There are two types of fat on a animal....tallow is actually the harder fat that is around the kidneys and organs inside a beef cow...it is harder and when rendered and cooled re solidifys where other fats tend to stay soft and not harder up at room temperature...the Tannery i used to work at would add tallow back into the leather after it has been tanned and dryed and then rolled and stretched they would then add tallow and other products back into the leather to make it less stiff
Dan, you touch on my confusion with different grades of fat. As I understand the terms, tallow is a hard fat that can be made into candles. It comes from the hard kidney fat from cattle and sheep, and the hard fat can be processed into suet or rendered into tallow. Muscle fat is much softer, and is useless for candles. Once it has been rendered and cooled, the result is closer to bearing grease. Does it matter if I use hard fat or soft fat in making fat wax? Since parafin was can be used, I assume hard fat is necessary, but soft fat is easy to find. Does it matter?
great video. thanks for the mix ratio. Does this go rancid over time and do you ever add any additional ingredients? Is it a good idea to make in small batches is what I’m trying to ask. Thanks again for the video. I am one of your loyal followers. Like the way you do things
This also makes a great Blackpowder lube as well, both for patches and Cap and Ball Revolvers.I use sheep tallow but any good rendered tallow should work just as well.
I tried to use some leftover cooking fat in this, but I think there's a bit of water in there. It has a bit of an odour, and I'd like to keep it from going rancid. Can I just keep the mixture heated until it stops bubbling, or is this batch pretty much junk? I want to either heat it over some coals, an open fire, or a candle. I did a little bit of that over some coals of some sticks and saw rapid small bubbles in there. I think that's moisture, but for all I know that might just be boiling grease. I'm doing all of this outside, with at least two ways to put out a potential fire, and I'm making sure to only use enough to pretty much half fill a can of beans. No reason to dirty an actual pot, right? I put some of it on the shafts of an outdoor rake, and a shovel that seemed to be losing its finish and drying out. Maybe I should have waited. I'm assuming that either the smell will go away, or the pests will lick it off.
After seeing some of your videos. I really liked the idea of fat wax to replace corrosionX as my blade lubricant/waterproofer. I purchased some fatwax off Etsy. It didn't perform well at all. It was all but useless in the hot humidity. Do you think it is just this particular product? Or is fat wax only effective in certain situations?
Could you USE bacon grease in place of the tallow? My daughter keeps cleaned (strained) bacon grease, but we are not sure what we can do with it. We use bacon grease for cooking, but get more than we can re-use.
Great video brother!! Can I use any fat? Like trimmings off an uncooked steak, bacon grease, etc mixed in a container and saved in the fridge until I have enough? Thanks!!
Those ingredients sound pretty pricy compared to parafin (buying half-burned candles from a secondhand store by the bag for a buck fifty) and rendered tallow or cooking grease (you'd be tossing it in the trash anyway, so it's free).
@@ianseidel93 I don't see why it wouldn't. The thing with cooking fats are that they're not purified. They'll have other stuff mixed in with it when you pour it out of the pan. Things like water, gelatin, and some little bits of burned chunks. Once you get about a can worth of cooking fat, I'd recommend putting the can's contents into a measuring cup, and then into a double boiler to melt everything in there in a way that lets you see the different layers. You want to separate the fat from the water and other stuff that's trapped in it. Once you've got everything slowly and thoroughly melted, let it cool a bit at room temperature on the side before putting it in the fridge overnight. After it's cooled and solidified overnight, you can more easily separate the fat part from the water and other junk you don't want. There might be a few bits of burned food particles attached to the fat disk, but you can scrape it off. It's this purified fat you want to use if you're looking for the best results. If you're just trying to experiment and see what you can do with what would otherwise be waste products, then be a bit creative with how you purify things. You don't need to only use food-safe tools and materials if you have no intent of eating the result. Likewise, if something is going to be messy and might ruin things, you might not want to use actual good pots or utensils if it's going to be too much of a pain to clean them back to normal. One thing to keep in mind with fats and waxes is that the thing that determines how solid or liquid they are at room temperature is how many links long the hydrocarbon chain is. The shorter the hydrocarbon chain, the more oily and liquid it will be, and the lower the melting point. The longer the hydrocarbon chain, the more solid and hard it is. From a quick skim of the video, the purpose of fatwax is to get a mix of fats and waxes that has the right hardness value for your purposes, whatever those purposes might be. You can play with ingredients and ratios a lot to get different results. For tool handle preservation reasons, my understanding is that you want something to preserve the internal moisture content of the wood, and oils/waxes travel through the wood much slower than water. Just remember that bacon grease, because it's a food grease, is tasty to animals. I've had small burners that were filled with cardboard and grease chewed up by what I assume are squirrels trying to get at the bacon grease. If you're going to be using delicious-smelling bacon grease and you can't quite purify ALL the smell out of it, then that might attract animals.
