Hoping to make a wax melter

[Tremyfro]

I have a spare langstroth brood box.
I also have a quantity of dirty wax.
...and I have a wallpaper steamer.
I think I have the key things needed to build me a wax melter.
Here is my idea
Make a floor for the broodbox with an inlet hole for the steam pipe and an outlet pipe for the condensed water.
I was thinking of using a foil tray...but I tried that with wax before and it was a shambles....the tray bent and twisted when trying to get the wax out. So I was thinking about using a stainless steel tray instead or a Tupperware type of plastic box...is that feasible or would the steam melt it?
I am trying to think of a way to suspend a muslin cloth....or similar.... Above the tray.....but haven't worked out how to do this yet.
Oh and yes...I will need a lid for the broodbox....more thoughts?
Any ideas folksies?

 

[bpmurray]

The steam won't melt the tupperware unless, of course, you superheat the steam. You could suspend the wax wrapped in muslin (or a J-cloth) so that it melts and drips down into the plastic container, leaving the gunk behind in the cloth. And when it all cools, it's much easier to get the solid wax out of the pliable plastic than the rigid metal tray. Actually, you could use a good-size Flora tub - that way, you can just cut it away. Just be prepared for a mess!

 

[pargyle]

Mine is simpler than this .. just a sheet of aluminium cut from a scrap caravan and bent up at the end to funnel the melted wax into a slot cut in the middle of the bent up sides. One end is propped up on a shallow frame and the end with slot in it sits on top of a plastic box with a j-cloth over the top to filter the wax. A piece of plywood forms a roof and a piece of kingspan the floor.

The steam come in via a hole under the aluminium sheet and heats the sheet so the wax placed on it melts and runs down into the collection tub leaving the crud behind on the aluminium sheet. The steam exits via a small hole in the roof.

Takes no time at all to melt and filter any sort of wax/scrapings and I even put end of life frames in there to clean the wax off them.

In the summer, change the plywood for a sheet of glass and put it in a sunny spot and it's a solar wax melter.

I put a bit of rainwater in the bottom of the collection vessel which makes it easier to get the solid wax out. It comes out lovely and clean and bright.

I think it's better than your idea of suspending the dirty wax in a cloth bag ... it seems to get every last bit of wax recovered doing it my way ... I'm not sure suspending it in a muslin bag would have the same success rate.

I also put a piece of aluminium foil on the top of the aluminium sheet and the dirty wax sits on that .. cleaning it just means removing the foil with the crud sitting on it when it had cooled.

 

[For want of a better word]

Mine is like this... not cheap. but does the job.... frames can be immediately plunged into a final boiling vat of soda and simply washed off an dried are ready for a new strip of foundation !

A spout at the back allows wax candles to be poured.. or directly to a foundation press/
I call it a wax steam flow melter system.... the recovered water with slum glum could be sold to a chocolate factory in Pontypridd to colour their candy!

Nos da

 

[Obee1]

Eerm. Rather than melting with steam couldn't you make use of your aga?

 

[pargyle]

View attachment 12688

Mine is like this... not cheap. but does the job.... frames can be immediately plunged into a final boiling vat of soda and simply washed off an dried are ready for a new strip of foundation !

A spout at the back allows wax candles to be poured.. or directly to a foundation press/
I call it a wax steam flow melter system.... the recovered water with slum glum could be sold to a chocolate factory in Pontypridd to colour their candy!

Nos da

Oh my ... you win the bragging rights on wax recovery ...

Here's mine in summer, sun assisted, mode.

 

[For want of a better word]

Eerm. Rather than melting with steam couldn't you make use of your aga?

SWIMBO has banned me bees and all accessories from HER kitchen!!!
Hopelessley allergic to bees!

I have a number of sheds fortunately!

Nos da

 

[For want of a better word]

Oh my ... you win the bragging rights on wax recovery ...

Here's mine in summer, sun assisted, mode.

Solar melters are brilliant for melting up all those bits of wax that get pulled of off the crown and frames in Summer.
I have one just big enough to take a single brood ( Std Nat) but end up with too many for the melter at the end of the year when the sun hides itself.

