I tried to buy the Swiss Gashell grafting wax as it was highly recommended by someone on another forum.  It was sold out.  Then I thought I found it and,......... I accidentally bought a different brand, which says, use doc farwell's over this for best results.

Not what I was looking for.

So now, I am entering the exciting world of making my own.   I looked up many places for DIY home made grafting seal/paste/compound/wax, etc.  I bought the cheap toilet ring wax for $1.98, and some beef fat for $5 a pound.  Now I'm waiting for my powdered pine resin to arrive and begin the experiment.  I think I might add some Elmer's glue and latex paint if I can find some lying around.  Never a dull moment in the world of home orchards. Results will arrive shortly.

John S
PDX OR

The powdered resin came in last night, so I did the experiment today. I started to heat up the beef fat, which was in almost all of the recipes I saw.  Then I realized that this was a bad idea. I am cooking big white globs of fat until the grease comes out of them. It's going to take a long time.  Walmart was the only store that I saw that had it. They had less than a pound of beef tallow for $14.  A local Mexican butchery/deli has 1 lb. of manteca for $4.  Sold.  Tallow or manteca is already rendered. It's so much easier to deal with.  I had an old burner, pot, and cheap double boiler set up. It's a tuna can with water and another can inside.  I put the manteca(pig lard) in the double boiler can, and heated it up.  Then I added the powdered resin when it was liquid and hot.  That seemed to help it dissolve.  I decided to use glass jars, because I wanted something with a tight lid.  I cut up the toilet ring wax and left it in the jars.  I put the grease from the cooking beef fat into the double boiler can too, so it was mostly pig lard with some beef grease.  I dropped the hot resin/fat mixture into the wax in the jars.  It didn't melt right away. I stirred it and it slowly started to melt. I continued to chop it up and stir it.  I added a bit of wood glue, as that was recommended on some of the DIY pages.  I also added a bit of clay to one of the jars to see the effect.  I got out some biochar, as some recipes recommended charcoal.  I hadn't crushed it yet, so I'm going to crush it before I add it.

As the jars cooled and neared ambient temperature, they seemed to mix better and solidify a bit. I had to add a lot more wax as the process went on.  I just checked it about an hour ago and the texture was pretty good: halfway between a soft solid and liquid.  Today was only step one: to see if I could make something close to Doc Farwell's. It's pretty close in color and texture, but not nearly as uniform. I will say that I don't have to buy a whole gallon of DIY for $75 and 30 buck for shipping so that's a good start. 

I am going to go to step 2 soon: Seeing if it will actually work when I graft something.  That might happen tomorrow.  I'll keep you posted.

JohN S
PDX OR