# Melting Wax



## Planner (Apr 3, 2016)

How do you clean and melt your cappings wax after it is removed from the spinner. I use a Maxant spinner and the wax come out rather clean. Looking for suggestions to take it and melt and clean larger qaunities. Not solar. What equipment is available?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

What large quantity are we talking about like tons? I would use a food grade metal drum with some water and some
woods to fire it up. If one drum is not enough then use several. Cinder blocks will make a good foundation to support
the drums. 
' \ /
' / \ 
Then use a metal scoop on a long handle to pour the melted wax into the molds or block.


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## Richard Cryberg (May 24, 2013)

beepro said:


> What large quantity are we talking about like tons? I would use a food grade metal drum with some water and some
> woods to fire it up. If one drum is not enough then use several. Cinder blocks will make a good foundation to support
> the drums.
> ' \ /
> ...


Just imagine the fire you could get following an insane suggestion like this.


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## beesohappy (Jun 3, 2009)

Richard Cryberg said:


> Just imagine the fire you could get following an insane suggestion like this.


I reckon it could be if you didn't use some common sense. Here's a video of someone actually doing it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOcMq5VaX98


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## HarryVanderpool (Apr 11, 2005)

And here's what it will look like if it overflows once the wax is melted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjC4SzZwjJg


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## Slow Drone (Apr 19, 2014)

Good example Harry!


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

beesohappy said:


> I reckon it could be if you didn't use some common sense. Here's a video of someone actually doing it.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOcMq5VaX98


Open fire, rocks, pea rock, boiling water, a full afternoon, a ruination of a good lined drum and all for a net of less than 10 lbs. of dirty wax. Hmmmm. Seems more like a how not to than a how to video. 
Lots of ways to melt wax, many of them pretty crude but since the op asked about "larger quantities" and given that we are on the commercial site, heres what I use and routinely melt between 200 to 300 lbs. of nice clean wax from cappings without a coating of slum gum on the bottom. 
http://www.cooknbeals.com/wax-melter/
For old combs I have a different method that only requires a burning pit, a piece of newspaper and a match. . I have better things to do with my afternoons.


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

If you are a comm. operation that produce more then 100 ton of honey. Jim is right on the money for wax melter. Money well spend. 

But if you are a smaller operator that melts less then a few 100 lb a season. Maxant has a small setup for less then $K. 

I use one of Maxant's 400 lb bottling tanks for the pass 30 years for melting capping down. Then when I'm done with wax, it gets wiped out and use for heating syrup and sometimes bottling honey.:thumbsup:


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Before the invention of using natural gas, propane comes to mind, our old
grandma and grandpa on the farm use fire woods for cooking. People in the poor country that
do not have the modern stoves still use fire woods for cooking. Imagine the people from poor villages these day. If you don't want to use woods then with a propane burner that you can control the fire too. Have we lost our ability to use common sense and light a fire using woods already? Put me into the woods, facing our modern mother nature catastrophic events, I can still use woods for cooking. Dig a pit and BBQ style. Hope our general survival instinct have not been lost with modern day comfortable living. But if you have the means to provide then buy the whole suite of bee equipment.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

I do my small scale wax processing on my propane fired kitchen stove. Just don't let the wax boil over or things get interesting in a hurry. Takes a couple of steps to get the wax clean. Fire is only dangerous if you are careless, in that case, give Darwinism a chance.


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## mark g (Jun 6, 2006)

I melt a couple of tons of wax each year. The method i use is a tank ( barrel would work) with a ball valve installed about a foot or so from the bottom. Place 6 inches or so of water in the tank fill the rest of the tank with cappings. Apply heat and wait for the water to boil and all the cappings to melt. Let the wax water mixture cool just intill the top of the wax starts to skin over. Then place a container under the ball valve, open the valve. Let the first bit of wax drain into the container till it begins to " clear up" then collect the dirty wax in a container for next time. After the inital dirt comes out the rest of the wax is pretty clean. The trick is pour the clean wax slowly so as not to stir up the slum resting under the clean wax.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

C'mon you soccer moms, give Darwin a chance. Yes, it is dangerous to boil wax over an open flame, but with prudence, can be done with minimal risk. We processed wax around 5,000 lbs a year in a 200 gallon tank with a natural gas flame until the 1980's. The key was to have skirts so that the liquid wax could not contact the flame when it boils over. The replacement system of indirect heat never produced as good of a product as the direct heat.

