apparently arrived at the finish line. He is strongly recommending I make this product for others with similar interests and asked if I had ever made this formulation before, because it was in his words, “Da Bomb.” You can tell he has been a college professor, what with all that hipster lingo. (He is actually a pretty hip guy, especially compared to me being just a lovable curmudgeon shouting at the clouds)
My reply was, “Yes I had, and yes it was.”
It just might be time for a new product in the Don’s Barn Store. I’ve actually been playing with quite a few ideas…
This is not a “happy” bog post. It might be a little too much “inside baseball” but I thought you should know what is going on and what is coming down the pike. It’s probably bad form to discuss openly the costs of running a business, even a hobby one, and I will give that concern all the consideration I think it deserves. Okay, I’m done with that consideration.
It has been almost a decade since rediscovering the amazing surface prep and finishing tool called the polissoir, or polisher, and connecting up with a local craft broom maker to supply me with them. In that period I have sold and shipped thousands(!) of polissoirs and blocks of beeswax etc., and I hope to continue that success and match it with that of Mel’s Wax in the coming months and years. I delight in sharing the polissoir-and-beeswax’s almost magical qualities with the enthusiasts who have joined me in this trek taking a giant leap backwards in wood finishing. To encourage these tools’ adoption by the woodworking world I have kept the pricing stable almost since the beginning, folding the postage into the purchase price and keeping that unchanged since we went “official” with the Shop function on the website.
Unfortunately the postage increases implemented by the USPO over the past two years have affected me to the degree that, all by itself, postage now consumes over 15% of my gross sales revenue (and nearly 25% of the net), a nearly 100% increase in just the past year. This is so far out of whack I can hardly wrap my head around it, but the unavoidable result is that some of the heavier items in the Store will necessarily increase in price to reflect this grim reality as soon as we can edit the page.
(I am not griping about the post office, they provide excellent service to me and are convenient; I do not realistically have any other parcel carrier option out here in the hinterlands. I usually make the five-minute drive to our one-window post office in town once a week with a canvas tool bag full of parcels to mail. Making a three-hour round trip over the mountains to a parcel depot is not in the cards for me.)
To respond to this new cost reality, after long thought I’ve decided to raise the price of hand refined beeswax by $1 to $14, raising the Blend 31 to $17, and the shellac wax to $21.
All three models of the one-inch polissoirs will remain at their current price since they are so light weight and have apparently — thus far — remained below some postage threshold, but you never know with the USPS.
The large polissoirs, the two-inch woven-sheath and the Model 296 wrapped polissoirs, will be going from $47 to $49, and the two-pound bag of shellac flour will now be $75. Postage for Mel’s Wax is also 50% higher per unit than expected but I will leave that price alone for now as a strategic move.
I’m not apologizing for the increases: even though this is a labor of love for me I simply can’t keep selling and shipping products at the previous prices given the rising costs of postage. That is just a plain and simple fact whether I like it or not. I will be sad if these price increases diminish interest in polissoirs and waxes and such, but as the pundit says, “Facts don’t care about your feelings.”
And, given the recent disruptions in the bee hive health I am doubly glad I bought a lot of raw beeswax for us to hand-process into blocks and polishes just before the colony collapse crisis. I’m hoping that the raw material comes back down in price before I need to buy more at the end of this year, but at the moment the prices for beeswax are about double from when I bought some last.
Many years ago I was contacted by a lady who was cleaning out her late father’s garage. In it was a box she thought I would find interesting and useful. Apparently back in The Depression he owned a factory/warehouse building and one of his tenants, a pearl button maker, simply disappeared, leaving behind all his inventory. She said it was a box of pearl button blanks and offered it to me provided I pay for postage which I gladly covered.
I arranged for the shipping through parcel delivery service and waited for the arrival of what I figured would be shoe-box size of who knows what. Much to my astonishment two weeks later a two-foot cube of a box arrived filled with a couple hundred thousand pieces of mother-of-pearl!
