sawdust and wax mix

[tcbnick]

I've started using sawdust to flux, with but cant get over the old habbit of using wax. I aways taken my old candels and melted them down into little cookies for better storage and so all I have to do at smelting time is just grab one and throw it into the pot. So yesteday out of bordem I started melting down some wax and wondered if I could just mix the two? Well I took some melted wax and started adding sawdust to it intil I had a very thick puty like mixture and then let it cool into about a 2" cookies. Now this morning I went out and had a small amout of SOWW so I thought why not try my new flux out. And you know it wooked great, don't know if it was better than the other ways but if was easier for me, Just lay a cookie in the melt, the wax melts, sawdut burns, mix with stick and done. All i've done really is to cut some clutter from my smelting setup, but for me thats a good thing.
Thanks Nick

[D Crockett]

I kind of do the same thing but when I rendsr the wax out of raw bwws wax I save all the stuff that is left and mix it with wax been doing that for years now and is a good flux I when I sale me smelting pot I sometimes add a slab of my flux to the package D Crockett

[fredj338]

Sure it works, but I don't think the wax adds anything to the flux. Sawdust has proven better for me than any wax based. I use old sized bulets as flux along w/ the sawdust at times, but the sawdust is what does the trick.

[Defcon-One]

I have done this for a long time!

For me, the wax is just a way to hold the sawdust into cakes, but it does help a bit in the fluxing, too. Basically, I just make what we used to call "Firestarters" by mixing wax and sawdust into a cookie dough and then spreading on a flat sheet pan. I cut it into cakes with my little table saw once it is really hardened up.

I like to smelt on windy days when the air is moving, as a result the sawdust tends to blow around. This method makes the sawdust into cakes which prevents that issue and the cakes are easier to store and handle than the raw sawdust. Just throw one on the melt. I can make them into any size that I need as well.

[runfiverun]

the wax is easier to burn.
the fire is what creates the oxygen free barrier allowing the oxides to return to the alloy.