I typically use Briwax but I wanted to know if Renaissance goes on any differently, is it harder to buff out with an orbital buffer and is the sheen any different after being rubbed out? Thanks
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It goes on very easy and buffs out to a nice sheen. It is completely clear also.
I think it goes on and buffs off much more easily than Briwax, which I always struggled with. Renaissance Wax is easily my favorite.
Briwax is harder. Harder to use but a harder surface. It is also stinkier. After a first buff I hit it with a heat gun to flatten bumps, then buff again. Takes a little while to off-gas so you can bring it in the house.
WHere did you find info that says Briwax is harder than Ren?
Just how it feels from having used both... my impression, not data.
Briwax is bees wax and carnuba wax, both are natural. Ren is microcrystalline wax. It has a smaller molecular crystalline structure and is considered to be harder than natural waxes.
This can be easily looked up
My experience is the same as MJ's. I don't know what the actual scientific hardness of the two dried waxes are. And I don't think it matters. But Briwax is much harder to buff out to a level surface than Ren wax.
?? smaller? Carnauba wax is harder than the microcrystalline wax in renaissance, which google and the sorely missed David Barnett listed as 190F microcrystalline in four parts and polyethylene around 210F in one part. Microcrystalline is sticky, though.
I'd have to ask a chemist how the carnauba and beeswax interact - do both remain together as a wax with hardness between beeswax and carnauba, and how much of each in briwax? don't know. Briwax comes up to a bright polish easily, though and renwax will always look dull in comparison.
if you make your own waxes, you can do what I mentioned above. I cannot recall what solvent mix I used for the renwax formula, but personally a softer version with 160f microcrystalline and polyethylene is nicer to use.
I have no idea if the above is a perfect match for renwax, but it's posted in more than one place. polyethylene wax can be found less easily than 170-190F microcrystalline, but you can find it and heat mineral spirits outside and melt the waxes in it. they may be solved by it in the long term without heat, don't know.
Carnauba is soluble in aromatics, thus the toluene (or turpentine or orange solvent or xylene). Toluene and xylene are stinky - xylene to me personally his horrible, but so is the turpentine at home depot.
I couldn't discern which is harder, but briwax certainly looks a lot more crisp and bright on a surface. Toluene as the only solvent makes for flashing off pretty quickly, though, which can be annoying.
By the way, varnish making is a hobby of mine. One of the characteristics of varnish that you notice pretty quickly is it's really sticky and you can make really long molecules when cooking it and it gets more and more sticky and stringy - presuming it's not mostly just oil with a little bit of resin. That results in excellent adhesion and toughness, independent of hardness. Some types of varnish result in films that are both fragile and less hard than others - not a desirable combination unless you like a crack, chipped and dented finish look.
When you pick up a bar of microcrystalline wax, it is not obviously harder, but it is far more sticky, suggesting that the molecules are long and tangled and not arranged in a way that they're easy to just separate. I'm just a varnish maker, not a chemist, and have made some waxes, and oil and wax combinations - but these characteristics seem to share properties and I just checked the verbiage about the micro-wax molecular structure and it is similiar- less straight chain stuff. What makes ren wax preferable to a combination of candelila and carnauba or beeswax and carnauba? that's a question to folks on here.
I see no shortcoming of carnauba and beeswax mixes, and when the chemist I consult (finish industry, not a magazine writer but a world class retired chemist) mentions rust prevention, for example, he mentions carnauba. Even though he is by no means a "natural products first" kind of guy.
I made two types of micro and polyethylene wax simply because it was a lot cheaper and more adaptable than buying ren wax, and if you make it and something changes in the commercial stuff, you're independent of it. Same as making varnish instead of using brushing finishes. I hoped the high melting point would make them an interesting alternative to carnauba but just use them now on stuff that needs rust protection because they're easier to apply than high % carnuaba waxes.
So dismiss the science and go with what you think is correct, okay.
I'll add that how sticky it is in the tin or how well it does or doesn't spread has no bearing on how hard of a protective finish it leaves when buffed out properly.
I pay no attention to hardness of the coating, how durable its supposed to be, etc. It's wax. No wax is hard enough or durable enough. It is by its nature pretty fragile, and will need redoing. I care mostly about how it looks. If it's lumpy or uneven, it's a no-go for me. If it goes on and buffs easily, it will look nicer. And saves me a bunch of work.
I think of wax like the furniture is wearing silk. It's eye candy, that's all. If you want the furniture to work hard, you need a different finish.
what science are you talking about? You're claiming that the wax becomes harder when you buff it out?
