This kind of discussion is exactly what I come onto this forum for: an open and helpful discussion of how to solve problems, with different viewpoints, possible solutions, and ongoing observations about how to go about it. Nice work, people!
John S
PDX OR
One of my neighbors is raising honeybees. He said I could have some of the wax, which is what I’m going to use instead of the toilet wax. Many of the grafts that I made with this experimental sealant are growing well, but many aren’t. It will be interesting to see if some of them show the effects that the slack wax makes. I sure hope not.
I still have persimmons to graft. I’m going to try to make the sealant without the toilet wax this time to see if it works better. I’m also going to melt the wax before mixing the wood glue, paint, fat, and pine resin in. I will heat the pine resin mixture first too, because earlier, it didn’t really mix into a liquid until I heated the jar in hot water first.
John S
PDX OR
Try some some plasticine. I began using it expeerimentally several years ago because i was getting late season grafting failures. Spring is always busy for me, and i never feel my best just after winter. The oils of wax seeps into the grafting unions ccausing failures due to higher Heat. Plasticine wont bleed into the union aand i had no grafting failures when using it. If anyone wants to know how i use take a peek at this thread. @smsmith is going to love the change. He brought it up above and i apologize for just linking a thread now.
I believe the recommendation is to add a small amount of rosin or similar to the bees wax to lower the melting point, the high temp of pure bees wax could potentially hurt the tree
Thanks @clarkinks. Plasticine might be a good thing to try. It does have petroleum oils in it, which is apparently why toilet wax can cause problems, so I’m a little nervous. There is a dollar tree right by my house, so I might go see if I can find some there. Good point about the bees’ wax, @Phlogopite . There is no way I would use pure bees’ wax.
John S
PDX OR
I thought of that. I looked for the perfect sealant for years. I literally use this stuff at 100 degrees and dont get bleeding or failures. I can leave it on for a year and remove it in the next year or two if i want. The plasticine is excellent for top working.
Great info!
John S
PDX OR
The melting point of beeswax is much lower than that of pine resin.
Anyway, it is intended to be used as a cold grafting wax, so there is no danger of high temperature.
Also, made with only pine resin, beeswax, tallow/oil, and ethanol as I described, there’s no danger of it leaking into the graft. That’s not possible; the resin makes it sticky.
Edit: you first melt pine resin (highest melting point), then take it off the heat and add wax and fat.
Clark- I bought some plasticine but it feels pretty hard. How do you soften it up? My fav was Gashells which is soft if you work it a bit but product is discontinued.
This looks like the stuff I bought a couple of years ago. It is too thin and seems to be thinner than Glad Wrap food covering product. I threw it away.
I haven’t grafted with it, but I used to buy plastalina type clay from Michael’s for mold making, and I found the workability varied pretty dramatically from brand to brand and I think sometimes even color to color within one brand.
I leave it on the porch before i graft. It remains pretty soft this time of year as im grafting. You can use it even hard it just takes some practice. I use parafilm under it. Typically i use the white color as it does not get as hot. It has saved a lot of grafts for me.
@no07 Yes. I planned on melting them separately, then combining them. Last time, with the toilet wax, I didn’t melt it. I assumed that the melted resin would melt the wax. It didn’t do a good job with that. What does ethanol do for it? I didn’t use any last time.
Thanks,
John S
On the plastilina and workability…I carry a small piece off the block in a ziploc bag in my front pocket while I’m field grafting/top working. It stays very pliable
Ethanol is a solvent here, for adjusting the density/spreadability, a thinner consistency makes the application easier. (Add to the cooled mixture).
You’re welcome
I’m wondering if the people who successfully used the toilet bowl wax did so on top of tape/film (which they later removed, leaving the wood below free of wax).
I looked at @clarkinks ’ pictures above (Post 174) and he puts what looks like parafilm on before putting the clay over it.
I put a bunch of different things: latex paint, caulk, glue… over the top of reversed electrical tape on bark and cleft grafts and all worked fine (apple and pear). I tried some this year putting nothing on top of the electrical tape (we’ll see how that works…).
I am also frameworking another (pear) tree so will be trying painting a wax directly on to grafts. It is beeswax+paraffin - then I added a tiny bit of crisco after I tried painting some on wax paper and finding it didn’t dry flexibly enough for my taste. I’ll report back…
I grafted successfully using the toilet bowl wax in place of Doc Farwell’s. As you can see from the pictures, some of them were very successful. I didn’t see any of the signs of the rotting from the toilet bowl wax.
Nevertheless, I made another batch using regular bees wax instead of the toilet bowl wax. I heated up the resin until it was all mixed in evenly. I used a double boiler, putting it in a glass jar in boiling water in a pot. I also added wood glue, latex paint, and manteca (pig lard). I think I added too much wax because it seemed to precipitate out as it cooled, even though it was thoroughly mixed when hot. It was a little thin so I think I added too much water.
I made several US persimmon grafts today. The color is tan-almost transparent like the last time. I figured with temps in the 80’s it was warm enough to graft persimmons. We’ll see how it works out.
John S
PDX OR
I save wax from baby bell cheese for grafting. I also use ductwork sealer. It is kind of like modeling clay.
The old version I made in March with toilet wax is still wet to the touch, like cake frosting or cream cheese. Grafts that took are still doing well.
The new one I made with paint, bees wax, and lots of wood glue is dry to the touch, almost like it’s covered in flour. Still waiting on the grafts to see if they will take.
John S
PDX OR
You might be joking, but i grafted some plums this year with flex seal paste because I had already done the grafts before I realized I didn’t have any grafting paste for the tops of the scions. All 4 of them took that I used the flex seal on.
