How to cut up bee's wax?

[Hayes Rutherford]

I have a large chunk of bee's wax that I occasionally break or saw a piece off of. The last time I broke a usable chunk off lots of small pieces and chips were created. I gathered up all the pieces and melted them in a can and thats where they remained. Any ideas on how to mold some usable pieces or how to cut up a large block ( about 20-30lbs)?

[John Keeton]

Hayes, were it me, I would take a piece of wire and heat it (burn a groove in a turning??) and slice it with the hot wire.

[Hayes Rutherford]

I could heat the wire with a torch but think it wold cool off before going through 4 or 5 inches but i will try it. I'm thinking break the whole chunk up an mold it somehow into usable pieces and be done with it.

[Wally Wenzel]

Hayes, I at one time had a large chunk of wax i broke it up and melted it in a pot on a camp stove and poured it in my wifes cupcake tins. When it cooled the cakes would just pop out with no trouble. The cupcake pans were non the worse for it.
Wally

[Hayes Rutherford]

Wally, I was reluctant to try this because I thought it would stick. So I cut the can apart where I had previously melted down the chips and sure enough it was not stuck to the can, only thing holding was a little bead on the can. The wax had every imprint and detail of the can. So I'm going to use the muffin tins. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Jim Burr]

If you have a pen casting mold..melt it into that and you'll have some nice 1x1x6 sticks or if you feel crazy, a 1x5x5 block!!

[Nathan Hawkes]

A local natural food store uses ice cube trays to mold small pieces of bees wax to sell. I used a sharp planer blade to knock off an edge of my 1 lb block, but it did break just as you described. I just put the small pieces back in the bag with the block. I didn't feel like melting all the wax...

[Doug Fries]

You might to "liberate"a few of those paper cupcake liners from the kitchen to pour the wax into.

[Dick Strauss]

Hayes,
If you feed the birds with suet cakes, you might be able to use the plastic suet cake packaging for making smaller 4x4x1 wax blocks. I like the muffin tin idea myself.

[William Bachtel]

If you don't want to completely fill up the muffin tin, you will have smaller pieces.

[Hayes Rutherford]

Since I found out I could get the wax out of the can I had previously melted the shavings into, I can procrastinate taking care of the rest of the block. I'll be on the lookout for something to use as a mold (like a pen casting mold-since the size would be good) Thanks for all the suggestions.

[Jim Burr]

You can make a cool mold out of a 1/4" nylon or plastic cutting board...just cut to 1/4" over the desired length and height. Screw together w/ SS screws that have a built in washer...like panheads for easy cleaning over time. Wax can just be gooey so you can press it into the mold. Or go hiTek!!! Use a 3" long section of 1-1/2" PVC and shoot some Pam inside before you pour in the wax. Easier to hold and less brittle than the 1". We use that for pouring bottle stopper molds all the time...pen makers are so cheap!!

[mike holden]

Dont overcomplicate things - just use a cheese cutter!

Mike