I'm talking about the wax itself, not the wax in a tin in solvent. The actual hardness of the wax is lower than the hardness of carnauba. It's already defined by a scientific test based on needle penetration.
Reading further about why it's chosen for conservation efforts has to do with film flexibility (toughness) and chemical stability.
If you're confused about the hardness of carnuaba, buy aromatic solvent and melt 1 part carnauba to 3 parts solvent. Maybe you're comparing commercial waxes with a little carnauba and a lot of something else.
Why experienced woodworkers would buy premade wax in a can is beyond me, but maybe it's lack of curiosity. It takes only a few minutes to make and somewhere outside to heat solvents.
Why do I buy it in a can? Because it lasts for years, and I have other things I'd rather do with my time. It's a really easy choice.
David, have you ever used Orange oil as a solvent for Carnauba? smells nice and works as a good solvent for oils and beeswax. Plus, it's not toxic to work with. I'm thinking of making some beeswax and carnauba paste wax. The carnauba I purchaced is hard as a rock (literally).
rclark - yes - orange oil is limonene or primarily limonene. or terpene of citrus. It can sensitize you, though, and you'll probably be sensitized to other aromatic terpenes if that happens. Violin guys who have gotten sensitized to turps (pine) are sensitized to citrus terpenes also.
Far nicer to smell than xylene, though. And will work great with the waxes that are only soluble in aromatic solvents.
Has application in natural resin varnishes, too - good turpentine substitute 1 part orange terpenes and 3 mineral spirits either in the case someone in the house doesn't like pine turpentine smell or turpentine is too expensive - cheapest good stuff I find is online only and about $65.
there's an art in very durable varnishes and knowledge of waxes and polishes that was around until just before WWII that has been lost - publication from that period describing how to make really high quality varnishes is where the idea of using the solvent strength of orange terpenes with MS to lower the cost of using straight turpentine.
Can you suggest some publications for learning to make the types of varnishes you are referring to?
Kirk, the forum won't let me reply directly to your comment:
* German American Varnish from 1912
* Scientific Methods of Varnish Manufacture - Ralph Huff - published just before WWII
* Holtzappfel turning and mechanical manipulation has a decent section
Some important points:
* the two older texts focus on high quality resins. They can be hard to find but Wood Finishing Enterprises carries several high melting point Copals, as well as baltic amber. None of these are easy, but they can be done
* the old texts talk about open flames. You want *nothing* to do with open flames and making varnish - it's dangerous already just with a plug in hot plate outside, at least if you do something wrong, and the fumes should not be breathed when resins or oils are cooked at high temps. No smoke should be breathed of course, and that includes varnish smoke.
* temperature control is critical - a modern thermocouple with a stainless probe will tell you where your temps are and pay for itself immediately when you save a single batch of varnish. Even a $6 k-type reader from aliexpress is excellent, and you can get braided stainless probes that can handle three times the heat you'll have with varnish for something like $5 per. They do not care about exposure to the varnish pot solvents, oils and resins, either.
Huff's book is more modern than the other two and focuses on resin and tung varnishes. Much of it is too complicated to do well in the back yard, but a limed tung rosin varnish can be made as cheaply as you can get polyurethane and it looks far better and is much tougher while still being past "fingernail dent" hardness.
You can also make a completely waterproof wiping varnish that's longer tung oil if you want something easy to apply. Unlike the hardwax oils, you make it, it's inexpensive, and it's actually waterproof.
I have read your reply. Thank you so much. It seems that many varnishes that I see in older articles and books are not available any more. I've often thought, 'why can't people just make it on their own? It's great to hear your experience.
Hi, Kirk - there were ester varnishes that you can read about in the huff book. Tung oil can be bought at jedwards raw for about $33 a gallon if you get serious about making varnish, and rosin and hydrated lime are cheap. the huff book mentions using mostly mineral spirits combined with a solvent that's equivalent to current limonene, and I've made short and long versions of it (harder vs. more oily) and they are all excellent. It's easy to make compared to the more difficult amber and copal varnishes, which are wonderful, but the old fossilized resins that go in them are expensive and the cook temperatures can be crazy high, 100 degrees below autoignition, so that would be bad news.