I sorted it into storage containers which now fill three drawers of my large map case. I haven’t done much with it other than that and using it for the occasional inlay, but perhaps the time has come for me to inventory it more completely and offer it through the donsbarn.com store. There’s no way I can use it all.
For the past several months just as I have been working feverishly on re-siding my daughter’s house my polissoirs maker has been concentrating on wrapping up his several years’ project building their dream house. They have been moving in recent days, but the broom-making studio is not yet fully installed in the new house, As a result the stream of new polissoirs dried up, and for the past couple of months at least I have been out of some inventory. I am happy to report that as of yesterday I am now fully stocked with all the varieties of polissoirs, with the routine of making new ones back on track. For the next several months we will be building the inventory for next year’s Handworks.
In addition I got the guy who makes the blocks of specialty waxes (that would be me) to get on the stick and re-stock them and Mel’s Wax as well.
I will be spending the next couple of days filling and shipping all the orders I have outstanding, and should be caught up by Thursday. I’ve got a couple trips over the mountains in the meantime or I would get them done tomorrow.
My friend LenR posted this in his Instagram page, featuring his use of Mel’s Wax. It is much appreciated, and prompts me to think seriously about how to market this remarkable product. At this point I am selling about one unit per month, when in reality I should be moving it by the case load. I’ll be turning my attention in this direction imminently. I’m definitely interested in ramping up production, but refuse to sub it out and am not really interested in wholesaling it. Those might be two intractable problems with my plan.
It’s been almost thirteen years since the skeleton of the barn was erected, nine years since it was outfitted with the first of more than a dozen workbenches, and over six years since the first blog post. Now safely ensconced in my 65th year, lately I’ve been contemplating the entire enterprise, reflecting on how blessed I have been and continue to be. Whether it is good news or bad news, after serious consideration I have no plans to change the fundamental structure of activity on the homestead for several more years, but at some point life in the mountains will simply become too physically taxing and the barn and cabin will be in my rear-view mirror. Until then, however, it is still full(?) speed ahead with a big smile on my face, albeit not necessarily in the exact same direction nor the exact same speed. I’m working just as hard as I did when I was 30, but the output is demonstrably less. My Mom is 102 and lucid so I’ve got to think about another forty years of engagement and productivity.
Here is a sketch of what future activities might look like. No telling if it is accurate.
Conservation Projects
Early on I maintained a fairly vibrant furniture and decorative arts conservation practice but have no plans to continue much of that except for specific projects and clients. Yes, I will continue to work with the private collection of tortoiseshell boxes that I’ve been working on for more than a decade. Recently I was approached to collaborate on a couple high profile on-site projects and if those move forward, fine. I love it but at this point I’ve got other things I want to do on the priority list. And I want to truly perfect my artificial tortoisehell. And I want to explore new uses of materials in furniture preservation. And invent new materials, or novel uses of existing materials. And, and, and…
Making Furniture
I make no claim as a furniture maker of any note, but I hope to concentrate on making more in the future. I would love to maintain a small output of Gragg chairs every year, and even modify them and take them in directions Samuel Gragg never went. I also have enough vintage mahogany for eight more Daniel Webster Desks, so perhaps there are some clients who might want one. Only time will tell. I’ve always had a hankering to make some furniture in the milieu of Charles Rennie Mackintosh or Alar Aalto, so maybe that becomes part of the equation. And I have these sketches for pieces representing a collision of Roubo and Krenov while they are sitting on the porch of a Japanese temple. And Mrs. Barn has a list of things she would like for the cabin. And exploring parquetry more intensely. And finally get pretty good at woodworking in general. And, and, and…
Metal Work
I’ve always had a interest in metalworking since my boyhood when I would spend time with my Dad in his shed, melting lead weights and doing a little brazing and welding. Many of those skills have grown fallow but I am trying to get them back and take them to new places. My love of tool making has been rearing its lovely head in recent times and I have every intention of bringing that focus closer to the bullseye. And part of that has to include getting my foundry back on-line. And tuning up all my machine tools like my machinists’ lathes and mill. And getting really good at brazing and silver soldering, maybe even welding. And, and, and…
