Author Topic: beeswax on wood screws (Read 10219 times)

Ken G · « **on:** October 03, 2009, 08:11:55 AM »

I think Bama mentioned this a week or so back and I do something similar. I dip every wood screw in patch lube before installing them. Basically applying beeswax to them. I thin Bama was using soap.
I read about doing this several years ago on this board,started doing it then and have kept up the practice. Anyone know what purpose this serves?
Thanks,
Ken

davec2 · « **Reply #1 on:** October 03, 2009, 08:44:47 AM »

Makes the screw go in a $#*! of a lot easier! Many old framing hammers had a hole in the end of the handle for bees wax. It serves the same purpose for the nail. Not a big deal when framing with douglas fir or hemlock lumber, but my father-in law's house was built during WW II out of oak. He built the house himself and, with the war on, lumber was rationed. He felled a couple of big pin oaks on the farm and had the logs milled into the framing lumber for the house. In the 1990's, after 50 years of aging, the wood was so hard I had to drill holes in the oak to drive in a nail. Then he showed me the trick with the bees wax on the nail point and they went right in without the drilling.

Actually, my own father had built an 18 foot mahogany boat when I was a boy and he put it together with about a thousand brass, straight slotted screws. He used bar soap on the threads of all the screws. It eased the torque required to drive them so that the heads didn't get buggered up.

DTCoffin · « **Reply #2 on:** October 03, 2009, 11:55:59 AM »

I just tried this on my Chambers kit as I had read about it but never did it.I under drilled my holes so I wouldn't loosen them by installing and removing them throughout the assembly.They went in much easier,should have done this on my previous builds,but I learn more with each one,my biggest problem is convincing my bride that I need to build another one and another one etc...

Birddog6 · « **Reply #3 on:** October 03, 2009, 01:19:11 PM »

I have done that in woodworking since highschool. With soap first then the with patchlube when I started building rifles. I use a very thin exacto knife & put the lube as far into the screw hole as I can, as I want to insure it doesn't get to the surface. If it gets to the surface it seals the pores & won't let the stain & finish work the same as it will on the unsealed wood so it will look blemished or not stained the same color.

Dennis Glazener · « **Reply #4 on:** October 03, 2009, 04:17:30 PM »

I keep a cake of beeswax on the bench and pull the threads of a screw across it before screwing it in a hole. A friend and I are currently build a large piece of red oak furniture for our church. He is a longtime furniture builder but had never lubed screws. He could not believe how much easier it was to seat screws after being lubed!
Dennis

Roger Fisher · « **Reply #5 on:** October 03, 2009, 04:28:20 PM »

Quote from: Ken Guy on October 03, 2009, 08:11:55 AM

I think Bama mentioned this a week or so back and I do something similar. I dip every wood screw in patch lube befor installing them. Basicly applying beeswax to them. I thin Bama was using soap.
I read about doing this several years ago on this board,started doing it then and have kept up the practice. Anyone know what purpose this serves?
Thanks,
Ken

lube!

Leprechaun · « **Reply #6 on:** October 03, 2009, 04:50:16 PM »

I'm pretty sure that 'it's on a Hershel House tape that I have the he suggests putting oil on the threads of wood screws 'cause 'you sure don't want to twist one off'. My thought was "yeah, as if!" until one day, I twisted off a wood screw in a patch box side plate. Of course, this was a side plate that was held with a couple screws AND a couple "pins' which were actually small wood screws with the heads filed off so removing the side plate to deal with the busted screw was not an option. I was somewhat unimpressed with myself (wasn't like I wasn't told). I don't think I've run in an unlubed wood screw since. I usually use bear grease and no, it doesn't make the wood soft or rotten or punky or anything else. Just slicker.

KLMoors · « **Reply #7 on:** October 03, 2009, 05:25:18 PM »

Yup, as a 30 veteran of carpentry, I ALWAYS lube a screw that is going into anything nice. I use parafin because it stays good and hard in a pouch (unless you leave it laying in the sun LOL). Another advantage of parifin is that as the screw goes in it melts along the threads but it stays hard outside the hole so it doesn't stain the wood.

Dr. Tim-Boone · « **Reply #8 on:** October 03, 2009, 07:00:48 PM »

As I fire blued final pins and screws for my last gun I dropped them hot on a cake of beeswax. Dug them out and inserted them.
Worked nicely, pins are tight screws went in easily and there is a little more moisture protection where the stock is pierced. Sure does make inserting screws easier!!

