Question about carnauba wax

[baronstrasil]

friends I have one question ...

When Im apply a carnauba wax - pipe is beautifully polished wax but lasts only two or three smoking and then wax is down. Question - is this OK or am I doing a mistake somewhere in the process of polishing. It has a wax hold to pipes longer or just comes down.

I used google translator - so hopefully you understand me:)

[Sasquatch]

Carnauba is not very good at staying shiny with the heat and skin-contact (oils from hands).

Pipes stay shinier longer if you use a tiny bit of shellac before you wax, as a very thin base-coat.

But none of my smooth pipes stay super shiny for very long, from any brand.

[baronstrasil]

thank you a lot for tip with shellac i test on new pipe

[Mike Messer]

I have used shellac in this way.
1. Platina dewaxed shellac flakes.
2. thin mix ratio: 1/2 lb. shellac per gallon of denatured alcohol (about 60 grams/liter).
3. apply the shellac after the stain work is done, just before buffing with tripoli.
Immediately after applying the shellac, wipe it off with lint-free rayon wipes, soaked in denatured alcohol, and watch for the stain redissolving and making lines. Wipe the lines off.

Note: Some pipe connoisseurs don't like shellac on their pipes because they say it seals the wood, and it probably does a little.

[Sasquatch]

Shellac, like most tradtional finishes, has marginal vapor-retention abilities (as opposed to resisting liquid water), as evinced by the white square a hot box of pizza will leave on a shellaced table. I had a link to some testing but it's dead right now. Anyway, shellac was middle-of-the-pack if applied fairly heavily in terms of vapor penetration in that testing. Most oil finishes have hardly any ability to prevent vapor penetration either. De-waxed shellac is better at it, but in the quantities we are talking about, I don't think it matters.


If you put a hundred coats of 5 lb cut on a pipe, you might seal it up some. But every heavily rusticated pipe and most production sandblasts have a shellac coating and I've never heard a complaint.

Whether or not a pipe is adversely affected by "sealing", I don't think a light coat of shellac will manage that. And certainly the stain-locking a shining properties are of tremendous value.

[Sasquatch]

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/techline/iii-9.pdf