Tapestry haversack

[PIKELAKE]

I would like to make a tapestry bag that I would treat with bee's wax. I am guessing that the wax is melted and then applied to the fabric. It would seem to me that something has to be added to the wax to make it more liquid and workable. What's the secret? What do I add to to the wax?  Thanks ,      JZ

[Longknife]

 I have not tried Bees wax on cloth but when I treat leather with it, I melt the wax in a double boiler, add a little olive oil to make it more pliable, and paint it on the leather and melt in in carefully with a hair dryer....Ed 

[Greg Pennell]

I may be wrong, but I can’t think of a way to use beeswax on a tapestry type material without making a real mess of it. Just a suggestion, but I think I would line my tapestry bag with oilcloth...that should give you a degree of protection without the problems of wax soaking through and ruining the look of the tapestry material. Lots of videos on YouTube about making oilcloth...lots of folks get good results with light canvas and Thompson’s Water Seal.

Greg

[Jerry]

I have used bees wax on fabric. I mix in some boiled linseed oil. It takes longer to dry, but that’s how I do it. Gary Birch used anhydrous lanolin on his leather bags and horns.

[mark esterly]

i have melted beeswax onto canvas with a heat gun with good results. i know it's not tapestry but it works. i just held the chunk of wax over the canvas and then heated the canvas and let the material wick up the wax.   quicky squirrel bag from old coveralls.  there are no issues with the material being too stiff or cracking.

[Huntschool]

I think one real concern will be what effect does the bees wax have on the color of the textile, or as g.pennell said, how much mess will it create.  The beauty of textiles, to me, is their color.  I would hate to ruin that.

I built a bag for a friend back in the early 70's using a late 1800's  (it may have been older then that) heavy curtain (think tapestry).  The textile was nothing short of amazing and I wish I had pictures of it but alas such is not the case.  I played with that stuff for about three weeks before I tod him the only way to do this is line it with something like "waxed cotton" similar to what Barbour uses in their coats.  Took me a good bit of searching back then to find the material but that was what I ended up doing.  It worked quite well.  Unfortunately, that person has passed away without me knowing as I would liked to have bought the bag back from his estate.  It has passed into obscurity...…

I would go with a waxed cotton mid weight fabric and glue/sew it to the tapestry during construction of the bag.....  As opposed to bees wax.

JMHO

[PIKELAKE]

Thanks to everyone for their replies. Sounds like lining the tapestry with oil cloth or another material is the best answer. I still might play around with the different ideas because as the say" Nothing ventured, nothing screwed up".   JZ

[RichG]

I have a cloth gun cover that's treated with bees wax for water proofing. can't remember who I got it from. I think the wax is dissolved in  mineral spirits, painted on and the mineral spirits evaporate off leaving the wax. You'd have to do some experimenting to see how much it would darken fabric or dissolve any die or paint.

[PIKELAKE]

Thanks, that idea is on my play around list of things to try.  JZ

[Huntschool]

My wife an I have both used turpentine and wax for water repellency treatment.  In each case we really had trouble getting the turpentine smell out of the fabric.  Even after hanging them in the sun outside for days.  Perhaps we used too much turpentine but I am not sure as one must use enough to dissolve the wax......