Finishing Adventures
I remain committed to looking both backwards and forwards into the realm of finishing materials, ancient and super modern. I truly believe Mel’s Wax to be a transformative furniture care and preservation product for which I have not yet discovered the key to marketing. But I will keep at it because of my knowledge of its performance and my commitment to Mel’s vision for it. And as for beeswax and shellac wax? Finishing with them may be among the oldest and simplest methods, but they can be extremely difficult and I cannot pretend to have mastered them. And what about my fascination with urushi and its non-allergenic analogs and the beautiful things I want to make from them? And what about the fifty bazillion things I do not know about shellac?And, and and…
Writing
My plate of writing projects is full to overflowing, building on a strong foundation of completed works. Notwithstanding my current struggles with the manuscript for A Period Finisher’s Manual, due entirely to my having too much esoteric material to include in a reasonably consumable book (really, how much solvent thermodynamics does the typical woodworker need to know?), I enjoy every minute I am writing even when it is driving me crazy. I’d better because my collaborator Michele Pagan is one full book ahead of me in the Roubo Series. And there are two or three more volumes after that one. And some day I need to finish the almost-completed manuscript for A Furniture Conservation Primer created with a colleague while at the SI and thus will be necessarily distributed for free via the web site. And what about my treatise on the technology and preservation of ivory and tortoiseshell? And the dozen mystery/thriller novels I have already plotted out? And who knows how many short stories about the life of First Century craftsman Joshua BarJoseph? And, and, and…
Web
My first of almost 1,200 web posts went up six-and-a-half years ago, which I understand in the world of hobbyist blogging, where blogs come and go like the tides, puts me as some sort of Methuselah. But certainly not in the same class as The Accidental Woodworker, who has been blogging daily for even longer IIRC. Ralph, I tip my hat to you, sir.
I once thought the web site/blog would be a useful portal for soliloquies about my projects and things I’ve learned over a long and rewarding career, but now I am not so sure. A while back I decided to make a concerted effort to blog at least five times a week for a year, and I think I came pretty close. Surely this would increase my web traffic! Well, not so much. At the end of this effort my web traffic was 2% lower than when it began. Despite fairly consistent blogging my visitorship has dropped by almost half over the past four-plus years. So I just scratch my head. I’m not whining, but instead recognizing that the flock who is interested in my musings is shrinking, not growing. Oh well. This is not a good or bad thing, it is just a thing, helpful in me making decisions about priorities. I have no plans to really change anything about the blog, we’ll just wait and see where it goes.When I am not somewhere else, with someone else, or doing something else, I will blog.
Recently I was chatting with someone who informed me that web sites and blogs are now passe and the currency du jour is the unholy trio of Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Given that and my antipathy towards the latter two it is likely that I will undertake the former at some near date (yes, I know the relationship between Instagram and Stalkerbook) . Something inside me rebels at the notion of validating the post-literate world, however. Still, the economic treatise presented by Larry the Liquidator is not only dramatic but accurate. Even the Professional Refinisher’s Group is moving forward, transitioning from a moderated email forum to a private Facebook Group, which will leave me behind. But they will survive without me and I intend to maintain contact with that circle of fellowship regardless.
Trouble is, I am by temperament a bizarre mélange of buggy whip maker and hardline “emergent order” Hayekian. Hmmm. Not really sure how that works out.
Workshops
Integral to my vision for the barn was to have it be a place of learning. As the facility was coming together, whenever I spoke to any kind of woodworking gathering the verbal response was overwhelmingly enthusiastic. The reality that unfolded was anything but. I now realize that my vision was a faulty one and the enthusiasm was superficial. Quite bluntly, almost no one wants to come to such an isolated location where local amenities are practically nonexistent, to spend a few days engaging in subjects I want to teach. Fair enough, the barn is too remote and my topics are too arcane. Like I said before, this is not a good thing or a bad thing, but just an instructive thing to add to the equation.
