wax

Hi all,

May sound like a stupid question, but I was wondering if there was any difference between the different coloured dop waxes. Is the wax used for gemstones (sapps etc) different to the wax used for polishing and cabbing rock?

Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere but I searched a bit but couldn't find anything.

Jason.

Have not used wax yet, just super glue myself. But i believe the wax for cabbing and faceting can be a little different. The different colour wax has to do with melting points i believe.

I'm a bit circumspect in my use of wax willo - waxes ain't waxes, in my experience there can be dramatic differences. I prefer to use epoxy.

Wax does have a couple of advantages over epoxy. One is the extremely fast hardening time, as soon as it's cooled you can start. Another is the fact that you can re-position something after it's dopped if necessary, simply by warming the stick up.

However, they are nowhere near as strong and I have knocked wax-dopped stones off the dop with a fairly light bump. I have accidentally banged epoxy-dopped stones much harder with no effect.

When I do use wax - only on things of little value or that don't belong to someone else - I use the brown wax I bought when I started cabbing. It's far superior to the black faceting wax I bought.

I'm not saying that it's superior to all black wax, perhaps I just got a bad or old batch. I have found this particular black wax to be quite brittle (the brown stuff is tougher), to soften and melt at a lower temperature contrary to claims of high-temp wax, and to be so soluble in alcohol that simply waving the stick over the mouth of an open bottle of metho results in the stick instantly becoming sticky and gummy just from the fumes. The brown wax by contrast seems very reluctant to begin dissolving in alcohol and even after 24 hours soaking it's still firmly attached - it's pretty clear that there is a significant difference between the chemistry of the two, or at least very different proportions of the same ingredients, leading to one being not too bad to use as long as you're careful while the other is about as useless as tits on a bull.

shivan said:

Have not used wax yet, just super glue myself. But i believe the wax for cabbing and faceting can be a little different. The different colour wax has to do with melting points i believe.

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shivan, what do you use to remove a superglue-dopped stone? I tried warming the stick but it doesn't seem to soften like epoxy. I tried soaking it for 24 hours in acetone but even then I could only remove it with a lot of difficulty.

Lefty I have only played about with four stones so far, so not a lot of experience yet.
When i went to transfer, i wrapped the dop and stone in a paper towel soaked in chilled water, i then boiled a cup of water and held the dop i wanted off in the water for a few seconds and gave a small twist.
Removing the stone at the end was a bit more problematic, i heated it in the boiling water again, but it would not let go. I then put it in some acetone for a minute and removed the excess glue with a toothbrush and dropped it back in the cup of boiling water, where it popped off.

As a professional cutter I only use special wax that I sell to my students. Also Glen carries it at QGRS(quality gem rough supplies). It freezes off in a ten minutes in the freezer. My stones don't come off. Its all in the technique. Come and learn it. There's brown wax and there's brown wax.

Lefty - with superglue, a strong snap bends the rock from the dop and then cleanup with a blade. Its just an alternative for when I started with no wax, it also only seems to hold quartz onto brass dop very well, but struggles to set with some rock.

I've got red and green wax but still don't know the difference between the two

Thanks for the advice everyone. I have been looking up dops and waxes online, brown, green, red. All too confusing to me. Not sure what one to get so I might just buy every colour and test them. I am only just starting to learn about cabbing stones and gems. Got no idea what I'm doing but having a go anyway 8) 8)
Hopefully one day I will have time to drop into a club somewhere and see how it is suppose to be done correctly. At the moment I am teaching myself off the internet whaching videos and such.

This is what I use. Hot. Fast. So far only on carborundum and quartz. No time for heat to transfer across to the stone as the bond immediately breaks down. The stone hardly warms.

There's Batemans Bay Lapidary Club if that's not too far, I'd certainly reccomend dropping in one day soon

http://www.batemansbaypost.com.au/story/2742914/set-in-stone/

Send me a PM and I will send a PDF of my dopping with wax document. Ive also been developing a few new polishing compounds to take the frustration out of polishing.
Barney might be dropping by to test a few of them out. Green and red wax is a no go. That's last century stuff for faceting black wax not much better.
Barney is a wax dopping convert. I only teach wax dopping in my classes.

I've always used wax ?the problem , and the only one . Is heat generated to move them sometimes . Sapphires .epoxy is more of a pain to me .if you can bump off a stone with wax . You're doing something drastically wrong. Probably not enough heat with stone and wax combo or not clean enough with both . Never had a stone bump off . That would take effort. I'm doing heat sensitive stone with little problems . Epoxy takes forever . Old school Tec is sometimes the best . Some facetors have never used wax , feel sorry for them . Debates have gone on forever about this . So do what is good for you , but try both . If you can use wax , you won't want to epoxy .

.if you can bump off a stone with wax . You're doing something drastically wrong. Probably not enough heat with stone and wax combo or not clean enough with both . Never had a stone bump off . That would take effort.

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Twice had a wax-fixed stone bump off when I was bending over in my chair at the machine getting something from floor level and my missus called out to me - I sat up and bumped the mast which spun and knocked the stone off against the splash bowl. They have also released during faceting. Also had stones move out of alignment when using it and not just sapphires either. Garnets and even quartz have gotten warm enough to melt this mongrel black wax. I have even had the stuff break down on a dop stick in the peg board, like gelignite that gets sweaty as it ages (it least it didn't explode). Might make a good timber preservative since it dissolves so readily in just about anything but it's useless for faceting.

Epoxy is strong, reliable and not at all difficult to remove. Only issue is it takes a while to cure, unlike wax which is ready for use in moments.

But I suspect I just got a bad bit of black wax - the old brown cabbing wax I have is definitely superior and I have hardly any problems with it. I like Tony's idea but I would have to have dops specially made up, don't have any like that.

I've had a couple pop off on the cab machine, usual culprits have been too much heat from grinding, or didn't wait long enough for wax to cool thoroughly and the cold water shocks it off nearly instantly