Cleaning 'waxed' turning blanks

[mark mcfarlane]

I picked up a few 3*3 and 4*4 blocks of wood sold as turning blanks. I will use them to make some bandsaw boxes. The end grain on the blanks are all coated with a wax-like substance in consistency. One block is covered all 6 sides. Some are transparent clear coatings, some are colored and opaque.

Should I just mill this coating off, or hand scrape first, or use a solvent,...

Thanks,

[roger wiegand]

The coating is most commonly paraffin. If you want /need to keep wax off your machinery then scrape it off prior to machining-- or if it's grossly thick. I've never much worried about it. Certainly on the lathe you just turn it off. It's not very soluble, so removing it with a solvent would be an effort. It could certainly interfere with a finish, so you'll want to expose clean wood below it by that stage.

[Jim Becker]

Scrape off as much as possible and then try using mineral spirits to clean off as much of the remaining as possible. What little is left at that point will likely get machined off. Obviously, you do not want any surfaces that still have the wax on your project prior to finishing due to adhesion concerns.

[mark mcfarlane]

Thanks Roger and Jim. I'll scrape it off with a chisel as best I can. The last bits will get planed off.

[Brian Deakin]

I would suggest taking great care when scrapping the wax off.The wax scrappings could make the floor of you workshop dangerous and result in a fall

At the woodturning club I attend turning wood with wax on is frowned upon The fear being it could cause a fall or the person could further injure themselves by falling into a spinning lathe

[John K Jordan]

Thanks Roger and Jim. I'll scrape it off with a chisel as best I can. The last bits will get planed off.

What kind of wood is it?

I usually use a card scraper to remove most of the thick paraffin from turning blanks. For a dense, fine-grained wood like ebony I sometimes use a heat gun and a rough cloth to get even more off.

Wood dealers often dip entire pieces of exotic wood into hot paraffin. It can make the wood look better and sell better but if the wood is green a wax coat on all sides can slow the drying enough to minimize cracking. The down side of that is the wood may not be completely dry inside and if dry may not be acclimated to the current environment. If not in a hurry, after removing the wax weigh the block on a sensitive scale and weigh it again in a month and see if the weight changes. I have large blocks of olive wood, bloodwood, cocobolo, and others I weigh periodically to check for dryness. Some can take years to reach EMC.

JKJ

[mark mcfarlane]

Thanks Brian and John. I shall be careful to get the leftover wax into the trash bin.

John, I bought one maple block that is coated all 6 sides and a 3*3*12" block of angelique coated on the ends and ~ 1/2" up the sides. Also got a block of uncoated, rough cut maple that planed into a very beautiful chunk of wood.

I should be able to get 4 bandsaw boxes out of these 3 blanks.

I don't own a scale and don't think I have the patience to wait for further drying, but I appreciate the good advice. This will be my first attempt at making bandsaw boxes so if they explode I will be sad but will still learn a lot.

I will use my as-yet unused and unburnished card scraper instead of a chisel. Great idea.

Thanks again gentlemen.

[Richard Coers]

Also be careful taking the wax off too quickly. The wood can be very wet under the paraffin and can easily crack when exposed to air. Don't assume it's dry, and don't remove it from the end grain for a few months.

[Jim Becker]

To Richard's point, unless it's truly old...it most certainly will not be dry. The purpose of the wax coating is to retard drying because turners often prefer to work with wetter wood, at least for roughing out a shape because it's easier to cut.

[John K Jordan]

I don't own a scale and don't think I have the patience to wait for further drying, but I appreciate the good advice. This will be my first attempt at making bandsaw boxes so if they explode I will be sad but will still learn a lot.



A 3x3 end coated soft maple block might be dry in less than a year depending on the environment. I track the weight on a lot of blanks I cut from sopping wet green logs and I'm often surprised how fast turning squares dry. Unlike a wide board the moisture can escape from four sides. Two weight measurements just a month apart can give you a good idea. Or check with a moisture meter? (I use a Wagner pinless meter)

Of course, your blanks may have been drying for a long time unless you know otherwise.

A useful scale can be pretty cheap. I keep several, use these the most for wood:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002UEZ2FC
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013WU0FUO
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002E1AVU2

If the wood is wet I would be concerned that it might warp enough after the bandsaw cuts to cause problems with the fit. Could also crack in thicker areas. If it's wet, one way to accelerate air drying is to first cut away as much of the outside profile as possible. Turners sometimes dry with a microwave oven but that needs to be done carefully to avoid burning the wood.

JKJ

[Prashun Patel]

I have never wiped that wax off, and I use a lot of green, waxed wood. I just mill it off. It won’t hurt your bandsaw or planer or lathe or table saw in the least.

I do agree with John that the fact that it’s waxed means it was not kiln dried, so the risk is that it may not be fully air dried yet. A moisture meter is useful. They don’t have to be expensive.

