Many years ago, after enjoying a summer evening on the deck, I kicked the citronella candle over. Oops! The next day I scraped the hardened wax off the pressure-treaded boards. To this day, that spot on the deck is beautifully preserved, while the rest of it is quite weathered. That spot gets full sun and plenty of traffic. I’ve never seen a commercial sealer work as well as that hot candle wax. Should I be buying a bunch of bug candles to perform the next seal job? Or does somebody know of a more traditional product that can top that wax?
Keith
Replies
Coat it with leftover peanut oil from deep frying turkeys. That might work well, but expect to find assorted varmints licking the deck.
I suppose it is an interesting question. I can almost see why it would work. The paraffin in that candle is going to do a pretty good job of sealing the wood and the citronella should repel insects. I guess the real question is how well regular paraffin (canning wax) would work. It is pretty cheap.
In the process of googling up paraffin, just to see how to spell it, I came across several articles saying bowl turners and other guys making food safe wood projects regularly use paraffin as a sealer.
paraffin wood preservative
I've never tried it but there are a lot of old recipes for paraffin melted into turpentine or paint thinner. I even got as far as buying 1#
of paraffin once but didn't mix it up. One thing for sure there's a fine fire hazard involved with making the mixture. Nowadays there
is a copper napthenate product that's mostly water based that might make a good paraffin mix but it would have a green tint.
They used an electric skillet in the articles I read about it. This avoids the open flame problem and keeps the temperatures at a controlled level. You still want to do this outside, away from the house.
I imagine you can find an electric skillet in a garage sale or at goodwill for a buck or two.
Note that standard candles (don't know about citronella) contain some sort other wax besides your canning-style parafin. You might want to Google "candle making" to find some recipes.