A liquid hardening wax material?

[kolleamm]

TL;DR

A liquid wax material that hardens

I need a wax like material I can buy that I can paint onto a surface and then have it harden on it's own. I want to create fine details on a plastic model, so I would coat the model in wax with a brush, have the wax dry, and then sculpt out the details later.

My ideas so far are wax for waxing off hair, though I wanted to see if you guys have any better ideas.

Thanks!

 

[jrmichler]

You could try dissolving wax in a fast evaporating solvent, then painting it on. But fast evaporating solvents are generally something that are not good to breathe.

I have coated things with wax by melting the wax, then painting it on with a brush. It worked very well for bonding to the surface and for building up thickness. Not so well for getting a smooth surface, but you could do a smoothing operation after the building up operation.

 

[kolleamm]

Thanks for your suggestion! I'm still unsure if wax is the way to go though, but I suppose it's worth a try.

 

[Tom.G]

An alternative to wax may be one of the epoxies. It seems that the needed characteristics are:

• somewhat viscous liquid to apply
• rather high surface tension for self-leveling and smooth surface
• moderately short time to solidify
• workable with hand tools after hardening

Generally speaking, the faster an epoxy sets, the softer it is. The over-the-counter 5-minute epoxies would be a place to start the experiment. The setting time can be modified with temperature, they take longer to set at lower temperatures because chemical activity roughly halves for every 10°C drop.

The drawback is there is no second chance without using some rather nasty solvent.

(2nd thought, how about some White Glue... like Elmers?)

Cheers,
Tom

 

[some bloke]

depending on the plastic, avoid any overly fast setting epoxies - they generate a lot of heat, and can melt plastic. Typically if you mix it in a plastic cup, as what's left in the cup cures, it crinkles down due to the heat.

paraffin wax has a low melting point and might serve for what you need. It depends if you want the final result to be sturdy, or just to make a mould of the model. Bear in mind that a soft wax will remain soft - if you make a mould, the wax will likely distort as you remove the model from it. you'll get one mould, but will have to make subsequent ones from a casting rather than the original master.

 

[Matcon]

Off the top of my head, I would be thinking of Plaster of Paris with a thixotropic agent added. Wyoming Bentonite would spring to mind or possibly xanthan gum as readily available additives. I expect there are some fancy ones on the market that would be even better

I know that Plaster of Paris carves like a dream between setting and drying fully

If you have some leeway on applying hot materials, I would explore low melting point eutectics of inorganic chemicals or even organic ones. Most of the systems I know of would need sealing after carving because of their water solubility. Sorry, just freewheeling a bit here