But you should see the ones they use in Tanzania... huge.. as big as a chest deep freezer... but then they get Sun ( and hopefully leatherwood flows!)

Good quality English beeswax sells lb on lb for more than honey!

Nos da

 

[Tremyfro]

Envy..Envy! Icanhopit....you must have money to burn or melt!.....you must get a lot of wax to clean to utilise such a fab piece of kit....shall I send my wax direct to you...I can collect all the neat little bars and candles in time for Xmas!
Can't use the Aga....Obee1.... The smell of hot wax is very strong! And a bit dangerous. So I want to make a simple box....think I will look more closely at Pargyles. I've been out most of the day...so playing catchup.

 

[chrismcd]

I have a spare langstroth brood box.
I also have a quantity of dirty wax.
...and I have a wallpaper steamer.

I am fine tuning mine at the moment.

You need to make sure that the wax is not overheated by the steam or you get "khaki wax" - the shame!!

So, I put the steam in at the top, have a super to let it spread out, then the brood with the old frames for extraction. Below that is a spare gauze floor to intercept the slumgum, then another super over a channeled metal floor to collect the wax.

All this is strapped together, to try and stop the steam escaping, and then canted at a steep angle to encourage the wax to flow out as fast as possible down the sides.

Works reasonably well and mainly uses spare kit.

 

[dpearce4]

http://www.nisbets.co.uk/Buffalo-Black-Soup-Kettle/L715/ProductDetail.raction

I use one of these for making dipped candles. I bought it half price at xmas from the company and as you can emagine its much cheaper than this from thornes

https://www.thorne.co.uk/candlemaking/melting?product_id=1200

 

[For want of a better word]

Envy..Envy! Icanhopit....you must have money to burn or melt!.....you must get a lot of wax to clean to utilise such a fab piece of kit....shall I send my wax direct to you...I can collect all the neat little bars and candles in time for Xmas!
Can't use the Aga....Obee1.... The smell of hot wax is very strong! And a bit dangerous. So I want to make a simple box....think I will look more closely at Pargyles. I've been out most of the day...so playing catchup.

Have made some much simpler wax melters with an old brood box a floor with ally sheet and a roof with a cheep steam generator wall paper stripper.
Works in summer... other time heat the ally floor!
Pargyles's solar melter is the way to go for small production
My set up may be a bit overkill... but it produces a lot of wax... and I clean up "other" beeks frame for free (I get to keep the wax!)

Watch out for the hot steam... tis invisible!!

Nos da

 

[pargyle]

Watch out for the hot steam... tis invisible!!

Nos da

Yes ... and very powerful .. I made the mistake of trying to steam the thing with a glass sheet as the roof not a sheet of ply ... took me hours to clean up the shards of glass when the sheet literally exploded.

Other than that ... absolutely no problems and as long as the steam is entering the melter below the aluminium sheet and not pointing directly at it the sheet does not get hot enough to 'brown' the wax. The other thing is you really do need a small exit hole to allow some steam to escape otherwise it is like an inefficient pressure cooker and you can get superheated steam which is not good. (At least not for wax melting !).

The only other caveat is to let the steam subside after you have switched off the steamer as it can still give you a nasty burn if you go at it too soon.

I have, occasionally, steamed wax blocks twice to refilter them ... they really come up very clean with a second go through the J Cloth. I use an old Ice cream tub to collect the wax and keep the J cloth in place with a strong rubber band around the rim.

 

[Tremyfro]

Oh...this is such a great thread...lots of ideas. Thanks for the warnings about the hot steam...I know to my cost how easy it is to get scalded. I used to use the steamer for steaming hay for the horses.....if i opened the bin too soon....wow a huge plume of steam.
I am going to go through all the ideas and tips as soon as I can concentrate properly.....tired now after a busy day.
I am going to have a look at all the piled up bits and bobs ready for the tip....there may be some things I can recycle.
One thing I did notice in Pargyles photo...the plastic ice cream tub doesn't look very big.....so how much of a pile of wax could you steam before it overflows? Do you weight the wax first to get some idea of how much it will fill the tub? Oh yes....and does the wax filter easily or have you had it overflowing as it cools too much on the cloth?