Too, they are darker, whereas the tung and rosin varnishes are like a "warm" polyurethane. They are not darker, and not tinted. this is a test board that I was comparing someone telling me hardwax oil properties that didn't make sense. The gloss on the right is just off the brush and not leveled or anything, tung and rosin - there is depth and clarity that you can't get with other stuff, though that's probably much out of style, it's an option - you can do all kinds of things if the gloss harder finish isn't suitable. https://i.imgur.com/HQQqR7P.mp4 if you use something like general finishes solvent poly or anything else, similar look but this finish will build without being fragile or you can thin it and it will really penetrate deeply. You decide how fast it dries anything from dry in a few hours with 3% japan drier, to will only dry in the sun or weeks in a room with air exposure (no drier) and when you make it, you can add the drier later so a jar of the stuff will not gel on you and you can store it almost indefinitely.
Industry took this further modifying resins into ester varnishes, which were lighter but extremely waterproof and nonreactive (like submerging items for weeks and no water ingress). I think synthetic resins and cheaper solvents ultimately won out and a few hours of dry time like you'd get with polyurethane isn't suitable for a lot of the market and what's out there now is either spar type stuff or like minwax varnish at sherwin-W, very soft but fast drying to the touch. We want better, but the market doesn't really - the market has gone a different direction and it's not all bad, but it abandons the super high quality terpene solvent ester varnishes and other such things.
From this, you can branch into literally making paint if you want to. Most people probably wouldn't, but the book describes how you would take one of these varnishes and combine it 50/50 with a slow drying oil like soy, bind pigment in it and then have a high quality gloss paint. The varnish dries quickly, it holds the oil which makes the paint flow out nicely and the slower drying soy or safflower dries over time. Same tung varnish can be made long oil to pigment and make a bakeable japanning without it just being black or dark brown:
https://i.imgur.com/86Q7Sqg.png
it is nice to have something like this if you are a maker vs. an instruction follower kind of struggling to figure out what you'd like to buy to do. It makes understanding things before kind of cost cutting and convenience everything took over. You can still see vintage cans of finish on ebay, for example, talking about being a modified soy penta-ester varnish, though. Not that you'd want what's in them now, but compare them to "helsman" and we've kind of lost out. they don't have the sharp disgusting smell of epifanes, either - another nice benefit.
by the way, supposing you suggest you can harden the wax by somehow making longer polymer chains or buffing them so that they are oriented in a way they are more tangled, how do you measure the wax film hardness once it's buffed out and know you're measuring hardness and not film flexibility?
Reading about the wax in general confirms my thoughts about the looks. It's kind of ugly if it's being used as a finish because it's opaque. That's in style now, but not at the house end of my walkway. I see discussions from modelers who talk about heating it and then working it, but working it makes the wax brittle when it cools, and more white (more opaque).
If it's less reactive than carnauba and it's definitely far cheaper (your wax product may not be, but the actual wax is) and more flexible, then for a conservator's purpose, that makes a lot of sense. When we talk about the chance that it somehow becomes harder than carnauba and we're also talking about hardness in general for durability, it sounds a little like finding verawood when an application maybe would be better off with metal. Or a hard film finish in this case.
I have to admit I'd need to get the two sticks of micro wax out - 190 and 160f to be sure that the 190 doesn't just feel hard until it's warmed a little. 160 definitely feels sticky, and someone suggested to me that it makes a planes sole waxed so much longer. Without mentioning that it's sticky and less easy to apply, and the first few plane strokes are sticky. and it then is worn off of a plane sole quickly, anyway.
I'll test how waterproof it is at some point as not being reactive maybe suggests it will be very waterproof. I've never waxed something that rusted, though.
Ren wax is PH neutral, clear and does not yellow. Microcrystalline waxes being man made, have hardeners added to them to determine their hardness after the solvent has evaporated. This is not done by buffing. Buffing only smooths the surface and changes the sheen.
MC waxes can leave a harder more durable finish than the natural waxes can.
Skiers and snowboarders use it on their equipment, that should tell you something about it's durability.
ed, you are still talking about things other than hardness. it will persist on skis longer than paraffin because of adhesion, not hardness.
I went and double checked my thoughts. I mentioned having 190F microcrystalline and 160 - that is true. The stuff that is sticky right away is the 160F. The 190 like is used in ren wax is not immediately sticky because the melting point is higher, but just holding it in your fingertips for five seconds will allow it to stick.
