Hard Wax Repairs

Recently received some hard wax sticks and hot knife from Konig in Germany. I don't have any badly cracked pieces to repair so I did a bit of DIY on some spare pieces. Under normal circumstances I would not be bothered by the minor flaws shown, but I just had to fire up the knife and see what it could do. Here are some before and after pics. It is certainly a useful alternative to the sawdust/glue mixture and way better than the chalky premixed fillers that are bought in a tub. I was more concerned with how to apply the wax than the colour of the repair but the sticks are mixable so I presume almost any shade is achievable.

Looks good! I've recently bought some hard wax sticks and heating knife thing. On mine you have to keep the button pressed to keep the heat on - which is presumably a safety feature for wimps - but I found that by wrapping some take around it it would stay on permanently.

How did you shape those repairs, did you sand them?

Hi Matt, the one I bought has a butane heated blade. So you fill it like a lighter and then fire it up with the supplied sparker/flint wheel. It stays lit and heated until you turn off the gas and has a wheel on the bottom for gas level or heat required.

I shaped the repair with turners sanding pads which are act like sandpaper but are made out of some kind of fibre. They look a bit like a pot scouring pad but are graded right up to zero, which is really a polishing pad.

The sticks I used are the Konig hard wax sticks but there is a hard wax plus which has a higher melting point and is even more durable. The hard wax seem to work fine for me but I want to try the hard wax plus just to compare. I will send Konig an email when I get a chance. I think Mohawk in the US sell similar items. 

Yeah those safety "features" are a pain. As far as I'm concerned if it's not dangerous or toxic then it probably won't work. With the gas heated blade you have the added danger of FIRE! Woohoo!

Thanks. Are these sanding pads superior to sandpaper for this do you think? What is the brand name of these pads that you use?

I don't know if they're any better than regular sandpaper. They are a bit finer and the white (non abrasive) pad produces an amazing shine. If the wax leaves a blob on the surface of your piece you can cut/scrape it down with  a sharp knife until you get it almost level with the surface, and then sand from there. These are the pads I used https://www.thecarpentrystore.com/p/ny-web-pad---white---each/whitepad 

Thanks. perhaps I'll have a go at repairing the boxwood queen's crown soon. Been putting it off cos it looks difficult!

Wow! That looks amazing.

I suppose one of the good things about using wax is that you can remove it with the melting iron and redo it if it isn't right.

I do think it looks better than the ordinary filler bought in a DIY store. Apparently old craftsmen/cabinet makers called it "beaumontage". It feels hard and is advertised as for areas of high use so should be fairly durable. I do want to try out the harder plus version as well which seems to be aimed at areas subject to rough treatment, just to compare. The sawdust/glue (or epoxy) combo is also good but it is very difficult to match colours and you need to dye the sawdust first. This looks like it will be easier. The colour used was just an "off the shelf" stick with no mixing yet it is less noticeable than any other repairs I've seen.

I saw some of the photos of the sawdust repairs and that looks good too. However, the dying process does not sound fun. Anything that requires less work would be better. I don't have any pieces to repair but I would be interested to see how the harder stuff works out just in case I ever need to repair a piece.

Will let you know when I try it out. Konig make soft wax, hard wax and hard wax plus. The latter two are both fairly hard and require a hot knife to melt them for use. So it may not make much of a difference using the plus, but it will be interesting to see.

I've just had a go - there's a small chip to the crown of this Queen, which is a library sized Jaques set:

I've had a go with a Konig hard wax stick, result is sort of OK. It needs a bit more sanding and then a bit of French Polish applied:

I'm not convinced this is really durable enough though - I could scrape off the excess with my thumbnail. Perhaps the "hard wax plus" is what I need for a repair to a vulnerable edge like this one. 

I have some other wax sticks, which were in with some junk I bought from an auction. These are much, much harder than the Konig hard wax stick I used for this.

Hmm, just been looking at my mysterious really hard wax sticks - they have "STEPHEN'S FANCY WAX" written on them. I googled this, and these date from 1900 and were used for sealing envelopes - so, not for repairing antiques then! D'oh!

Understand what you're saying. I will contact Konig tomorrow and see if they can get me some of the plus and what their thoughts are on it.

The reason I began to look at wax as a possible repair material was because I saw it used on an old Jura boxwood knight. The repair was very similar to the queen repair I show above but a bit bigger. Long story, it was an orphan and I wanted the felt and weight but didn't need the piece. So I chucked it in some boiling water with detergent and left it for a day or two. When I took it out I noticed a slight discolouration around the repair site and when I removed it was amazed to see it was wax. Obviously this had lasted many years. I don't know what kind of wax it was or what else may been mixed with it.

I think gluing a small piece to that queen would be very difficult. I imagine that a restorer would either use sawdust or sand the crown flat to enable a bigger piece of solid boxwood to be glued on to it, if you know what I mean. This is when I miss Chessspy's contributions.