As a result and in recognition of reality I plan to deemphasize workshops at the barn, perhaps even eliminating them altogether, notwithstanding that I created dedicated spaces for the undertaking. Should a small group of enthusiasts approach me with the request to teach them, I will do so. That is precisely what a quartet of guys have done for next June. And, I might do an occasional blockbuster-type workshop (a Gragg chair class would be such an example, if that ever occurs; I had thought a ripple molding machine class might be such an event, but with zero response…), or I might travel a bit to teach but otherwise that part of the portfolio is likely to close. Not definitely, but likely.
Videos
Hence my transition to teaching via video. If I cannot get folks to come here perhaps my best strategy is to go to them. I have a multitude of ideas (more than twenty full-length [>30 mins.]video concepts on the list) and a brilliant local collaborator to work with. I am committed to this path to the degree that I have the time, energy, and resources.
Further I have decided that making shorter, self-produced and thus less polished “shop technique videos” might be a useful undertaking to post on donsbarn.com, youtube or Vimeo. I will explore this avenue in the coming weeks and months.
The Homestead
With several buildings, several gardens, and a power system to maintain and improve there is never a shortage of things to do here on the homestead. I want to build/expand more garden capacity for Mrs. Barn to spend time doing the thing she loves best. And fruit and nut orchards. And I want to finish creating a rifle scope for shooters like me who have lost most of the vision in their dominant eye. And another hydro turbine downstream from the current one.
And, and, and that’s all I’ve got to say on the subject.
That is The State of the Barn Address, 2019. To quote one of Mel’s favorite songs, “The future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.” Yes it is. I am living the dream.
Recently I came across the pile of prints I have from a First Edition of Roubo’s L’Art du Menuisier. These were a lot I purchased at auction some time ago, primarily because it contained the core prints that started me down the Roubophile path decades ago. Though not a complete set of the volumes’ prints, they were and are spectacular even though we have access to them only because some barbarian cut up the original volumes just to have the individual prints.
These are hand-printed on hand-made linen paper, and Roubo almost certainly provided some level of direct supervision in their making (beyond doing all of the illustrations and engraving most of the plates himself). There is an almost tangible connection with him as you see the impressions from the engraved plate on the not-flawless paper from more than 250 years ago.
As soon as we can get the formatting complete they will go onto the Store page of this web site and be available for you to acquire for your own workshop wall or wherever you want them to hang.
Here is the inventory I will have for sale. Up through Plate 297 these are images of the actual prints I have, after that they are an image from Chris’ First Edition. I’ll make sure I have the genyoowine pics on the Store page.
224, Many Types of Folding Stools and Their Development
234, The Manner of Determining the Desired Centers for All Kinds of Seats
238, How to Draw a Full-scale Pattern of the Curve of a Seat
245, The Way to Draw Extended Curves Used on Bed Canopies
248, Illustrations of a Turkish-style Bed and its Developments
249, Plan and Elevations of a Campaign Bed with Its Developments
251, Diagrams of a table and a camp bed with their Developments
256, A Continuation of Description of a billiard table and the Instruments that are Necessary to this Game
259, Other Sorts of Game Tables with Their Illustrations
260, Diagrams and Elevations of a Desk With Its Developments
263, Further Developments of Roll-Top Desks and Other Writing Tables
271, Various Sorts of Shelves and the Profiles Appropriate for Armoires
273, Developments of the Buffet Represented in the Previous Plate
274, Plans and Elevations of a Common Commode
282, The Way of Preparing Frames To Receive Veneerwork
283, The Ways to Cut Veneers
297, Elements of Perspective Necessary for Cabinetmakers
298, Method of Creating Perspective Images With Wood Veneers
321, How to Add (Hardware) Fittings for Cabinetry
322, Portable Embroidery Frame with Its Developments
323, Continuing with the Movable Frame and Another Small Frame
I often describe the practice of conserving artifacts as “applied materials science with a dash of fine art thrown in.” Virtually every conservator I ever worked with had a foundation of both hard science and fine art. In my case that included a triple-major of Art History, Chemistry, and Studio Art all of which came after my forays into Political Science, Economics, and Architecture; (it took me three tries and a dozen years to get through college). I mention all of this to say that many conservators have multiple competences, both “left brain” and “right brain”, and when these are combined with a healthy curiosity and willingness to “push the envelope” amazing things can happen. Nowhere is this more true than when creating new approaches to old problems, say, for example, dissatisfaction with commercially available products for a specific conservation application.
