Hi Katou!
Does your lathe have any “dops” that have raised metal teeth on them?
You could probably manufacture them yourself–the purpose is to warm
the dopstick (that fits into a jacobs chuck) and lightly melt the end
of your wax project onto the dop at a critical 90 degree angle, thus
providing a normal lathe working surface. You will probably have to
support the opposite end so that any pressure won’t pop your wax off
the dop. Maybe you have two such dops and can use one on each end and
not have to soften your wax at all. Your other question has to do
with marking your wax model with lines–I have used “white-out” quite
effectively. There is a silver-colored “Sharpee” marking pen that
sticks to stone without washing off through all the sawing, grinding
and polishing of cabochons. I haven’t tried it on wax but I imagine
that it would work as well. I love it when I find a new trick to make
my job easier.
Vi Jones in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest