Does anyone know how to make Russian Tallow? I was up in Penland at the end of August and Roy had mutton tallow on hand. It made all the planes much easier to use and kept my hands soft 🙂 There’s a reference to it on nleindex.com to be found in the Fine Woodworking #26 Jan-Feb 1981 pg 30. I don’t own this issue. Also the beeswax found in toilet bowl rings, is this softer than the beeswax purchased in one ounce bars? I was using beeswax on my saws and handplanes. After a week with Roy, I’m liking the tallow.
Thanks,
Elaine
Replies
Parrafin or even candle wax will work.
I have a small chunk of parrafin in my tool box. Been using it for about 6 years now and it have barely made a dent in it.
My hands are rough as cobs. Thats the way it is and I like it.
F.
Thanks Floss! I've used candle stubs, hunk of bees wax, hunk of paraffin from canning. They work and they all work well for screws. But I'm really looking for the recipe on Russian Tallow. The difference between the mutton tallow and the wax was like the difference between using a Stanley and a L-N. They both due the job, one is just a little nicer to use. I'm thinking a little beeswax with the mutton tallow will increase shelf span. I'm thinking the mix may be the recipe for Russian Tallow.Elaine
Toilet bowl ring beeswax is softer than the sticks. You would probably get the effect you're looking for by mixing lanolin with the beeswax. You're on your own as to the amounts, I wouldn't have a clue :-)
Elaine,
The reference in FWW26 is basically as follows.
1-Commercially, tallow is available as clarinet cork grease at musical instrument stores.
2- Can be home made:
Ingredients- Two mutton chops, broiler pan with catch tray below, salt and pepper.
Method- Broil the chops, turning once. Reserve the drippings to cool. While waiting, salt and pepper the chops, and eat them. Do not season them while cooking, so as not to contaminate the drippings. The white solid matter on top of the drippings is the tallow. If you collect that off the liquid, remelt, and strain, you have Russian tallow.
Beef can be substituted if you don't like mutton, but beef tallow is softer, according to the writer, a Sandy Cohen.
Beeswax, melted and with a bit of oil (3-in-1 or even motor oil) added, when cooled makes a dandy lube for screws and such. The toilet ring material already has a softening agent added.
Ray
Hey Ray--I was about to reference issue #26...
The "true" stuff is not for the faint of heart to make according to a book from 1910. It is downloadable via Google Books. From the book:
Mr. Field, of Lambeth, has supplied me abundantly with beautiful illustrations of the candle and its materials; I shall therefore now refer to them. And, first, there is the suet — the fat of the ox — Russian tallow, I believe, employed in the manufacture of these dips, which Gay-Lussac, or some one who intrusted him with his knowledge, converted into that beautiful substance, stearin, which you see lying beside it. A candle, you know, is not now a greasy thing like an ordinary tallow candle, but a clean thing, and you may almost scrape off and pulverize the drops which fall from it without soiling any thing.
This is the process he adopted :(!) The fat or tallow is first boiled with quick-lime, and made into a soap, and then the soap is decomposed by sulphuric acid, which takes away the lime, and leaves the fat rearranged as stearic acid, while a quantity of glycerin is produced at the same time. Glycerin — absolutely a sugar, or a substance similar to sugar — comes out of the tallow in this chemical change. The oil is then pressed out of it ; and you see here this series of pressed cakes, showing how beautifully the impurities are carried out by the oil_ part as the pressure goes on increasing, and at last you have left that substance, which is melted, and cast into candles as here represented. The candle I have in my hand is a stearin candle, made of stearin from tallow in the way I have told you.
Take care, Mike
Thanks Mike!I think I'll head over to the butcher and ask for lamb roast. Trim the fat, melt it down, strain it through something - perhaps a try at cheese cloth -couple of times to get it clean. Maybe add some bees wax as a hardening/preserving agent. I've read that beef tallow last longer but mutton tallow is cleaner. Oh and as for the meat -well I'm taking Ray's advise -omitting salt, adding rosemary and garlic I can melt the fat down while I'm grilling the lamb. Thanks again!
Elaine
Thanks Ray!Three recipes in one. Who can beat that??? I don't mind mutton, but do prefer lamb. :)Elaine
Ray, do you think that these folks really know what mutton tallow smells like? As a young man and a coppersmith 3rd class in the shipyards I was at the bottom of the food chain just above the helpers and handymen. I got the short straw to sweat a copper strip of tabs (to block RF radiation ) on the steel hatch lips (think rabbet) to stop radio frequencies from passing under the steel hatch cover in either direction.
Well it takes a slather of tallow, a stick of lead and an oxy.actyl torch with a soft flame to tin the hatch lip. Then you heat the copper strip (that was tinned IN THE SHOP BY THE SHOP RATS) till it bonds to the ledge. My coveralls smelled so bad that my mother bought me new ones after washing them with lye soap and I think that she burned mine.