[mark mcfarlane]

OK, here is the measured MC using a pin-style mini-LIGNO E/D:

angelique: 10% using 'group 3', 7.2% using 'group 2'. This is really dense wood and not listed in Lignomat's charts.

uncoated maple: 12%

maple coated 6 sides: 8.8%

So are the angelique and 'maple coated 6 sides blocks' good to work now, and I should store the uncoated maple block?

Wood in my shop tends to stabilize at 7-8% over time. I guess I could glue up some 4/4 maple or 6/4 white oak scraps (at 7.5-8%) for my first bandsaw boxes. They may break apart but I don't want to wait a year to experiment.

How much accuracy does one want in a shop scale for multi-purpose use? The $14 ones seems to be around 1gm accuracy.

[Prashun Patel]

If it were me, I'd personally call all 3 of those dry enough. I'd mill them up as if the wax is not there at all.

[mark mcfarlane]

If it were me, I'd personally call all 3 of those dry enough. I'd mill them up as if the wax is not there at all.

Thanks Prashun. I had already planed one side of each blank to clearly see what I had :).

[Jim Becker]

Just be sure to mill them proud of final and let them acclimate after slicing and dicing so moisture equalized. Thin stickers are needed for this. Moving air is nice, too.

[John K Jordan]

Just be sure to mill them proud of final and let them acclimate after slicing and dicing so moisture equalized. Thin stickers are needed for this. Moving air is nice, too.

I think it he was going to make bandsaw boxes cut out of single solid blocks, sectioning and gluing to get an outside shell with a back and an inner hollow drawer or two. If well done (or lucky) it's difficult to see the glue lines and for the uninitiated to imagine how they are made.
https://www.woodcraft.com/blog_entries/make-your-own-bandsaw-box

Mark, depending on where you live and your environment 12% is a reasonable number for air-dried wood. In my air conditioned/heated shop blocks get a little drier but not much. (I don't heat or cool to typical urban american standards.) I would also consider them ready for use. Fortunately the width of the bandsaw blade kerf always seems to provide a little extra clearance.

JKJ

[Jim Becker]

That makes sense, John. I didn't have the connection to bandsawn boxes when I made my comment.

[Greg Urwiller]

The "wax coated wood" brings back bad memories for me. Several years ago, a very inexperienced ME bought a turned wood carvers mallet on a whim. Nice mallet, heavy, balanced. But the waxy surface bothered me and not thinking (knowing) I scraped all the wax off. Couldn't figure out what that was for LOL. In a couple weeks I found out...that thing split all over the place! Man, that must have been wet when it was turned!!

[mark mcfarlane]

John was correct in my approach. Basically you cut pieces off the block and glue them back together. The end result appears to be carved out of a solid block, minus the kerfs.

Thanks everyone as always for the help. I shall install my Diemaster 1/4" blade today and start cutting, unless the wife gives me other projects. I bought the 1/4" blade 3 years ago when I set up the shop and it has never been installed. Only the resaw blade has been used.

[charlie spencer]

Sorry, this doesn't pertain to the thread, but I was admiring the walnut kitchen island on your website. Do you mind sharing the finish? I used Waterlox and years later added a refresher coat and it is plastic looking and nothing will slide across the surface. BTW, you are an elite furniture maker.

[Prashun Patel]

Charlie-
Thank you for that, but I assure you I am not elite. I'm an avid hobbyist who knows how to take pictures of the good sides only ;)

For that walnut island, I wiped on a coat of Waterlox Original Sealer Finish (original formula) - not to a pooling consistency, but fairly liberally nonetheless. Then I wiped it all off the surface. I buffed it for a few minutes until the shop towels ran fairly dry. I was only using Waterlox to color the walnut. I gave it a day to dry - I recommend (but do not practice) two days depending on your weather. Then I sprayed a few coats of Target EM8000CV. It's a waterbased conversion 'varnish'. The sheen was Flat. Target makes a CL100 cross linking liquid that you mix in for extra durability. Caveat emptor on the flat because years of rubbing it will eventually polish up to a minor gloss. So far that has not happened on the island. I find this product super easy to spray. I am finishing a guitar right now, and i have it hanging from the rafters in my garage so I can spray all sides at once. Even vertically, I didn't get runs or sags. It levels so well...

[charlie spencer]

Thanks for the generous answer. Your work is magnificent in creativity and execution. My island is quite large and in place for 12 years. It gets a lot of use and the original finish was Waterlox satin and satisfactory. After 9 years I re-coated with Waterlox Original and the gloss is too great and it seems soft because nothing will slide across the surface. I may need to take a card scraper and start over.

Blessings

[Prashun Patel]

You could run down the finish with micro mesh or abralon after cure (about a month). That will smooth the surface and reduce the sheen. I would not resort to stripping...