Sarah Wilson kindly hosted our first wax day at her fabulous home near Renwick. The day was fully subscribed and the 12 members present had an interesting and productive day.

The morning was spent looking at wax extraction methods.

Neil's steam extractor was fired up and was fed with copious amounts of old comb, wax cappings, extracted comb and other motley lumps of wax.

The advantages of this method are:

• It can be performed at any time of year
• The process produces quite pure wax as many impurities are filtered out both mechanically and with the heat
• The process sterilises the wax (to a great degree)
• It extracts a high percentage of the available wax

We also looked at solar extraction and examined Chris Holme's old faithful extractor. The main limitation of this method being that of limited days with sufficient solar activity, but as a passive, cheap method it is excellent. We discussed ways of improving the design.

After a fantastic lunch provided by Sarah, we then used the wax extracted during the morning to produce some interesting products. The wax was re-melted using a bain mairie system. It helps to allow the wax to sit in a molten state for as long a period as you can to allow all impurities to sink to the bottom, but as time was limited and the pan was frequently disturbed the resulting castings were not as pure as they could be.

We made:

• Cast ingots
• Cast pillar candles
• Lip balm
• Furniture polish
• Foundation - the results being variable and all agreeing that bought foundation was a good idea!

Neil had also brought a warming cabinet and we warmed unwired foundation sheets to make them sufficiently pliable for rolling into candles. These were very easy to do and the results excellent.

Thanks must go to Sarah Wilson and family for allowing us to invade her home for the day.

For more photos visit the gallery.