Crazy Roland


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Hey Roland, don't forget the C&B wax melter I linked is actually a re-badged Wisconsin invention.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Really Jim? Who is the Cheesehead that invented it? Fagor?

Roland


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## whitebark (Jul 14, 2004)

The Honey Householder said:


> If you are a comm. operation that produce more then 100 ton of honey. Jim is right on the money for wax melter. Money well spend.
> 
> But if you are a smaller operator that melts less then a few 100 lb a season. Maxant has a small setup for less then $K.
> 
> I use one of Maxant's 400 lb bottling tanks for the pass 30 years for melting capping down. Then when I'm done with wax, it gets wiped out and use for heating syrup and sometimes bottling honey.:thumbsup:


Those maxant tanks will get hot enough to do wax? Sound like a good all around investment.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Roland said:


> Really Jim? Who is the Cheesehead that invented it? Fagor?
> 
> Roland


You got it Roland. It was originally paired up with the Fager wax press.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I use a Maxant Capping Separator. Something they used to manufacture years ago. Great wax melter. Water jacket heats honey to set temperature. Hood above has in fared tubes that melts the wax...this machine does't require over heating the honey to melt the wax. The wax floats on the honey, and runs out a standpipe. Honey runs out a separate pipe. Makes beautiful wax and honey not burned. Too bad they don't still make it.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WDoPQj19zfA


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## PerryBee (Dec 3, 2007)

Mike Palmer, one of these? I love mine, and like you, don't know why they stopped making them.


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## ABruce (Dec 27, 2013)

PerryBee said:


> Mike Palmer, one of these? I love mine, and like you, don't know why they stopped making them.


Hi, So I bought a gentleman out this summer and in the equipment I acquired a melter like the one in your picture. I realize its usage is pretty obvious but any chance anyone has a manual for it? 
As a Mechanical type guy I hate to admit it but I generally learn something from a manual.
thanks


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

I have Maxant 3900WPT (http://www.maxantindustries.com/wax.html). It will hold two spinner loads. The wax cleans and separates well when boiled in water. We filter through a couple of layers of fabric. I hate saving jobs for later, so we render last extracting days wax the next extracting day.


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## Planner (Apr 3, 2016)

I am thinking of purchasing this unit. Have cappings that come from Maxant Jr Spinner. Could you please explain how this tank works and if you would recommend it?? 
Thanks


zhiv9 said:


> I have Maxant 3900WPT (http://www.maxantindustries.com/wax.html). It will hold two spinner loads. The wax cleans and separates well when boiled in water. We filter through a couple of layers of fabric. I hate saving jobs for later, so we render last extracting days wax the next extracting day.


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

Planner said:


> I am thinking of purchasing this unit. Have cappings that come from Maxant Jr Spinner. Could you please explain how this tank works and if you would recommend it??
> Thanks


It is a single walled stainless steel tank with a heating element in the bottom. You dump your cappings in the tank. There are two valves on the side a small one and large one higher up. You open the large one and add water to the capping until water comes out (I usually add another inch or two above this). Turn the heating element on to max and wait for the cappings and water mixture to boil (takes a couple of hours). After it is boiling, turn the heating element down to around 190F. The longer you leave it at this point the cleaner the wax will be - I leave it at least an hour. The mixture has now separated into layers of water slum and wax (bottom to top). Now open the small valve and let the tank drain until the wax runs out (it will change from brown water, then some slum, then yellow liquid wax). Close the small valve and open the large valve to pour off just wax. It works well, the wax is quite clean after a single rendering, but there is no melter honey to recover. You can also use it to initially float the cappings in warm water to dissolve the remaining honey and drain it off to make mead and then add water a second time to render the wax.


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## Planner (Apr 3, 2016)

zhiv9
Thanks for the detailed explanation as I must admit I would have done it improperly. I will be ordering the tank as I may also be able to use it for recrystallizing some 5 gallon buckets if the need arises. I was unable to understand the need for 2 valves and now I understand.
Thanks


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