This is where Mel’s Wax came into the picture.
Part of the ongoing care for furniture is the careful cleaning and polishing of it, bearing in mind that every instance is unique and must be treated accordingly. In the Furniture Conservation Lab of my previous tenure my colleagues and I frequently tested, albeit informally, a wide range of maintenance polishes for furniture. This included almost every available manufactured paste wax and liquid polish we could find. Some were better that others, and some were even quite good. The hitch was that even good products often used ingredients we did not especially care for, and the recipes might change without notice. A prime example of this would be a paste wax containing toluene or other aromatic hydrocarbon solvents, which make the manufacturing process more efficient, even if they do impart an ingredient that can be unexpectedly deleterious to aged coatings. And a more subtle instance is the use of ultra-high-powered emulsifiers to excess, in order to facilitate manufacturing and extend the shelf life of liquid polishes. We found there were a multitude of instances where using an off-the-shelf product was a sketchy proposition.
Both my colleague Mel Wachowiak and I had a passionate interest in formulating products that suited our needs more precisely for tasks such as consolidating and preserving degraded wood, gluing wood together, finishing it, and for maintaining the surfaces of historic artifacts. As a result we often (almost always, actually) formulated and blended our own furniture surface care products. It just became part of what we did.
Sometime early in our tenure together (1987-2012) Mel and I brainstormed about creating a much-improved furniture maintenance polish. We probably even made a list of the properties we wanted, I would have to review Mel’s note book to make sure, but at first it seemed like an insoluble problem. We wanted a product that was inherently benign to the furniture (“archival” or as close as we could get to that while recognizing the constraints of reality), easy to use, AND very high performance (providing a good look, good abrasion resistance, protective in a variety of situations, comparatively stable, reversible), and did I mention “easy to use? It seemed that components that contributed to one beneficial aspect did just the opposite for another, but Mel was undaunted.
Over time my administrative duties took me in other directions sucking away almost all my time so my role in any further developments was reduced to one of making a few suggestions here and there, ongoing reviewing project progress, and making sure I kept the deck as clear as possible for Mel to proceed in pursuing our goals by applying his own considerable creative energies and insights to the problem. Fortunately for us, I was Mel’s supervisor so I could keep him armed with the necessary resources (read: time) and freedom to continue. For me to have been directly involved in the developmental process alongside him would have been an administrative nightmare; as a fiduciary agent everything I did was subject to paralyzing scrutiny (as it should have been), so Mel’s taking the lead was a perfect solution. And he did.
Mel undertook a systematic analysis of the benefits and drawbacks of every single component in a furniture polish formulation, looking at hundreds of possible materials and combinations, both experimentally and with literature reviews, even spending hours on the phone with chemists for dozens of material manufacturers. Eventually the picture of a final product began to emerge, and Mel mixed numerous formulations, painstakingly adjusting the proportions of each ingredient and tweaking the processes incrementally until we were satisfied with the result. Actually, we were thrilled, and integrated its use into our daily work. Mel was soon granted a patent for the formulation and process.
To sum up a long saga, the resulting product was assessed for performance by several major product manufacturers and as I recall we got conflicting responses like: “It’s the best thing we’ve ever seen,” and, “We just cannot figure out how to produce it at a commercial scale.”
Skipping forward a few years and leaping past the bureaucratic sturm und drang, as I was one week away from retiring Mel and I shook hands (literally) on a deal to be partners in a venture for me to manufacture what I now call Mel’s Wax. I started laying some of the ground work for that to happen in that first year of life out here in the hinterlands.
By the following spring Mel was gone. The illness we thought had been stymied came back with a vengeance and took him far too soon.
In hindsight, I now realize how this wasn’t just a period of sorrow, it completely discombobulated much of my working life. My closest friend from work and my partner in this new and exciting venture was not going to be there to share in the delight. His memory is however very much with me, and I still have the Program from his Memorial on the wall over my work bench.
