Here is a useful tip... FLASH dewaxing your investment moulds, means that the with the co-efficient of expansion (how much it expands with a specific rise in temperature), of WAB being much higher than the moulds, and for commercial reasons the moulds are made as thin as possible on the basis that material & time & the building up of coats of refractory, costs far more to make a thick TOUGH shell than it does thin, and commercially "viable thickness" THIN shell... It all comes down to HOW you dewax the shell... IF you heat the refractory shell - containing the wax, very slowly, the wax expands more than the shell around it does, and so commercially THIN shells can easially break or crack. But if you FLASH dewax the shells, - this means that place the hard and dry shell in to a very hot environment - such as a pressurised steam autoclave or a HOT (red heat) furnace, it has to do with the way the HEAT flows from the OUTSIDE of the shell into the center of the wax core The shell heats up very fast, and the surface of the wax pattern heats up and melts out (usually soaks into the refractory) - and this GAP allows the wax pattern inside the refractory shell to expand (and melt as it does so) without pressing the refractory shell - until it cracks. So this is how you (and the professional manufacturers) can use a very thin refractory shell. Also commercial investment casters (all sorts of very accurate and high quality parts) use a specific range of blended waxes, dyes and plastics (mixed into the blends). Depending upon your ambient or average room temperatures, and for startign off, for making a wax BLENDE that is malleable by hand, I'd be using about a 50/50 mix of bees wax and parafin wax.... Another idea is to keep your wax and pattern in a warm oven perhaps 30 - 40*C and periodically pulling it out for several minutes, out of every - say 5 or ten minutes in the oven.... Or working under a dimmable heat lamp... just to keep the pattern and where you are moulding it - a little bit warm.... Also the idea of a double boiler is NICE for melting wax, and when it's turned right down, it;'s good for keeping your about to be used wax warm. Another idea - a cheap version of the commercial version, is to use a light dimmer switch in line with a small soldering iron, and by keeping the soldering iron tip just above the melding point of the wax, you can use this to WELD your wax "fine bits" onto the pattern, such as your runners and risers, and or to add or remove surface details to the pattern. Cheers Shane

Try "casting wax" or "carving wax" or my heap for some recipes.

Many years ago, I was taught to sculpt a head by Bernard Pearson, The Cunning Artificer. The wax we used was "proper" sculpting wax - it was as easy to work as plasticine, but it wasn't sticky, and could hold much finer details.

As I recall, it was much more malleable than candle wax, but did not soften in the heat of my hand.

Apparently, a lower melting point means that finer details can be sculpted, because the molten wax is more fluid, and will run out of finer spaces when the mould is heated.

Do you need the wax softer? Are you trying to sculpt with it? Cheers, Pat. Pending

Here is one place that shows some of the Sculpting wax in slabs, notice the color of it: Sculpting wax link

I have never heard of softening the wax ,and I do not see why you can not use parifin or beeswax.But if you really need to soften the wax you might want to try melting the wax and add a few drops of vegitable oil and stir.This should make the wax more flexable.