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Black Cobbler's Wax: Resin and Pitch With Linseed Oil, Pulled to Golden Colour (Hasluck, Harness Making, 1904)
The saddler's black wax for waxed threads, from P. N. Hasluck's Harness Making (1904): half a pound each of resin and pitch melted together, softened with boiled linseed oil to suit the season, poured into cold water and pulled by wet hands until golden and until a piece floats. It makes about thirty lumps, kept under water.
Beginner
About 1 hour
Instructions
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1
Batch in grams
Batch in grams
Loading Jupyter Notebook...
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Read Harness Making
Read Harness Making
"Black cobbler's wax is made by melting together 1/2 lb. each of resin and pitch."
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3
Melt and oil
Melt and oil
Melt 1/2 lb of resin and 1/2 lb of pitch together and mix thoroughly. Take the pan off the fire and add boiled linseed oil, about a pennyworth or less: only half as much in summer as in winter, more the colder it is. Mix well.
Materials for this step:
Pine Resin1 piece
Wood-Tar Pitch1 piece
Boiled Linseed Oil1 pieceTools needed:
Large Cooking Pot
Propane Torch
Balance Scale4
4
Test
Test
Pour a little into cold water, leave it a minute, and take it out with well-wetted hands. If it cracks when worked it is too hard; if it pulls out and sticks together it is right. Do not put the tested piece back in the pan: the water in it froths the hot wax.
Tools needed:
20-Liter Bucket5
5
Pour and pull
Pour and pull
Put the test piece back in the water and pour the rest in after it. Gather the wax with wet hands without delay and pull it fast, hand over hand, until it is a light golden colour. Cut off a piece with wet scissors and drop it in the water: if it floats it has been pulled enough; if it sinks, pull more. Under-pulled wax is brittle.
Tools needed:
20-Liter Bucket
Scissors6
6
Adjust and store
Adjust and store
If it is too hard, melt again and add oil; if too soft, add pitch and resin. Cut it into lumps the size of a large pigeon's egg (about thirty) and keep them in water.
Tools needed:
Scissors20-Liter Bucket7
7
Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting
Wax troubleshooting.
Flow
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History and honest limits
History and honest limits
From Paul N. Hasluck, **Harness Making** (1904), "Harness-makers' Materials" (checked on the archive.org scan harnessmaking00hasl, pp. 30-31). He says only "pitch"; wood-tar pitch is our choice. His white wax, made with white lead, is left out because white lead is a poison. The metric figures and the diagram are ours.
Materials
3- 1 piecePlaceholder
- 1 piecePlaceholder
- 1 piecePlaceholder
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