Good day to you all. I have found a new injection wax that I would
like to use and am faced with trying to empty my wax pot. Ideally, I
would like to get all of my old wax out before I replace it with the
new. Any suggestions to make the job easier would be appreciated and
most welcome.
Kevin R.
Kevin, I recently changed the wax in my injection pot, and it wasn’t
too much trouble. First, heat up the pot until the wax is completely
liquid. While the pot is heating cut the top away from a gallon sized
plastic water bottle so that there is a good size opening. Very
carefully (with adequate protection for your hands, such as old
gloves or towels) pour the old wax into the receptacle. If the wax has
been in use for a long time there might be a very sticky or burned
residue at the bottom of the pot but it should be fairly easy to
remove this by wiping and scraping. If you can disassemble the pump
mechanism while it is still quite warm most of the old wax can be
wiped away or scraped off as it cools. It took me the better part of
an hour to clean mine out, which is a hand pressure (pump) model, not
a pressurized injector.
Michael David Sturlin, jewelry artist @Michael_David_Sturli
https://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/sturlin.htm
Heat th pot up and then dump the contents into an old coffee can,
etc.Often , ther ewill be foreign matter on the bottom of the pot. If
so, take a paper towel and wipe it away
If you can’t get all the wax out by heating it, you can also try
freezing the pot and the wax will pop off quite easily.
Jennifer
I had the same need a few months ago. My wax pot disassembles fairly
easily so I just heated the pot enough to melt the wax and (using pot
holders) dumped the wax into a stainless steel mixing bowl. Then I
wiped the pot and all the parts with paper towel until all the wax was
out. Of course some minuscule amount remained but not enough to
affect the new wax.
Later, after the old wax hardened, I put the bowl in a pan of boiled
water to loosen it and dumped out the old wax.
When changing wax in your wax pot, you can use a flushing wax to
flush out all the old wax. Rio Grande carries a flushing wax that can
be used to do this cleanly and effectively. You just drain the
majority of your wax out, put the lower melting flushing wax into the
pot, and then drain it out. The flushing wax can clean the entire wax
pot including the nozzle and drain valve and can be used more than
once. Anyone interested can contact Rio Grande on the website at
www.riogrande.com. Hope this helps! Joe Lovato
I heat up the pot. Empty the wax out carefully, and wipe out the
inside with paper towels (trying to get the resins that are gunked up
on the bottom, and trying not to burn my hands). With the melting
temperature turned way down, I put in a pound or two of paraffin and
let it melt. DANGER!!! MAKE SURE YOU TURN THE PRESSURE DOWN TO LESS
THAN ONE PSI !!! Now I squirt some paraffin through the nozzle
and drain it out. Then tilt the pot to get the paraffin to drain out
of the nozzle. Wipe the chamber with paper towels. This helps remove
some of the resinous residue. Now I put in the new injection wax and
melt it. After the new wax has melted I squirt a bit into a soup can
at a very low psi, to get rid of the remaining paraffin residue.
Works for me… Be careful not to burn yourself. Dry cleaning (if
the garment is dry cleanable) seems to work well for getting melted
wax out of clothing. I hope this helps. Kate Wolf http://www.katewolfdesigns.com
Cleaning you wax pot is best done with parafin. Get it at your
supermarket in the canning section. Heat your wax pot to about
180-190F and scrub the inside with the parafin blocks. Some staining
may remain from the previous wax’s coloring. It won’t harm anything
and you can just leave it. Inject out as much as the parafin as you
can to rinse the nozzle. Then wipe the remaining parafin residue with
a lint free clean cloth. For this a piece of an old sheet will do
fine. Fold the edges of the sheet in on itself so you won’t leave
threads behind. To deep clean the nozzle unscrew it from the injector
while it is still warm and not frozen with wax. Dismantle it and
remove the “O” ring. Put all the parts except the o ring in a small
jar and cover it with straight Citra-Solv and suspend the jar in your
ultrasonic. This will remove all traces of wax. You can get a new O
ring at your hardware store. When threading the reassembled nozzle
into your pot use some teflon pipe thread tape for a good seal. Be
sure to lower your pot temp setting before adding your new wax. Check
the temp of your wax by putting the thermometer directly into
the wax. John, J.A.Henkel Co.,Inc., Moldmaking Casting Finishing
I think the best way to remove old wax would be to add water…
then freeze. Both will become hard then you can separate the two if
you still wanted to use the old wax for a project.
Susan Chastain
Dear Kevin, An old trick is to drain any liquid wax and then wipe away
any residue. After that, melt some paraffin wax ( sold for home
canning, etc.) in the pot and run it through the injector to clean out
inaccessible nozzle parts.
Easy and cheap.
Michael Knight
