Several times in the last few years I have mentioned a housekeeping project involving finishing hardwood floors with a home-made, organic, natural beeswax floor wax, and someone always does ask for the recipe. Rather than keep writing it out from scratch, 8-), and since we just made new batch in January (2013), everything about the process is fresh in my mind, I thought I'd write it up one last time! We researched this substance as an alternative to petrochemical plastic floor treatments, it's extremely simple, inexpensive and non-toxic, all desirable attributes; and effectively hypo-allergenic, AFAIK. I hope this will be considered a community contribution in aid of more sustainable living.
The basic recipe:
Wood Floor Wax
1 cup olive, almond or walnut oil
1/2 cup vodka
30 - 40 grams grated beeswax
40 - 55 grams carnuba wax (depends on hardness desired)
Put oil and the waxes into a wide-mouth container (glass jar or tin can) and set in pot of simmering water. Stir gently until waxes are dissolved. (Do NOT try to speed up this step; commercial waxes may have stabilizers in them that might create a fire hazard if heated too fast.) Remove from heat and add vodka, mixing well.
Well, here I've been writing that you get a volcano whooshing up the can when the vodka goes in, for just ages! Turns out there's no volcano after all. (DH says maybe the volcano I'm remembering was from the time we made jewelry soldering flux at home....)
When you add the vodka, the wax mixture will go INSTANTLY from clear, golden melted wax/oil to opaque "instant corn-meal mush", KA-LUNCH!, instead. About half will solidify in the initial reaction, then you need to continue to stir vigorously... & stir & stir & stir, until all the visible material has solidified. There will still be a small amount of clear liquid mixed into the wax-mush. Wait 20 minutes or however long, for it to cool off enough to handle, occasionally pouring off the very-vodka-smelling clear liquid. The wax product has to be kneaded to remove the un-incorporated fluid, before you put it in your storage container. This is "fun" because the wax product is STICKY! It gradually becomes less tacky as you work the fluid out. You will probably end up washing your hands several times before you're finished, even if you're using light-weight latex utility gloves.
Transfer from your mixing container to something that will close tightly; we use a good quality plastic yoghurt tub. Use a rag to rub wax into the wood flooring. If the rag "drags" excessively, dip it into a tiny bit of oil. This wax is "sticky" on the floor until it has "hardened" enough that you can't leave a fingerprint in it. 2-24 hours, then buff.
In Jan '13, we had a whole 225g block of the carnuba left from the first experimenting, so that's what decided how big this batch was going to be. We HAD one 225g block of Carnuba wax = 4 batches (@55g each) "+5g". We HAD 2 blocks (314 g) new, commercial beeswax from the woodworkers' shop; AND at least 453 g misc. recycled Honeystone beeswax, so 4 batches (@40g each) = 160 g max beeswax. For 4X, need 4 cups olive oil & 2 c vodka.
4X multiple of the recipe produced about 3.25 lb. of floor wax, according to my kitchen scale. Looks like enough to do the whole house (650 sq ft?), maybe twice, maybe more. Will store the wax in 2 32oz plastic yoghurt containers, with lids. Local yoghurt factory uses really good quality containers, they stay soft and flexible without cracking for years and years.
The recycled beeswax is golden honey yellow and smells like honey, so prefer it to sterile, woodworkers' store block stuff. CHEAP vodka, 40% alcohol, is sufficient. CHEAP olive oil will do; we use Costco's EV Montolivo, like for the deep fryer. The container I melt the wax in is a 3.5x6" rectangle, x9.25" tall STEEL Bertoli olive oil can. The waxes, very bulky, filled about the bottom inch-and-a-half of the can. Waterbathed the wax melt in my 9" diameter stewing pan.
****
We have been working over the years to re-finish the whole house (2 br, LR, central hallway), for sale. We were thrilled but not really surprised to find short-length mostly-oak hardwood throughout when we removed the hideous, filthy carpet, when we first moved in. We cleaned the floor and didn't do anything to it for a number of years, just vacuumed.
Eventually we did a partial varathane finish. About 10 years later (ca. 4 years ago?), we decided it was time to do a fancy, semi-pro version, for spiffing-up for selling. We initially assumed that this would be another plastic job; and we went out and bought top-of-the-line stuff, and did do the master bedroom (MBR). TWICE! With great difficulty (getting all the brush/mop marks out, bubbles out, getting the surface to dry before it fills up with dust particles, and on and on), and not great results (dust, bubbles, etc.). Also, the VOCs with standard plastic-based finishes are simply horrendous, they were making us actively ill, even though we weren't sleeping in the house!
We had put the job off through the summer, not expecting it to be a huge problem. The first time had been just for us and a less-than-perfect job was OK. We figured the second job needed to be as close to perfect as possible, for selling. Then it was getting later in the year; we had moved out of the house, into the big SCA tent in the back yard, and it was starting to rain by the middle of October. And it was getting cold enough that we weren't going to be able to get the plastic treatment to dry anyway! We tried doing the LR, once, and all the problems that came up in the MBR recurred, some even worse.
So we went ARGH! and went looking for a different way. A non-plastic way. Something lower-tech and less toxic. Eventually, thank Google, we found the basic beeswax recipe, here, bottom of the page.
So, we collected materials and I played "weird sister" in the kitchen, while DH stripped the plastic attempts back off, and sanded, and sanded, and sanded, and amazedly counted odd-bits (not-oak sticks), and sanded some more. This was around 60yo oak, most of it, and he found individual sticks that had cupped and were holding very tenaciously to whatever the original finish had been. When we had tried the varathane finish, the red oak sticks would open their little pores and bubble the surface! Worse than the MBR, with a better grade of plastic.
We did a test with the experimental beeswax in the MBR (after we'd sanded off the plastic, AGAIN.) And the results were fantastic. So we started moving in from the tent and drying out everything, and continued with the kiddo's bedroom, I think, and ended in the LR.
NO issues overlapping at doorways, or any other divisions! NO poisonous VOCs! NO impossible overlapping strokes! NO time constraints! You can do half a room one day and the other half a week later, and there will be no signs of where the two jobs meet. The biggest problem we had was finding non-standard-sized buffing bonnets for the blinkety-blank Sears' small buffer we had!
On-going maintenance is REALLY simple!
1. IF you happen to drip or slop liquids, you have at least 10-15 min before you are in danger of water-spotting! That's the carnuba wax's contribution.
2. If you have areas of high-wear, it's easy to do spot-refinishes. Teh DH discovered, by accident, that spray furniture polish will take the beeswax surface right off! The spray wax stuff has a solvent in it, meant to leave a layer of wax behind on the furniture item. IF you wipe immediately, it takes off the (floor) wax that's already there! Clean and/or sand as needed, and re-apply the beeswax-wax.
3. We have machine-washable area rugs at our points of highest wear, outside the bathroom doorway, and the "foyer" space just inside the front door. We have area rugs down wherever computer chairs live. That's about it.
4. Misc. Let's see... we have natural golden beeswax available (brother & his family keep bees & do art beeswax candles & decor items), and the finish on the floors exactly matches the light gold of our oak panelling. It's definitely a satin sheen, not even semi-gloss. And it feels like satin on the bare feet, not clammy plastic of varathane-type finishes. Bought the Carnuba from local fancy woodworking chain (Woodcrafters, OR).
There, I think that's everything, 8-) And I think I've gone over it enough times to have most of the typo's & duplications out, too.