Asian Furniture Wax Stain ? What is it?

beachfront71 said:

Hello and thanks,

Have had no luck locally so thought I would try here.

I bought some wood carvings/screens to turn into interior doors ..

The finish on these is stained dark but its not a traditional stain we would buy, it is more of a waxy paste that you can scrape down to the natural wood with your finger nail and never really dries (ie if you wipe it with a white towel you will get the color on the towel).

I do not have a problem with the finish but I need to fill and stain/match some mounting holes that were pre drilled.

Home depot has no clue, our local woodworking shop (rockler) has no clue..

Any one have a guess on what this is and where to purchase?

Thank you

Click to expand...

Hey beachfront...

When people mention "asian" or "chinese" waxes, I believe they're referring to a heat applied, and set, hard wax. Blocks of hard wax are shaved to thin chips, then melted onto a wood surface by direct fire (torch), or by the standard of today - the heat gun. When heat is applied, the wax liquefies, penetrates the wood, and fills open grain and other minor surface irregularities. Once the wax has cooled, the film is polished to different levels of gloss (hand-rubbed to mirror finish). The wax continues to dry and actually become quite hard (not as hard as varnish, but significantly harder than paste wax).

I think the basis for many of these hard waxes are parafin, but you can also get dark brown beeswax hard blocks - while they don't dry as hard as parafin, and I don't think you can polish 'em to a high gloss, they still look great, as a hand rubbed finish on wood furniture + you can mix it with other, harder drying waxes for different colors and sheens...

Where do you get blocks of hard wax? I'm guessing the internet is gonna be your easiest source for finding this stuff...good luck.