In planning for an exciting retirement, I had two relentless and unforgiving projects already on my plate, the second volume of the Roubo translation and the Studley project which involved a full-blown exhibition as well as the book Virtuoso. These were simply higher, or at least more urgent, priorities and for a time the polish would have to wait.
Finally, last winter I began having the time to resume the project, to refine the process that Mel built experimentally, and by early autumn of 2018 I had settled on my own manufacturing regimen. Given the very fussy nature of making this product, and my current pace of life and involvement with many other things I will never be able to produce “commercial” quantities of Mel’s Wax. I am hoping to be able to produce 2,500 units per year if needed, but if the demand requires me to re-address the status quo, I will.
Mel is still my partner in spirit, and his widow will receive quarterly checks for his share of the proceeds, for as long as Mel’s Wax is being made.
A handshake is a handshake.
Now you know, (most of) The Story of Mel’s Wax.
There are only two important questions remaining in the tale. First, is anyone else as interested in this as we are/were? And, who will play us if they make this into a movie?
Wish me luck! After years of product development and clearing the decks at the Barn on White Run, and finding reliable suppliers for some of the esoteric materials involved (still crossing my fingers on that one), I am thrilled to announce that Mel’s Wax will be in the donsbarn.com Store in the coming days and could begin shipping on or about January 24, 2019.
This is a hand-made ultra high performance archival furniture maintenance product, fussy to formulate and manufacture. On a good day doing nothing else I can produce 40-50 jars. But rarely is there a day when I do nothing else.
More complete information on the creation, properties and utility of Mel’s Wax will be posted here and at a currently-under-development web site dedicated to it, which will go live as soon as I can get all the documents created for it. Eventually that web site will also include detailed video about using it and other related topics.
To give you a snapshot of this product I have posted below some testimonials and the text of the instructional brochure that will accompany each jar.
Mel’s Wax will be $49 for a 4 oz. jar, domestic shipping included. A little goes a very long way.
***THIS PRODUCT WILL NOT BE SHIPPED TO CALIFORNIA.***
Do not complain to me, complain to your state gubmint officials and the environmental trial lawyers they are attached to.
Here are some of the comments by product testers over the past couple of years.
I do know that [name deleted] has used it quite a bit and likes it. I used it on one commission piece and it worked really nice. It went from really soft to remarkably hard like magic.
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I cleaned the [artifact] and retouched where necessary then as a final layer applied a very thin layer of Mel’s Wax. She just came back one year later and [Mel’s Wax] helped substantially and though it needs cleaning again but does not have the hazy (ugly) look. My client was very happy! Thank you for giving me the tools and materials to think this through.
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The pictures I will send you are of a small table that I first polished out with extra fine polishing compound and a wheel buffer. Then I applied [Mel’s Wax] to half of the top, buffed it by hand and compared the two halves. I see a difference between the waxed and un-waxed sides. The waxed side has more luster and gives the surface more depth. There is enough of a difference that would make me reach for the wax on a similar project.
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a really lovely 1889 German music box came into my life today and I used [Mel’s Wax] to clean and polish the original finish , which I suspect is shellac though I did not test it, the metal disc also had a treatment with [Mel’s Wax] and I really am happy with the performance of the wax. It’s very very thin and I like that immensely, it dried very quickly in my 75 degree shop with about 70 percent humidity, and buffed to very pleasing sheen, using a cotton tee shirt scrap
[Buffing, Streaking, and Smudging] is where Mel’s Wax excels. My test case is the dining table in this home. It appears to be only a wax finish on the original parts of the top and getting an even shine is difficult. In the past, [another product] was my go-to wax for this job. Mel’s Wax eclipsed [the other wax] in both ease of application and speed in buffing. Best of all, it buffed smudge and streak free–the buffing took a fraction of the time I usually spent buffing out the [other wax].
