Beeswax adventures.......

samhain73

samhain73

Joined
Mar 5, 2005
Messages
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Ok what did I do.... :eek: I have 2 sheaths for the Busse Game Warden, and I decided to water proof them, and give them hardness by soaking in beeswax. So I read about how to do this with beeswax, and gave it a try.....
Now the good :D and bad :(
The one sheath turned out perfect, rock hard, blade snaps into place and looks awesome! The other sheath however is literally destroyed. I'm wondering what happened? Both sheaths are from the same maker so I have to assume it was user error on my part, but where? What I did was: Melted the wax in a bread pan suspended in boiling water, removed from heat, then soaked the sheath till most of the the wax build up disappeared, then put in the oven set at .150 for 5 mins to make the excess wax permeated the sheath then removed. Again one worked perfect, the other now resembles a burnt criossiont?
 
Nope not yours :p I'll get pics up in a sec, just waiting for the camera to finish charging
 
Here is the pics, of the the good the bad and ugly. Although on closer inspection the one sheath looks more like that chili pepper puppet "jalapeno on a steeck":D And the part that sucks is that I just got the ruined sheath yesterday, and screwed it up 24 hours later. Sheesh!
 
That jalapeno is hilarious looking. :D

Sorry to laugh at your misfortune....but I can't help it. :foot:
 
I just hope you didn't make a mess of the kitchen like I did...thinking I could pure some dye into melting wax to fill in some gaps in a big ole Bowie sheath....one thing to mess up a good chunk of leather, but to have the wife all pissed off because of the mess in the kitchen....oh well...she's young, she'll get over it....


it reminds me of the Seinfeld's "shrikage" episode.....:p
 
I am not even sure what to say about that. I would guess that it got a little too hot maybe?

If you were you I would send it back to the maker. It is obviously defective and he should give you a refund. :D

I am sorry for poking fun, it does look like a roasted pepper though. ;)
 
Yeah it was weird the pepper sheath seems to have just soaked up the wax like a sponge, and dried up. So I guess I know not to do that again at least!
 
It looks like the wax may have gotten too hot and you deep fried your sheath. Think back on how you treated each sheath, what did you different? Did you keep track of your wax temps and oven temps throughout the process?
 
Were the sheaths each of the same weight/thickness of leather? Perhaps if the shriveled sheath was a lighter leather the heat could have been too much for that one, but not for the other... Hmmm...still thinking about other possibilities
 
Well, the pepper looks about like some leather I've tried to harden in boiling water so no doubt it's heat. It could be that the absorbed wax remained hotter within the leather and just kept toasting.

Sorry the sheath took a dive but it's great you grabbed a photo. It made my night. What are the chances of your grinding out a knife to go with it? Something with a ring on the end might work.
 
Jose doesnt look happy! :eek:

Yes, its heat involved, the boiling water is what started the whole downward spiral. Looks like they both took some serious heat, but the reason that the round bottom sheath looks better is the layers. They effectively held the sheath in shape, well at least some shape, the un square sides tell of some shrinkage.

When doing a wax soak its best not to do the boiling water thing, simply dip the sheath in the melted wax. Keep a thermometer in the wax and dont let it get any hotter than the minimum melting temp. Also add some oil to the wax, pure neatsfoot oil or mink oil works well. Not much mind you, but it effectively lowers the melting temp of the wax and aids in absorbtion. The oven isnt really necessary either, a hair dryer will work very well and better control of the heat.

One thing I did to water proof a sheath was to use multiple applications of Aussie Leather Conditioner (mostly beezwax and oil) with a good dryer blast in between till the leather soakes it up, both inside and out. That sheath still beads water after many years of use and abuse.

Send me your addy, I'll send you a replacement for that Jalepeno on a steeek, i have a few seconds with spots that are gathering dust. I can do an Aussie treat on it if you want. :) If that production badass goes south on ya, I'll do the same. Not go south, replace the sheath. ;)

You can do the hair dryer trick on most of the better leather treatments like Sno Seal. And it wont make a floppy sheath if you dont get carried away and put like 20 coats on.

EDIT to add: I just remembered! Your not the first to make one of those productions into a crispy critter. A fellow microwaved one last year, similar result. :p
 
Ahhhh I see! I did not add any oil to the sheath, and should have used the hairdryer. I figured the thickness of the 2 sheaths might be the difference! Thanks Leatherman!
PM sent! :D
 
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