@@ianseidel93 Also, be a bit careful with trying to store unpurified bacon grease in the long term. If you keep a can of grease gunk next to your stove for long enough, then it might end up going rancid. You do NOT want that to happen. It takes a while, so you don't have to worry too much, but don't try to save up for months and months before you start purifying it.
I have worked it into seams of my pack to further waterproof my bag., I have put it on my haversack, but never took cotton material and tried to treat it. I have some rags covered in this stuff it's a bit too greasy to do a large piece. I would say if you did 75% wax 25% tallow you would be good to go for material
I've made my own blend of a similar product using a 50/50 mix of beeswax and raw Shea butter. Once it was all melted and mixed I added about a dozen drops of essential oil (Douglas fir, as it smells great and is antibacterial). I used a silicon Jell-O mold sheet to pour the mix into and make my bars, and this stuff will waterproof fabric. I've used it on heavy canvas with good results.
There are two types of fat on a animal....tallow is actually the harder fat that is around the kidneys and organs inside a beef cow...it is harder and when rendered and cooled re solidifys where other fats tend to stay soft and not harder up at room temperature...the Tannery i used to work at would add tallow back into the leather after it has been tanned and dryed and then rolled and stretched they would then add tallow and other products back into the leather to make it less stiff
Actually the fat around the kidney is called suet
Just started following you. These old vids are great.
Great vid! Thanks for making it and teaching me something...
It's all I use on my leather anymore. It protects it moisturizes it and water will bead right off your leather
Great vid brother.2 fast guestion.Fat from pig works to?And are you thinking to make in future a vid how you make a soap?
nice.i use wax for everthing but candles lol.so its nice to see a new project.you mentioned leather,how does this stuff affect leather goods?
How do you keep your leather from mildewing while your things are in storage? I've found nothing that works super well.
Very similar to Dave's "Fixin Wax" but he adds vitamin E oil to it as well so you can use it as a lip gloss and hand protectant.
Dan, you touch on my confusion with different grades of fat. As I understand the terms, tallow is a hard fat that can be made into candles. It comes from the hard kidney fat from cattle and sheep, and the hard fat can be processed into suet or rendered into tallow. Muscle fat is much softer, and is useless for candles. Once it has been rendered and cooled, the result is closer to bearing grease. Does it matter if I use hard fat or soft fat in making fat wax? Since parafin was can be used, I assume hard fat is necessary, but soft fat is easy to find. Does it matter?
great video. thanks for the mix ratio. Does this go rancid over time and do you ever add any additional ingredients? Is it a good idea to make in small batches is what I’m trying to ask. Thanks again for the video. I am one of your loyal followers. Like the way you do things
I never had it go bad. Some of my instructors made it and didn’t add much wax and in the summer it made a mess in their kits
This also makes a great Blackpowder lube as well, both for patches and Cap and Ball Revolvers.I use sheep tallow but any good rendered tallow should work just as well.
I tried to use some leftover cooking fat in this, but I think there's a bit of water in there. It has a bit of an odour, and I'd like to keep it from going rancid.
Can I just keep the mixture heated until it stops bubbling, or is this batch pretty much junk? I want to either heat it over some coals, an open fire, or a candle. I did a little bit of that over some coals of some sticks and saw rapid small bubbles in there. I think that's moisture, but for all I know that might just be boiling grease.
I'm doing all of this outside, with at least two ways to put out a potential fire, and I'm making sure to only use enough to pretty much half fill a can of beans. No reason to dirty an actual pot, right?
I put some of it on the shafts of an outdoor rake, and a shovel that seemed to be losing its finish and drying out. Maybe I should have waited. I'm assuming that either the smell will go away, or the pests will lick it off.
After seeing some of your videos. I really liked the idea of fat wax to replace corrosionX as my blade lubricant/waterproofer. I purchased some fatwax off Etsy. It didn't perform well at all. It was all but useless in the hot humidity. Do you think it is just this particular product? Or is fat wax only effective in certain situations?
I wonder if it would be better to include some solvent like turpentine.
Hi Dan, Nice Vid again. Can the Fat Wax also be used to impregnate Canvas? Regards from Germany
Could you USE bacon grease in place of the tallow? My daughter keeps cleaned (strained) bacon grease, but we are not sure what we can do with it. We use bacon grease for cooking, but get more than we can re-use.
Yes you can!
The bacon grease needs to go through a separation process first.
Bacon grease can also easily be used as firestarter or fuel to burn.
