Subject: Foundation Press

From: [email-masked] (-verville d.f.)
Date: Thu, 9 Mar 1995 01:14:40 GMT

In John Vivian's book "Keeping Bees", he discribes building a 
wax foundation press. John uses a sheet of factory made foundation to form 
the face of the die. He uses a mastic called "Wood Putty".
Always looking for another project and having several pounds
of rendered bee's wax around, I tried to make one.
Instead of using a sheet of foundation, I used a "one-piece plastic" frame/
foundation as my postive.  I used PAM as a releasing agent.  
I made up a smaller wooden frame to fit inside the plastic frame.
I made a mold of both sides. I attached the two
halves together using hinges, with one of the dies offset about 1/32
of an inch which caused them to line up perfectly.
Following John's directions, I melted some wax, poured it onto the mold
and slammed it shut.  Well it took a couple of tries before I got the 
feel for it. After several attempts, I finally had one 
come out "good enough". However, the water putty mold isn't holding up. 
After making a few, the mold is starting to come apart. 
I was thinking about using "Bondo" or maybe even fiberglass and resin.
I was wondering if anyone else has attempted this and what did they use
as a mastic.
BTW: I'm a blue blood yankee, so it has to be cheap!

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From: [email-masked] (David J Trickett)
Date: 10 Mar 1995 09:03:28 GMT

-verville d.f. ([email-masked]) wrote:
: In John Vivian's book "Keeping Bees", he discribes building a 
: wax foundation press. John uses a sheet of factory made foundation to form 
: the face of the die. He uses a mastic called "Wood Putty".

d.f., 

I've seen this book and thought about building one of these things - but 
haven't gotten around to it yet.  In thinking about it though, I was 
wondering if one couldn't use two pieces of plastic foundation as the 
actual press-faces, rather than making them out of plaster and 
putty....  What do you think?

Dave

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From: [email-masked] (David J Trickett)
Date: 11 Mar 1995 12:11:17 GMT

Whups, I should have taken a closer look at the plastic foundation before 
assuming that it might make a suitable press face; it's NOT as I assumed 
from quick glances at it years ago (I don't like the stuff since it needs 
a pretty heavy honeyflow to get the bees to draw it out) simply a set of 
triangles pressed into the plastic (which is what some of my wax foundation 
essentially is).  Rather, it has very pronounced cell rims raised out of 
a *flat* plastic sheet.  Thanks to Dave Alexander for pointing this out.

Dave

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 17:58:02 GMT

>the face of the die. He uses a mastic called "Wood Putty".
 However, the water putty mold isn't holding up. 
>After making a few, the mold is starting to come apart. 

Bondo might work well.  Please post results if you try it.  How 'bout plaster 
of paris with screen wire embedded as a strengthener and coated w/ a lacquer.