Introduction: Natural Beeswax Wood Finish

About: I love creating and making things. From leather wallets, wooden rings to DIY projects. I also make videos of everything I make, have a look at my YouTube channel.

In this guide, I will show how I made my all natural beeswax wood finish. It's perfect for finishing any wood project and far more satisfying to make your own finish than buying one, and I love using beeswax to finish wood projects.

It should take no more than a couple of hours to make, and most of that is waiting for the wax to set!

For this project you will need;

Or you can buy this from my shop! Check out NATURAL BEESWAX WOOD POLISH

Step 1: Prepare Wax

I started by preparing my wax. I started off by working out much, finished product I could fit into my tin and worked backwards from there. I used an old sweet tin so these measurements fit perfectly in this tin. Each of these blocks of beeswax are 1oz. You can buy beeswax in chips already, but I love the way that the blocks look and easy to store so that's how I like to buy them. You can melt straight in blocks but cutting them down to smaller pieces means they can melt down much quicker and in a more evenly.

It is quite soft and you can just use a knife to cut it down to size. I used 2 x 1oz blocks for this.

Step 2: Melt Wax

I use a slow cooker or crock pot to melt down my beeswax. I find this the easiest way to melt down wax, beeswax can be quite flammable if you are not careful and I find this is the easiest way. Other options include doing a double boiler.

Step 3: Add Oil

Once the wax was completely melted I added the oil. I like to use Jojoba Oil. You can use almost any oil for this but some oils such as olive oil can go bad after a few months and start to smell bad. With proper storage this jojoba oil should last for around 2 years sat in the tin. But I probably would have used it all up by then and made another batch.

I mixed using a 1:3 ratio of wax to oil. So I used 2oz of wax so needed 6oz of oil. I poured about half the oil straight into the melted wax and stirred it well, then added the second half of the oil. I have no idea why I did this or even if it makes a difference truth told, but it felt like the thing to do. So that's what I do, I'm sure somebody can tell me why its a bad idea :)

Once it was all mixed together well I transferred from the slow cooker pot back into the measuring jug, this just makes it easier for pouring. Then I poured straight into the tin. As this slowly set I give it a stir every 10mins or so for the first hour. This ensures that it cools down evenly. When this began too solid I left it for about 3 hours to set completely. It left me with a really nice consistency wax that holds it form until worked a tiny bit and melts beautiful into the wood.

Step 4: Finished

And it's finished. With the jojoba oil, this should last around 2 years but as I said this varies from which oil you use. But you can experience with your choice of oil, and also the different ratios. I like in England and it really isn't very warm here. So the wax is usually solid at room temperature, but if you like in a hot county you might want to use slightly less oil meaning it will be more firm at hotter temperatures.

I hope you enjoyed this and if you make your own make sure to let me know below, and check out my YouTube Channel.