Bushcraft: “Greenland Wax”.

Thought I would share about my experiments in making Greenland wax.

From what I gather, there has always been a need to waterproof clothing and other fabric items. As man was quick to find out that wet clothing makes for a dreary existence, several innovations in waterproofing were developed. For my purposes I am focusing on a technology called Greenland wax. No I am not a historian and the origin of the name does elude me, but that’s not why you’re reading this anyway.

My interest in bushcraft / woodcraft has led me to procure some cotton canvas bags for wilderness use. This type of bag is usually easily found and most importantly – inexpensive. They do have a drawback, in the wet they turn into a sponge! Not so good if you want your stuff to stay dry. So I needed to waterproof them; enter Greenland wax.

The recipe:
Now an internet search will yield many recipes for this, each effective (I assume) yet varying in results. The typical Greenland wax recipe is as follows:

90% paraffin wax and 10% beeswax.

This does have a tendency to yield a waterproof yet stiff final product – especially in the cold. I wanted a pliable yet waterproof final product so I had to research an alternative recipe to accomplish this. What I found is that the more oil you add to the wax the less stiff the final product. This does not affect waterproof ability, but it may diminish the wear ability of the treatment causing the need for more frequent application. This would be subject to the specifics of how the article was used as well. This does not concern me as reapplication is very easy and making the wax is inexpensive as well. The other thing I need to mention is the type of oil you use is important in that some recipes will call for a type of oil that may be subject to rancidity. After hearing from those who use essential oils in homemade laundry soap complain of foul odors in (washed) stored articles, is became obvious that my oil selection needed to be something that would not go rancid over time. My recipe is as follows:

3oz Beeswax, 7oz Paraffin wax, 7oz Mineral oil

The beeswax was sourced from the local health food store. And the paraffin wax is the easy to find “Gulf wax” brand. The mineral oil is from any pharmacy (used for digestive issues!) – Total cost for all was about $10.00. This has left me with enough wax to treat many bags several times over. As an aside if I did need to make more all I would need is more beeswax (about$4.00) as there is plenty of oil and paraffin left over.

The process:

Use a double boiler to melt all your wax first. It does help if you grate the wax blocks first, but is not necessary. Once your wax is completely liquid, gently pour in the oil; (be careful here if you’re working with an open flame, oil + Flame= not good!) this will temporarily harden some of the wax. Continue to melt everything until its one consistency.

Application:
Before you get started know that this will darken the color of your bag / fabric, similar to the color it would be when wet.

There are two ways to apply the wax to your bag. 1) Using a brush apply molten wax to fabric. I elected not to go this route because it may cause “loading” of the cloth, basically you end up with excess wax that rubs off on everything the bag comes in contact with. (Once the excess is gone this will no longer be an issue). 2) Allow the wax to harden and hand rub the wax onto the fabric. It should leave a glossy look to your bag (don’t worry were not done yet). Now that your bag is all waxy and terrible looking; find an old pillow case. Place your bag in the “bag” and tie off the end of the pillow case. Place it in your dryer for about 30 to 40 minutes on a high heat setting. What this does is warm and tumble the whole works so as to let the wax wick into the bag – waterproofing it and leaving no surface residue to foul other things.

The beauty of this method is that if your initial treatment was insufficient you can just repeat the process, same goes for future re-coats. I like this method because it gives me more control over the final product (although it is a bit more work with the hand rubbing).

Conclusion:
This is a great project for waterproofing any cotton / canvas materials. Two out of two discerning consumers agree!

Note: unexpectedly the wax also has other uses as a skin moisturizer sans “girlie smell” (think “Chapstic”). Just rub it on your skin where needed. I may even explore how well it works with various flint and steel tinder’s.

Hope you enjoyed this write up.

Luther