Do any of you use the Matt wax gun? Do you like it?
Hi Marya,
Yes, I do. I purchased on second-hand from another Orchidian and
have played around with it quite a bit. For my particular style of
work, it is a wonderful and creative tool. However, its usefulness is
very much dependent upon what you want to produce and your working
style.
In my personal opinion, its strengths are:
-
Ability to create and control the creation of organic, freeform
shapes -
Ability to melt and extrude waxes with a good degree of control
over temperature and speed of extrusion -
Ability to extrude wax into water or other media that it would be
difficult or impossible to work in any other way
The downsides of the gun are that there’s no “cut off” for the
extrusion -
you need to use an external tool of some kind to “cut” the wax
that’s come out for a clean end-point… and there’s not a “stop” on
it (think of a hot glue gun and that little streamer of melted glue
that always ends up between what you’re working on and the gun).
If you’d like to see some designs that I created using the gun, here
are some links (click the picture for each to see an enlarged view):
http://www.nolimitations.com/index.php?action=product&prod_id=42
http://www.nolimitations.com/index.php?action=product&prod_id=44
Those pieces were both worked with green wax into very cold water.
Karen Goeller
No Limitations Designs
Hand-made, one-of-a-kind jewelry
www.nolimitations.com
I love it and it’s a lot of fun, though it is certainly limited in
what it can do. But, it’s relatively affordable, so why not?
Elaine
http://www.CreativeTextureTools.com ™
Hard to Find Tools for Metal Clay
I use it and LOVE it. Makes freeform designs very easily and the
learning curve is not hard at all. Ted- the soon to be retiring
goldsmith
I have one and have used it a few times. I find the shape of the wax
"wires" it creates which are uniform in shape have a more limited use
than I initially thought. It’s great for a more contemporary look. I
think creativity makes it very useful, depending on the style
you want to create. It’s fun, though. V.
Marya ~ I’ve tried to use it several times. It’s good for free-form
and organic type designs. It makes small spider web lines of wax if
you learn to control temperature and time of melting it onto the
mandrel. I think for some of the more open and airy styles it can
produce interesting results but it’s really not meant for precision
work. Students enjoy experimenting with it and getting the feel of
molten wax as well. It’s also a bit bulky for me to handle, I prefer
smaller ‘guns’ and handles.
Margie Mersky
Margie Mersky Custom Designs, INC
www.mmwaxmodels.com
www.deepdetail.com
952-457-5512
I once saw some one putting crayons in hot glue guns and
drawing/painting with them. You could try using one as a low budget
wax gun to see if might do what you are thinking of.
Karen, my experience with the Matt wax gun is the wires that come
out are uniformly round. How did you get them to look irregular like
in your two examples (gorgeous, by the way!)? That is what I need to
accomplish with the gun.
Veronica
I have used a glue gun with Matt wax rods. You will need to get a
variable voltage power supply and to extend the nozzle to control the
heat of the wax , It worked so so OK, I have never used a real one
though so can’t compare. Too mean to spend the money.
regards Tim.
Hello Marya,
I don’t have very much experience in wax working but I used Matt gun
for awhile. I like it because you can use your imagination and create
beautiful items with it. I used water soluable wax to make some
shapes and covered outside of it with wax wire using Mattgun. I have
two or three examples in my website.
http://www.birdamlasu.com/slkwearingscarves.htm
some scarf accessories
http://www.birdamlasu.com/jew3.htm
4th row 1.st picture, click on it to see the bigger one. The ball
pendant is done using water soluable wax as a base.
Kind regards,
Oya Borahan
Veronica, if you extrude onto a sheet of glass, you can squish the
wax together as you go, and altering how fast you move the gun over
the wax surface as you sort of write with it will change the
thickness of the wire. You can stop and make blobs with it, or move
fast and make thin parts.
M’lou
The wax that comes out of the Matt Wax Gun tends to be a bit slubby
and organic. It may be exactly the look you are going for. If you
want wax wires, of a consistent diameter, made out of carving wax, I
highly recommend the Cowdery Extrusions. Gary Cowdery figured out a
way to extrude carving wax, in a variety of shapes such as v- tip
prongs, clasp, flat and heavy wall tubing.
Gary has a couple tutorials on how to use his extrusions at
http://www.kindt-collins.com/waxes/ferris/ferrishowtotips.html
I hope this helps!
Have a great day.
Kate Wolf in beautiful Portland, Maine hosting wicked good workshops
by the bay.