Bioprof · « **Reply #9 on:** October 03, 2009, 08:10:22 PM »

I twisted off a steel buttplate screw on the first rifle that I built.

I have been lubing screws with beeswax ever since.

colt · « **Reply #10 on:** October 03, 2009, 10:08:58 PM »

As a 4th gen. Yankee woodworker i was taught to use ONLY parafin or beeswax as oil or some soaps can cause blotches in the stain. This isnt apples to apples as they werent talking abount gunstocks but i would imagine wood is wood?

Randy Hedden · « **Reply #11 on:** October 04, 2009, 02:55:21 AM »

I always dip the first two or three threads on a wood screw into carnuba paste wax. The screws I install on a muzzle loader are never in a place where the wax can contaminate the wood and cause stain not to work.

Randy Hedden

Acer Saccharum · « **Reply #12 on:** October 04, 2009, 03:33:16 AM »

Posted this a while ago, but with memories like ours, it doesn't hurt to post it again.

When running screws into really hard wood, or if you are concerned about splitting the wood, think about TAPPING the threads first. grind almost half a wood screw away to make the tap. Then run in your good screw.

This one, the screw was so strange, I turned the tap on the lathe. But with standard screws, just braze one to a shank and grind the relief. ( I say a shank mostly so you don't lose it in the drawer of screws

)

FL-Flintlock · « **Reply #13 on:** October 04, 2009, 05:55:17 AM »

Tom,

Is it my eyes or is that buttress thread?

Mark

Acer Saccharum · « **Reply #14 on:** October 05, 2009, 01:20:32 AM »

Mark, the screw in that pic is an old military screw. I believe it is some kind of thread, buttress is as close as I can describe it. Without the tap, I don't think I'd have enough oomp-pah-pah to get the screw in, and maybe split the wood in the doing.

This gave me the idea to make taps for smaller screws. I have done this for the #8 and #10 screws I use a lot of.

Tom

Long John · « **Reply #15 on:** October 05, 2009, 04:06:06 AM »

Acer,

I have also tapped my holes for wood screws but being a little on the "primative" side I just take a surrogate screw and file a v groove length-wise along the screw through the threads. I use the surrogate to tap the hole and then put the finished screw in with a little wax on the threads. I find it far preferable when working with highly figured wood that can have a penchant for splitting along the grain.

Best Regards,

JMC

FL-Flintlock · « **Reply #16 on:** October 05, 2009, 05:18:55 AM »

Tom,

I've never seen a wood screw with buttress threads, interesting to say the least.

BTW, I have cut reliefs in screws to use them as taps but not brazed a shaft onto them - good idea to keep from an unwanted slip of the driver.

Kermit · « **Reply #17 on:** October 05, 2009, 05:51:59 AM »

I used to use beeswax in building fine furniture, but had a couple of problems with some finishes. The technique we've developed is to always pre-drill (duh) and then to lube the hole, not the screw. The wood will wipe off excess lube if it's applied to the screw, and pile it up on the surface. Now we use paste wax, and using a toothpick, put a wee drop into the hole before driving the screw in. Lubes the screw on its way in. Nothing left on the surface.

And brass is the western red cedar or redwood of metals. A lot of the stuff is now coming from Asia, and I have no idea how they make it so soft.

I just mount all brass hardware with steel screws of the same size first--with lube--and then use the brass 'uns on final assembly after finishing. And NEVER EVER EVER

try to power drive a brass screw. Never. I don't even go after 'em with a Yankee screwdriver.

Pvt. Lon Grifle · « **Reply #18 on:** October 05, 2009, 09:55:21 PM »

The triggerguard screws and buttplate screws on my original 1861 US Springfield are like that pictured above. I suspect the usage goes back to the start of the gubmint arsenal system vice the contract system used before that. Has anyone dissassembled a Harpers Ferry 1803 who can advise? Lon

Stophel · « **Reply #19 on:** October 05, 2009, 10:06:02 PM »

When I hand file a screw (which is rare, but sometimes I make a sling button or something like that), it ends up being buttress threads. That's just the way I naturally lean the file. Seems like a better thread to me anyway.

I always wax them with a chunk of paraffin wax. They taught us in shop class in school to use a piece of soap.

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Author Topic: beeswax on wood screws (Read 10219 times)

DTCoffin

Birddog6

Leprechaun

Bioprof

colt

Pvt. Lon Grifle