This subject takes me back. Once upon a time in the old days, we had
things like Home Ec. in high school here in the USA. One of the
projects my freshman year was to make candles. It was the kind where
you take a milk carton (paper ones) and fill them with crushed ice.
After punching a rod through it and placing your wick, you poured
melted wax over it. In about 1/2 hour you could peel the paper carton
off your candle. Why I say this is it is the only way to harden short
of a chemical added. You have to with either the use of cold water,
ice, or refrigerating it cool it down to get it to firm up. Now fast
forward a decade or two, and I actually worked for a year carving
candles. I don’t know how many have seen the candles that you slice
sections, then twist them into artsy fartsy candles.
We used steric acid (sp) to harden the wax we bought in bulk. As we
melted the wax from big chunks we just added the acid by weight to
the melting pot. The acid changes the wax properties. It is the same
thing All wax manufacturer use. The color of the commercial waxes we
buy is just a dye that is added.
Any kid of topical spray or dip is just a lacquer based type of
coating.
the hardness comes from a shell the spray or dip causes. I wouldn’t
use them. Learn to work with the waxes. What we have in the
Jewelry/sculpture world is not going to melt off or droop. I have
made large scale sculptures using the brown soft wax many times. If
you need some part of to be rigid while you are forming, use
styrofoam that you have cut to the shape you need. You can apply the
wax either partially melted, or just mold sheet to what you want.
After you use acetone to melt the foam core out of the form. Jusat
make sure you take the resulting gunk to a waste disposal facility.
Aggie waxing old