wax pot with what?

[Chuck H]

...if I may name drop, that is how I've heard Jason Lollar does it!

You may. Lollar is a local in my area. I've never met him (other than here) but we have a mutual client.

[big_teee]

I use a small 3 speed crock pot and a light bulb limiter.
I plug it into the wall and melt the wax quickly on high, then I plug it into the limiter once melted and maintain 140F.
I will eventually buy a cheap Variac, and use it instead of the light bulb limiter.
The advantage of that, is the variac has many uses, including working on guitar amps, which I also do.
https://www.google.com/?client=ubunt...36108464154098
Also, if I may name drop, that is how I've heard Jason Lollar does it!
T

[12xu]

Cheap walmart slow cooker.

Gets up to temp pretty quick, the temp is fairly stable.

I use bee and paraffin, dipped just long enough that the air bubbles stop.

I don't think I dip them for more than a couple minutes.

Firebirds I try to keep as much wax as I can in them.

I'll use a heat gun after wards to clean up the outside.

[Stratz]

recently got one of these from JC Penny's on sale for $15

cooks 1.5-qt. Mini Dipper - JCPenney

my digital thermometer show it maintain temp just right. warm up the wax on high, and keep it warm on low. if I dunk too many pickups at once, I kick it back to high for a few a minutes

Rod, how long does it take to heat ~1.5 qt wax?
Thanks.

[Chuck H]

kayakera,
That vacuum rig up looks nicely pro Before I was wax potting I used varnish in a mayo jar. I punched a hole in the lid and epoxied in a plastic hand pump made for automotive brake system bleeding. I once let the pickups sit for a couple of minutes without vacuuming. No more bubbles rising. Then I started pumping and A LOT more air was evacuated from the pickups. Vacuum potting is A LOT more thorough. I guess it's questionable whether or not it's necessary since most guys DON'T vacuum pot and they do fine.?. At the very least it can reduce the potting time.

I use wax now because it takes as much as a month for the varnish to set well. Also, varnish will get harder and harder with age until it's brittle some fifteen to twenty years later. My current rig is a recycled coffee pot with a wide mouth carafe. I cut off the brew system so it's just a hot plate. The plate is factory set for 165*F. I read somewhere that Ideal is 150* to 155* so I put a tile between the hot plate and the carafe. It maintains a nice steady 155*. I have some wooden sticks in the bottom to keep the pickups from direct contact with the heat source. I tap the pickups while submerged and it seems to evacuate a bit more air. A little cumbersome, but I don't pot much and it's a free rig.

[kayakerca]

I use a small crock pot I picked up for $15 Cdn. at one of those cargo excess type stores. My wax mix is ~ 80% paraffin and 20% beeswax. I pot in the 140F - 145F zone and use a cheap variac to control the temperature through reduced voltage to the crock pot heater coils. I changed the lid so I could hook up a vacuum pump for vacuum potting (the lid has since been reinforced with a piece of 1 1/2" aluminum bar on edge across the top of the lid to eliminate the possibility of it imploding on me. Don`t recall potting anything for more than ~ 20 seconds.

[SonnyW]

I use a couple of different crock pots, the cheap ones from the grocery store. They are both basically the same model. It says Rival and I think they cost maybe $18 each or so when I got them. One of them I have modified by adding a temperature controller that I built out of surplus parts, mostly from ebay. That one controls the temperature to within a few degrees. In it I keep the regular potting wax that I made up a great big batch of long ago. It never changes composition because I will probably never run out of it. At the rate I have been using it up, I have maybe 20 years to go. That mix is roughly 80% paraffin and 20% beeswax with some stearic acid from candles. I tried to control the melting temperature to around 140F so it wouldn't affect the butyrate bobbins if I needed to pot any of those. By the way that's how the batch got so big. The other crock pot I got because I broke the first clay crock so it now uses pyrex bowls I found that would fit. But that turned out to be really handy for me since I can have several with different waxes in them, or in one case hide glue. I can either use it with the same temperature controller or not, and usually I don't bother with the swap, I just run it off the regular wall socket power and use a meat thermometer. The pyrex bowls have my specialty waxes like the black wax with lampblack for some of the Fender pickups and the soft wax like was used on speed bumps and some other vintage pickups. That one is about half and half paraffin and toilet seal wax. Yep I said toilet seal wax. But I think that's pretty close to what it was. I also use that other crockpot to heat up hide glue for guitar repairs. I do a lot of vintage type rewinds, so I need to keep a variety of waxes on hand for that, if I want them to be accurate. I have tried vacuum potting but it is too much trouble for the small difference it makes IMO. I pot them one at the time (I never do multiples it cools off too fast) and if I want the wax to go all the way through I leave them in for 20 minutes or more.

[WolfeMacleod]

Crank it to 12, melt 11 pounds of wax quickly. Turn down to 6 while there's still a good lump of unmelted wax.
Temperature very nicely controlled.

[David Schwab]

I use a paraffin warmer. It's intended for people to stick their hands or feet into. It keeps the wax at a perfect temperature, it wont get too hot, wont catch fire, and you can leave it on all day.

My current one is made by GiGi. Avoid the plastic Hometica brand, as they leak.

It's not cheap, but it's worth it if you make a lot of pickups.


https://www.amazon.com/GiGi-Digital-.../dp/B0030ZRSIO

[Rodent]

recently got one of these from JC Penny's on sale for $15

cooks 1.5-qt. Mini Dipper - JCPenney

my digital thermometer show it maintain temp just right. warm up the wax on high, and keep it warm on low. if I dunk too many pickups at once, I kick it back to high for a few a minutes

[ric]

Thanks, everybody for letting me in on your choices for equipment n supplies. Thanks also for the links.

Like Leo, so far I've only potted existing p/u's. But with my obsession for staggering pole hites the ric way, I've ended up with a box of stuff that needs rewinding. (Don't worry, Terry I only buy the stuff I can get a deal on. Anything valuable got resold to support my habit. No collectibles were harmed.)

Well, thanks again. When we get this old farm fixed up n get settled in and I get another shop set up, I'll be wondering what wire to use to get things like the SD 1/4 pound Jaguar to sound as good as it did. Or the Gibson h/b's that came in a garage sale SG w/ the nk popped out sound good to start with.

I expect you'll be as helpful then. Best -r.

[Lyrebird Steve]

Crock Pot ... this has a Low and High setting. I use the High to get it to temp and the Low setting keeps it just perfect.

I use a paraffin/beeswax mix

Also, grab a cheap Milk Thermometer ... they have the same temp range marked that you want your wax at

[Beef Coon]

I've found small table top deep fryers to be the best at keeping a consistent temp compared to electric frying pans, crock pots etc. Maybe because they have a larger heating element?
I like the little wire baskets they come with as well to get PUs out of the bath vs grabbing the leads.

I do use a tiny frying pan w/ low temp to heat up potted PUs to get the covers off etc.

Glue pots are very expensive compared to a little fryer you can get at a Good Will for like $20.

[mozz]

Beeswax does have a higher melting point but i think it's softer, doesn't flake like parrifin. I get it local now, not too expensive.

[kayakerca]

I use a small crock pot with a variac to control the temperature. 75% paraffin wax/25% bees wax. 1/4 hp single stage vacuum pump.