Hi
would us be able to use it to inprint wax foundation?
Just thinking.
Think... inside out.
Indeed...but....surprisingly some use the sheets to cast a mould, then use that mould to make their foundation. Its often how the small cellers got going with a stock of their own wax.
However, with a leading UK manufacturer doing the milling of wax (our own) for only 48p a pound I doubt there is any mileage doing it ourselves...........the labour cost alone would be getting on for £1 a sheet. As opposed to under 10p to have it done professionally.
Who is the manufacturer you speak of?
Think... inside out.
Does that matter ... ? Seems to me that all they need is some kind of 'image' to follow.
If you were to press a thin sheet of warm wax between two sheets of plastic foundation (with attached epoxy/plywood backing), I reckon that would be good enough. You might need to use some kind of mould release agent though.
LJ
No it will not....you get domes rather than impressions....the cell walls put grooves INTO the wax, not raised ridges above it. You have to go two steps.....make a mould from the sheets then use that to make sheets.
Pour a bit of liquid wax onto a sheet of plastic foundation and put it in the freezer for 10 mins, then bend the plastic sheet and the wax will simply pop off,,,,you will see you actually have a negative of foundation.
The reason I believe the second type to exist - at least in The States - is that I've heard of people using it to make grafting easier. The wax cell walls are sliced away, leaving the larva resting in the exposed plastic 'dimples' which remain.LJ
I used to be the UK vendor for Pierco, which is the type you describe...although there are other brands too, made by the likes of Dadant and Mann Lake.
All the foundation I've ever seen has the cell outline raised and it is these small raised sections that encourage the bees to build on them ... I can't see how having dimples in the foundation would encourage the bees to start building on them.
But a foundation press works by pressing in such 'dimples' - and then around each 'dimple' a raised area is thus created - and it's those raised areas which - as you say - encourages the bees to drawn on them.
What I had assumed - from what little knowledge I've gained, in the absence of actually ever seeing any plastic foundation - is that there are two types: one which is the equivalent of wax foundation (i.e. with a 'dimple' pattern pressed into it from either side), with the other type being fully drawn - cells walls an' all.
But - from ITLD's post - it now appears that there is an intermediate type with 'proto' walls cast into it. Such a material could not be used as I'd hoped, due to those embyronic 'proto' walls being present. It's the presence of those walls which would require an intermediate female mould to be formed, from which a working male mould could then be made. Such walls do not exist (afaik) in wax foundation, yet the bees draw that foundation out ok. But presumably incorporating such proto walls has been found to be necessary - or at least advantageous.
LJ