Great video brother!! Can I use any fat? Like trimmings off an uncooked steak, bacon grease, etc mixed in a container and saved in the fridge until I have enough?
Thanks!!
Chris you can use steak trimmings but it would be best to just buy tallow or suet at the store
just wondering if double boiling the fat would be helpfull in preventing the fat from burning,similar to how you would melt wax
I never had any issues burning the fat as long as you keep and eye on it and take your time.
Great info. Does the 1:1 mix stay solid in a hot car. That's where my pack sits in the summer.
Depends how hot it is, I would say add a bit more wax to be safe.
1 question (from a newB) will this be a bear attractant ?
Bears, bugs, and definitely rodents. Just take the usual precautions and you'll be fine.
Yo this guy is lit
Can you Use any type of animal fat
Hmmm . . . now to find some tallow.
I make the basic thing with Shea butter 1 to 1 ratio and of course beeswax and cocoa butter great tip atb tom...
Those ingredients sound pretty pricy compared to parafin (buying half-burned candles from a secondhand store by the bag for a buck fifty) and rendered tallow or cooking grease (you'd be tossing it in the trash anyway, so it's free).
@@Thalanox so you can do the same thing with bacon grease? Will it work as well
@@ianseidel93 I don't see why it wouldn't.
The thing with cooking fats are that they're not purified. They'll have other stuff mixed in with it when you pour it out of the pan. Things like water, gelatin, and some little bits of burned chunks.
Once you get about a can worth of cooking fat, I'd recommend putting the can's contents into a measuring cup, and then into a double boiler to melt everything in there in a way that lets you see the different layers. You want to separate the fat from the water and other stuff that's trapped in it. Once you've got everything slowly and thoroughly melted, let it cool a bit at room temperature on the side before putting it in the fridge overnight. After it's cooled and solidified overnight, you can more easily separate the fat part from the water and other junk you don't want. There might be a few bits of burned food particles attached to the fat disk, but you can scrape it off. It's this purified fat you want to use if you're looking for the best results.
If you're just trying to experiment and see what you can do with what would otherwise be waste products, then be a bit creative with how you purify things. You don't need to only use food-safe tools and materials if you have no intent of eating the result. Likewise, if something is going to be messy and might ruin things, you might not want to use actual good pots or utensils if it's going to be too much of a pain to clean them back to normal.
One thing to keep in mind with fats and waxes is that the thing that determines how solid or liquid they are at room temperature is how many links long the hydrocarbon chain is. The shorter the hydrocarbon chain, the more oily and liquid it will be, and the lower the melting point. The longer the hydrocarbon chain, the more solid and hard it is.
From a quick skim of the video, the purpose of fatwax is to get a mix of fats and waxes that has the right hardness value for your purposes, whatever those purposes might be. You can play with ingredients and ratios a lot to get different results.
For tool handle preservation reasons, my understanding is that you want something to preserve the internal moisture content of the wood, and oils/waxes travel through the wood much slower than water.
Just remember that bacon grease, because it's a food grease, is tasty to animals. I've had small burners that were filled with cardboard and grease chewed up by what I assume are squirrels trying to get at the bacon grease. If you're going to be using delicious-smelling bacon grease and you can't quite purify ALL the smell out of it, then that might attract animals.
@@ianseidel93 Also, be a bit careful with trying to store unpurified bacon grease in the long term. If you keep a can of grease gunk next to your stove for long enough, then it might end up going rancid. You do NOT want that to happen. It takes a while, so you don't have to worry too much, but don't try to save up for months and months before you start purifying it.
@@Thalanox thanks man
Can I use bacon fat for this?
have you used this to water proof fabric? i know bees wax alone can do this.
I have worked it into seams of my pack to further waterproof my bag., I have put it on my haversack, but never took cotton material and tried to treat it. I have some rags covered in this stuff it's a bit too greasy to do a large piece. I would say if you did 75% wax 25% tallow you would be good to go for material
I've made my own blend of a similar product using a 50/50 mix of beeswax and raw Shea butter. Once it was all melted and mixed I added about a dozen drops of essential oil (Douglas fir, as it smells great and is antibacterial). I used a silicon Jell-O mold sheet to pour the mix into and make my bars, and this stuff will waterproof fabric. I've used it on heavy canvas with good results.
I don't hunt, so don't have tallow. Could you use something like Crisco for the fat and mix that with the wax?
You can buy tallow or suet at grocery stores...I never experimented with crisco.
Thanks for the reply.
took the words right out of my mouth...awesome to know I can make this now myself!
I hear raccoon is delicious, I’d like to try it.
Why is the audio so bad?
:D
technically fats only called tallow after its rendered but nice tip
Why fat with wax why not just wax