To this day I still get a shiver up my back when I hear mutton tallow.
Paddy the smelly
>SmellyYes I used to work around metal concrete forms that we would spray down with a mix of diesel and lard so the forms would come off after the concrete set up. Great smell ! Yuck ! I can say for sure I do not miss it.How does all this grease mix with the various wood finishes ?
Edited 9/20/2008 9:12 pm by roc
Yes it stinks to high heaven, but no accounting for tastes. Wouldn't advise it's use in certain parts of the world either: "my dog/pet hyena just gobbled up all my wooden planes-what now?".
I'd say a candle made in Russia would do fine....Philip Marcou
Paddy, melad,
As a wee bit of a lad mesel', I hand- raised (warmed milk, several times a day, in a pop bottle with a rubber nipple) the occasional orphaned lamb given me by a neighbor, (sheep farmer) when the mama ewe died in the birthing process, or the runt of a pair of twins or triplets. So I know the smell of a sheep. Many years later, a good friend invited me to his in-laws' home for dinner. Leg-of-lamb. As soon as I entered the kitchen, I knew I was in trouble. All the while, friend's mother-in law was going on and on about this roast, don't get to do this often, such a treat, etc,etc. It was a thing of beauty, on the table; but, Gad, the smell! Did no one else notice?? Honest to God, if not for the mint jelly, liberally slathered on the hot rolls, and used as a chaser for every bite, I would not have gotten thru that meal. As it was, most bites got swallowed at least twice. "Won't you have seconds, Ray?" "I'd love to, but I can't hold another bite!" Haven't been near lamb, mutton, or a sheep since.
Ray
PS Are you in Tenn yet or still in NY?
Sure and begotten, I know the smell of tallow. Tis the sweet scent of memories....Of boarding horses near a packaging house and the old man stirring the legs and hoofs of the cattle in very, very large pots. I have ran my hands through the lanolin soaked hides of living sheep back in my early college days. I would argue that it smells much better than asphalt for a roof. I'll make mine outside. Ray - It took me 25 years to eat a hot dog after running a part to one of the largest packing houses in Los Angeles. I've decided that since they don't allow smoking in most businesses these days, they probably don't allow chew either. Please don't tell me if I'm wrong, my neighbor makes them for my Sunday supper every now and then.Gentlemen - Do you not see what you're mixing the tallow with? I'd argue that the scents of the other components were not helping. Maybe a touch of almond oil? A tad of the creature -I have a wee bit of Black BushmillsElaine
If you'd like to do this without the more gruesome smell aspects, you can get stearic acid and lanolin as purified materials. Stearic acid is available from just about any chemical supply store (like Thermo-Fisher - they sell to the public, just don't ask for plutonium). The lanolin is available from "natural cosmetics" suppliers.
Another thought is just buying a container of "bag balm". It's sold under that name as a hand lotion, and is largely lanolin, glycerin, and tallow.
Thanks!I use bag balm all the time. I'll give it a whirl. I know the tallow doesn't leave a residue. Have you tried the bag balm?
No, I have a cone of 100% natural beeswax from http://www.thebestthings.com. Tallow/grease/linseed oil is too messy, and the beeswax is kind to the kinds of finishes I use, which are typically tung oil/wax, shellac, or period varnish recipes (typically, copals, sadarac, mastic and dammar resins). I've also found that the beeswax doesn't seem to cause any issues with polyurethane, when I'm forced to use by customer request.
One way to cut down on the force required to push a roughing plane across a board is to use a woodie. I have both an Ohio Tools 18" fore plane and an old Stanely Type 11 #6 fore plane. Both get the job done, but the wooden one is far easier to push.
thanks! I also stick with tung oil/wax and shellac -They don't seem to affect my allergies, their easy and forgiving. I purchased a mess of beeswax for pennies at the Murray's Mill Boy Scout event a year or so ago from some local bee keepers. I fork out about $8.00 for a pound. I'm not getting even coverage on my skates or across the saws when I use the beeswax. I found the tallow to be soft and easy. What am I doing wrong with the beeswax? Elaine
Well, I don't worry about even coverage - it's not necessary. Just drawing a few lines down the sole of the plane radically reduces the friction, in my experience. IF you want even coverage, you might consider making your own paste wax outof the beeswax and some odorless mineral spirits. Just cut up the beeswax on a coarse cheese grater, warm up some odorless mineral spirits in a double boiler on a stove (preferably not an open-flame gas kind of stove), and stir in the beeswax. I've done this before to make a beeswax suitable for using as a finish, and the ratio was about 2 parts beeswax to one part mineral spirits.
That's actually a traditional finish, perhaps with a bit of linseed oil thrown in, though the solvent was turpentine, not odorless mineral spirits. The turpentine is really pungent, though, and evaporates as the finish "cures", so I didn't see any harm in substituting something a little less odiferous.
I have both, thanks for the learning moment!
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