This is what I like about baby bell wax. I take it and smash it into a square. When I get ready to graft put some in my pocket, it is plyable but not sticky. It seals the graft nicely and will stay there for a year.
I will absolutely have to try that. Just today I did a lot of grafts and I used toilet bowl seal wax. And as you said, I intentionally kept it in my pocket so it would be soft and pliable. But it is quite sticky and a little hard to work with in some ways. Also, when the sun shines and it gets hot, it gets somewhat runny and tends to fo to the lower areas.
I think you will find that baby bell wax will stay in place and seal water out
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I used the toilet bowl wax on a few long scions this year and it is very sticky which is the same reason I don’t like the tar products. When it gets hot you can see migration onto nearby areas which make me wonder about side issues. I also mixed some toilet bowl wax with candle wax and this appears to be a good combination.
We must be using different toilet bowl wax because mine hasn’t run at all. I was looking at some of mine a year later even after many hot days last summer and it’s still looks fine this spring.
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Bill, what kind of graft did you do there?
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Beautiful grafts, are they side grafts or are they on branches?
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Yes they are side grafts mostly that attach to the limb and then clefts are also used as this picture indicates. @JustAnne4 @northof53
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I bought the cheap one. There was another choice and looks like it might have been the good one. Glad it worked well.
I have been grafting for 3 years, 20 of 21 grafts were successful, all cleft grafts. The scions were obtained at CRFG exchanges in San Jose and Berkeley in January. A couple of the nectarine scions even have frut! It is well worth going to scion exchanges.
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The grafts look good. Although typically it is recommended to remove flowers and fruit from a first year scion I do it your way. I just don’t want to wait another year to sample if I don’t have to.
I finally got some grafting started this weekend… the early stuff now, apples pears and plums only.
I was looking for some existing apple trees to topwork and spied my King David which for the 9th year in a row was not going to bloom, and it also has gotten ridiculous shoot blight the last several years. It was an easy decision. Presenting the “new look” of my King David:
That felt good 
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What did you graft onto it Scott?
I started grafting some today as well. Apples and pears mostly but a couple of euro plums too.
Looks like a gold crown. Seems fitting 
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I put Herefordshire Russet on one side and Katharine on the other. I have Katharine already but its not growing fast enough. I used to put many varieties on one stem but I learned the hard way not to do that and usually stick to maximum two per stock now. I do put in lots of backups, but clearly mark them as backups and keep them small.
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@scottfsmith, how spaced out are the trees in that picture?
That row was an early experiment in 1’ spacing. If you look you will see there are sort of two rows there, the trees zig-zag down the hill. I did it this way to see how many I could cram in - originally I had 50 trees in 50’ in this row.
At some point I decided that was a little too close and also I wanted to let the varieties I liked the most expand, and now there are something like 20 trees. I don’t do these 1’ zig zags any more but 1.5’ or 2’ spaced straight rows work pretty well. I really like how I can try many varieties and also have plenty of backup stocks in case I lose a stock.
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What rootstock are you using for 2’ spacing? I would assume B9 but don’t see any stakes or trellis??
They are B9, M9, G16, and G11. I don’t stake unless trees start leaning. If you zoom in you can see downhill there are several stakes - look for the green. The downhill soil is much more unstable so more staking was needed there. I don’t think any trees at the top of the hill needed staking, the soil is hard clay there and the trees are glued in.
Do you folks pick your grafting locations based on the ripening time of the variety (early wood onto an early tree, late on late) or based on the location? (As in, “this is a perfect branch to graft onto”)
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