I asked a chemist about the claims of hardness - this is a retired world class chemist who worked with finshes. he doesn't have special knowledge of microcrystalline but suggested he would expect per melting point, it's softer, and also said something I won't repeat when I mentioned the prior above about it getting harder when buffed. You can certain work some things and change their properties, but changing the actual crystals in the processed wax sounds suspicious.
carnauba won't stick in your fingers, but it's a combination of adhesion and melting point. micro does appear to fit the chemist's suggestion - higher melting point without so much hardness. this probably isn't a bad thing when you want film flexibility.
this weekend, I'm going to experiment with the three subject waxes - pure carnauba, and then each MP of ren wax-ish stuff. My polyethylene wax states a melting point of 200F. whether it's added as a hardener in renwax, I don't know, but I don't know what you're talking about in terms of waxes having hardeners added. As far as I know, higher MP waxes are referred to as hardening waxes due to the ability to add them to something marginal and increase the melting point of the overall combination.
the higher hardness of the higher melting point microcrystalline is probably related to manufacturing process of the wax itself, not an addition.
when shopping for components, I did find one thing to be the case - to find the high melting point waxes outside of paraffin is less easy than the more commonly used stuff. My 190F stuff is labeled as coming from a candle supplier in frederick - it's probably a "hardening wax", or sold in small amounts to mix in softer waxes to bring them up a bump. the bulk USP stuff used in cosmetics (like 150-160 melting point) or probably to make petrolatum can be found at jedwards for just over $3 a pound.
if there is something that makes it harder than carnauba, I'm challenging you to provide what it is - not because I'm trying to "win", but i'm open to learning about stuff. making varnish and waxes is all about manipulating variables to get what you want. Like with long oil tung varnishes vs. short - one is wipable and goes on like oil and the other is sticky and dries pretty hard and can be rubbed to a gloss. Same components, just manipulated. But when we make varnish, we know that we're actually breaking oxygen double bonds and linking oil and resin together or resin and resin or resin and oil. Microcrystalline wax with branches reminds me a little of varnish because the crosslinking in varnish and making non-straight molecules is (again, not a chemist) probably what gives it the ability to be tough even when it's relatively hard.
polyethylene wax also wasn't sold at ever corner store, but it can be found. The wax is pleasant, especially the softer stuff - just not for the same reason I expected it would be. Too, pure carnauba wax isn't necessarily a joy, especially if it's applied to something like shellac where the melting point of the finish could cause problems because it's below the melting point of the wax.
There are different grades of microcrystalline wax.
https://blendedwaxes.com/product/microcrystalline-wax/
They all have different properties for their intended uses. Many of which are much harder than carnuba. There is a needle penetration test to determine how hard a coating is.
OK, I can't tell if you're googling this stuff as we're going along because the answers have changed, but I have learned something by going back and finding David Barnett's original information.
Keep in mind, I don't have renaissance wax but I guess I'm going to have to buy a small tin to compare it to mine. The recipe that I found of 3 or 4 parts 190F microcrystalline wax and 1 part polyethylene is not the same as Barnett relayed. Barnett was encyclopedic in terms of oddball things that were beyond woodworking because he was a man of a million hobbies and brilliant, but also obsessive.
what he actually relayed for the british museum formula that renaissance is "based on" is Cosmoloid H80 wax and BASF Wax A. The former, you can just find. The latter, you can order, but I don't know where you'd be able to order it < 50KG for $240, so that's not very practical, but interesting that it's not that expensive.
I have 190F microcrystalline. It is specified as 10 on the needle test. I have no clue what polyetylene wax is specified as, and I cannot find anything but one source claiming carnauba is max 1 on the needle test. I don't have a needle tester, so it's not like I can test this, but I guess I could buy a small tin of renaissance and see what makes it the same or similar to a mix. I have high melting point polyethylene wax, but no guarantee where it comes from - it could be rebagged BASF A or it could be from another manufacturer and not identical.
to the original point - CH80 is 16 in the needle test, less hard than the micro wax that I have in my hard mix. Polyethylene is a wildcard. 190F micro is apparently 10, and 205F down to about 5. 190F is noticeably harder in hand than 160F - the wax in the british mix is between the two I have.
the needle test for wax on a surface appears to be for 1mm or 0.1MM. either of those are figures that nobody will have in a buffed film.
I could take granules of each type and smash them together, but they're far more likely to crack and break than they are to actually just deform and prove which is harder.
so, other than to say I doubt that the film of renaissance wax is harder than pure carnauba (which few here have used in the first place, regardless of what a container says), you need to provide some data. if you have to google it after the fact, that's fine.
This weekend, I'm going to buff some things. it's likely my high temp wax is harder than renaissance, but I'm dumb enough to buy little bits of things to satisfy curiosity.
I don't think hardness is the boast for renaissance. Reasonably high melting point (figure if it's BASF A and CH 80, it could be 90C or so) and good film toughness and stability (more important for conservation). I've never seen a woodworker focused on issues that occur with the instability of carnauba wax, though.
The only thing missing in this master class on wax is input from lataxe.
Maybe his interest is waning rather than waxing.
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