Beeswax

[The Appalachian]

I use it a lot for a lot of things, especially in our fields of interest.

One use I love it for is fluxing a lead pot for casting roundballs and boolits. Many ways to flux a lead pot, but being a ladle pourer only, I like to keep the top of the melt clean and dross free. So throughout a 20 pound pot, I'll flux several times. Unfiltered raw beeswax is the only thing I like to use for fluxing.

What I don't like about it is, it's most commonly found in large chunks from suppliers. I find it a pain to carve off what I need. A wood chisel smacked with a hammer breaks off chunks but also makes a lot of shards. Yeah it all works the same, but I like a little more order and sanity with the whole process.

So I came up with the idea of having the same size chunks sitting handy to just grab one and toss it in the pot when needed. I tried some beeswax pellets that are very small. The problem with those is, it's triple filtered beeswax and lacks too much of the natural "trash" (carbon component?) found in the raw unfiltered. This makes the triple filtered burn up too fast and doesn't flux the way I like it. You end up using twice what you need.

So for making same size chunks of the raw wax i thought about using a bullet mold that I don't use any more but the melting point is so low on beeswax it would take too long for it to harden enough to drop them out. I ain't got time for that nonsense.

After consulting my daughter who works on the side with her sisters-in-law in a candy business, Amazon had the answer with silicone candy molds.

I melt the wax in a mini crockpot from Walmart, $10. The molds are flexible silicone candy molds from Amazon, 3 for like $10. Each square holds one half teaspoon of wax exactly. A $3 set of stainless measuring scoops from Walmart provided a perfect 1/2 teaspoon pouring ladle once I bent the handle a little.

Takes only minutes to fill each mold and have a bag full of nice same size wax cubes for a more streamlined and efficient bullet casting session.

 

[SwampBilly]

I bought some pure beeswax ingots off of Amazon and I make bullet lube for my cap and balls by melting about 75% pure beeswax and an empty tuna can on a burner on low and I put about 25% Crisco with it.

So far it's worked for me. I live in Southwest Florida and I have a honey processing plant not far down the road so the next time I need beeswax I'm going to go and check that place and see if I can get more of the raw product

 

[WonkyEye]

Good idea with the silicone mold. I find i use a lot of beeswax too. Lip balm, paw wax for pooch, leather dressing, patch lube, conical lube. I've had the same problems with the big blocks.

For flux, I'm new to casting, but found I prefer sawdust. the beeswax is good to float out the garbage for skimming if the lead is dirty. But if it's just to turn the oxide back into lead sawdust works better. I use a bottom pour ladle, mine is a Lyman. Best $20 I ever spent. Someone suggested just let it burn and float on top, and with the bottom pour ladle it works really well, doesn't matter if I scoop up sawdust and ash.

The benefits I've seen are less fuss, less smoking - it smokes at first but quickly stops, less flame, and leaving the burned ash floating on top protects the lead from oxygen for longer than the beeswax.

 

[The Appalachian]

Good idea with the silicone mold. I find i use a lot of beeswax too. Lip balm, paw wax for pooch, leather dressing, patch lube, conical lube. I've had the same problems with the big blocks.

For flux, I'm new to casting, but found I prefer sawdust. the beeswax is good to float out the garbage for skimming if the lead is dirty. But if it's just to turn the oxide back into lead sawdust works better. I use a bottom pour ladle, mine is a Lyman. Best $20 I ever spent. Someone suggested just let it burn and float on top, and with the bottom pour ladle it works really well, doesn't matter if I scoop up sawdust and ash.

The benefits I've seen are less fuss, less smoking - it smokes at first but quickly stops, less flame, and leaving the burned ash floating on top protects the lead from oxygen for longer than the beeswax.

I only ladle pour from the top of the melt, old school. Sawdust is just an exponential pain in the azz for that.
Since your new to casting, here's a lesson. The alloy you put into your casting pot should already have been thoroughly cleaned of the junk in a separate smelting pot. Fluxing a casting melt a few times throughout a run breaks down the surface tension between components and puts them back into solution where they need to be. Tin (maybe what you're errantly calling oxide) tends to separate, fluxing puts it back. If there is any antimony in your alloy fluxing redistributes it. Antimony isnt a melted component, it's held in suspension by the tin and lead. Beeswax is the most efficient flux that I've found, been using it for decades.
And smoke shouldn't matter in the well ventilated area that you should be casting in.