I found Mel’s Wax to be excellent for prophylactic waxing, especially over already waxed surfaces. I would say that I cut my application and buffing time in half from what I usually spent using [other products] and got streak-free finishes. I still have my arsenal of other waxes for either, jobs not worthy of Mel’s Wax, or jobs where Mel’s Wax isn’t an appropriate choice. I think it would be an excellent household wax as I don’t think it could be “over-used”.
The Mel’s Wax Instructional Brochure (will be included with every jar)
Mel’s Wax is a patented high-performance semi-liquid, easy-to-use furniture care product created by museum furniture conservators for their own professional use. Mel’s Wax is appropriate for priceless antiques, treasured family heirlooms, wooden objects d’art, and even architectural woodworking. Mel’s Wax does not need “elbow grease” for either application or buffing.
WARNING: DO NOT USE on food preparation surfaces or utensils. DO NOT USE on fragile or flaking furniture surfaces, or surfaces sensitive to mineral spirits or water.
DIRECTIONS FOR USE
1. Shake the jar of Mel’s Wax before using. 2. First perform this fast, simple test to make sure that Mel’s Wax will not harm the surface of your furniture.
Apply small dab of Mel’s Wax to an inconspicuous area with a clean, soft cloth or cotton swab, making sure that this area has the same finish and appearance as the rest the piece. Gently rub on Mel’s Wax, wait about 5 minutes, then wipe the area with a clean cotton swab or cosmetics pad. You may notice dirt and grime on the swab, but if the test area looks sound and a bit shiny, you can proceed.
3. Apply a small amount with a clean, soft, lint-free cloth in a well-ventilated area. A little goes a LONG way, less is better. After applying Mel’s Wax you should see an even, slightly glossy residue over the area being treated, indicating you have used enough Mel’s Wax. This gloss may diminish as the polish dries. 4. Wait until completely dry. Generally an hour is sufficient. 5. Gently buff the surface with a second, clean, soft, lint-free cloth. Thorough and gentle rubbing with the cloth is all that is necessary for the polish to produce its luster. 6. Store the sealed jar of Mel’s Wax in a cool place; Mel’s Wax contains natural and synthetic ingredients including petroleum distillate, but no preservatives or stabilizers. Do not let it freeze.
Your furniture is now protected and enhanced with Mel’s Wax and ready for storage, exhibit, or use.
ROUTINE CARE: For pieces treated with Mel’s Wax, ongoing care requires only periodic dusting with a clean, soft, lint-free cloth dampened with a few drops of distilled water. If the surface is dirty, put a few drops of a mild detergent in 8oz. of distilled water and use it to make a damp (not soaking wet) cleaning cloth. Then wipe using a second clean, soft, lint-free cloth dampened with distilled water alone, and finally wipe with a third, clean, dry, soft, lint-free cloth. For furniture in daily use you may have to re-apply Mel’s Wax every few months. If your furniture is not often handled or used, you may not need to re-apply Mel’s Wax for many years.
DISCLAIMER: Follow all directions above. Mel’s Wax is not a substitute for a furniture finish. It has been designed as a museum quality maintenance coating to preserve a wide variety of existing furniture finishes. It is not intended for high-stress surfaces like wooden food-preparation counters or utensils, or floors. If the surface still appears “parched” after buffing, the problem is likely with the artifact’s surface.
SAFETY/CAUTION: Mel’s Wax is a chemical product, not intended for human, animal, or plant consumption. Apply in a well ventilated area while wearing eye protection. Wear non-latex surgical-type disposable gloves when applying Mel’s Wax or wash your hands afterwards with soap and water. Keep out of reach of children. Dispose of any materials used for applying Mel’s Wax as you would any other household cleaning products.
What is “Mel’s Wax?”
This is an archival quality product which will protect the surface finish of your furniture, thereby preserving the finish while the furniture it remains in careful use. Mel’s Wax has proven to be an excellent product for furniture in typical domestic use. It provides a durable lustrous appearance, easily maintained with gentle dusting and cleaning.
Each ingredient of Mel’s Wax was selected after careful scientific review, and Mel’s Wax was formulated to enhance ease-of-use and reduce any harmful effects to artifacts that can be caused by many commercial furniture care products.
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