I am hand making a pine pitch based black shoemaker’s wax. Great for reed makers, bag and bellows hand stitchers and for applying to the hemp on the bottom layer of tenon wrapping. I have it in a softer version for easy softening and a harder version. $5.00US for a 1/2 oz. stick.
Also available is a beautiful white bleached linen thread which is about half the weight of 10 lea shoe thread, usually dyed yellow and used on GHB. This works well for the smaller tenons found on UP, SSP and NSP etc. This is in a 25g roll on a cardboard core. Great to carry in your pipe case. Also available on a 25g roll is the same weight in an unbleached or golden bleached a cannabis fiber, real hemp thread. This is particularly good on mouth-blown pipes as it swells much less than linen and resists rotting. It is also great on bellows pipes. I am expecting the same weight thread in golden bleached real hemp for larger joints and GHB tenons. All threads are $5.00US per roll. Shipping and PayPal fees are extra. A single unit (wax or thread) ships in the US for $3.00 first class mail. Two or up to 12 units ships in the US for $5.00 in a flat rate priority mail box. Discounts for quantity orders for pipemakers etc. Unbleached and bleached linen in 10 lea, two-ply reed wrapping linen and other threads are also available. Sealing wax, drone and chanter cane available too. PM or email: bigsurtapes at sbcglobal dot net .
Sounds like good stuff. I’ll place an order. Thanks for making this available!
I am also interested – I sent you an e-mail a couple of days ago.
I finally found time over Christmas holiday to use this product and it works extremely well. I used it to seal the stitching channel in a set of bellows. The best way to use it, in my view, is to heat it up to about 100’F and pinch off a bit and roll it up into a string and then put it down into the channel and spread it out. I started out putting a glob down and trying to spread it into the groove, but this became a royal mess in now time. Once I got the hang of it it worked beautifully.
To be fair, I made up a small, special extra hard batch for the bellows grove fill job. It may not be so good for waxing thread. You may want to heat some of it up in a tin set in boiling water, add 5% bees wax, mix and pour it into some 90 degree water, pull it out and taffy pull it a bit. Allow it to cure overnight and you will have some wax better suited for waxing thread or reed making. Or you can just get some more made like that for that purpose.
Ted sent several rolls of his BLACK WAX to me and it’s TERRIFIC !!!
It’s just like the old time Reed making, with the stuff on my Right Thumb
and Fore Finger, little stray bits adhering to the bottom of my Tea Mug,
and so on.
Keeping a small glob melted into a piece of Leather and kept in your pocket
to keep it warm in winter is a little less of a mess.
On really cold days, I would take a piece and hold it up to a bare light Bulb.
That would speed up the process.
THANKS MISTER ANDERSON !!!
Black Waxed Sean Folsom