 

[pargyle]

Oh...this is such a great thread...lots of ideas. Thanks for the warnings about the hot steam...I know to my cost how easy it is to get scalded. I used to use the steamer for steaming hay for the horses.....if i opened the bin too soon....wow a huge plume of steam.
I am going to go through all the ideas and tips as soon as I can concentrate properly.....tired now after a busy day.
I am going to have a look at all the piled up bits and bobs ready for the tip....there may be some things I can recycle.
One thing I did notice in Pargyles photo...the plastic ice cream tub doesn't look very big.....so how much of a pile of wax could you steam before it overflows? Do you weight the wax first to get some idea of how much it will fill the tub? Oh yes....and does the wax filter easily or have you had it overflowing as it cools too much on the cloth?

I tend to use if for cappings and end of life brood frames ... once cappings have been washed and crumbled up (at that stage they look like breadcrumbs) I find that about three times the volume of cappings is what finally becomes a wax block. You get surprisingly little wax out of end of life brood frames .. I can get two 14 x 12 brood frames in my wax melter and there isn't enough wax in these, when melted, to fill the ice cream tub. I've never melted down any super frames - they are a bit too valuable.

I've never had the tub overflow although it has got full in summer and then solidified overnight and sort of encapsulated some of the J cloth - I just pulled the J cloth out and put it back onto the melting tray to get the wax out of it. Not had a problem with the wax solidifying on the J cloth ..the hot wax dripping down is enough to keep it running freely.

If you are concerned about an overflow just sit the tub on a tray - any overlow gets contained and can be scraped up and re-melted or use a bigger tub - the container can be any size you like as long as it fits in the box.

The slum gum is great for lighting fires or I sometimes chuck it in my propolis varnish making jar as there is always propolis mixed in with it.

 

[user 6228]

Oh my ... you win the bragging rights on wax recovery ...

Here's mine in summer, sun assisted, mode.

aah but yours can also keep your chips hot or stop beer from getting warm, and keep bees alive in winter...

 

[pargyle]

aah but yours can also keep your chips hot or stop beer from getting warm, and keep bees alive in winter...

Just following your footsteps Derek !!

 

[Tremyfro]

Yours is a celotex box Pargyle? Is that because you originally made it as a solar melter?
I hope you weren't too close to the solar melter when the glass exploded! We do these things without thinking it through...could have been a terrible accident!
I suppose if you had used a double glazed glass you would have been ok?

 

[pargyle]

Yours is a celotex box Pargyle? Is that because you originally made it as a solar melter?
I hope you weren't too close to the solar melter when the glass exploded! We do these things without thinking it through...could have been a terrible accident!
I suppose if you had used a double glazed glass you would have been ok?

I made it originally as a hive bonnet in celotex/kingspan when I had a timber super on one of my hives, there is enough room in it for a super and 100mm of insulation - it was laying around and I needed a solar wax melter so it became dual purpose.

No .. I wasn't anywhere near the exploding glass ..it was last Autumn and the reason it exploded was that I did not have a vent for the steam to get out at the time (since resolved) and I think the glass got very hot in the middle and was cooler at the edges where it overlapped the Kingspan sides. As it was thin greenhouse glass the stresses set up were clearly too much for it and it went off like a bomb ! I heard the bang from the kitchen and wondered what on earth it was ... until I looked out and saw the steam everywhere.

I don't think double glazing would have helped - indeed I don't think it is necessary or a good idea even in summer .... it works perfectly with a single sheet of 50p greenhouse glass as a solar melter and with a sheet of plywood as a steamer. In the summer the silver foil surface inside reflects the sunlight and outside it just has a coat or two of cheap fence paint. Must be at least 3 years old now and has always stood outside, still in very good order and will be used again this coming year.

 

[Cussword]

I made it originally as a hive bonnet in celotex/kingspan when I had a timber super on one of my hives, there is enough room in it for a super and 100mm of insulation - it was laying around and I needed a solar wax melter so it became dual purpose.

That has saved me a few shillings. I've made one of my celotex bonnets just a little too small, it sticks.
I was going to replace this Spring and throw the old one away. I've not yet had any waste wax so hadn't thought of a melter.
Thanks.