I used some blue fixturing wax and am having a nightmare of a time trying to remove it. The part it is attached to is a 6061 aluminum with some fairly detailed geometry, so wax is in a lot of the crevices.
I have tried using hot water (to the point of boiling) but it ended up leaving some wax residue and discoloring the parts. I tried isopropyl alcohol to no avail. I also tried some acetone but this was not helpful either.
I saw an earlier post someone had used goo gone, so that is my next attempt. But if anyone has any other suggestions I am open to ideas!
I’ve had good luck with their wax remover.
It is expensive but it should last quite awhile and it’s been very gentle on the parts without any discoloration or negative impact on anything I’ve tried (metals and mother of pearl for inlay)
Let the material soak and the wax dissolves/gets pulled into solution with the remover. As I understand, it will eventually saturate with wax and become less effective over time.
Good folks located in Traverse City, Michigan last time I spoke to them. I also use them for my actual machinable wax stock for prototyping/mold making.
I just tried the goo gone pro and goof off from home depot and just sprayed it on and this did not work. I am going to try an ultrasonic bath next, and if not I’ll see if I can buy that wax remover and hopefully it’ll work on the carbide wax…
Both the SDS and Users Guide for the wax remover (thank you, @HeuristicBishop ) are informative. In particular, the wax remover is intended to be used at almost the melting point of the wax (the Users Guide specifically says “SP-28 will not work well when cold”)
So I wonder if using the Goo Gone hot might be enough to make a difference…
This is an interesting point. I just tried to spray it on and then scrape everything off. I looked up the technical data for the blue wax (cannot hyperlink due to “Sorry you cannot post a link to that host.”) machinablewax /technical-data/ and am hoping it is similar to the carbide wax. I am going to set my oven to 240F with a small vat of goo gone and then dip the part in to see if this will help.
I will also be checking on my goo gone as this happens - I do not want to know what goo gone fumes will turn into in the oven…
Got distracted for a day but can confirm, the wax remover works well on the carbide blue and white wax. I just globbed some of each on a piece of scrap, let it harden, and dropped it in the remover at room temp for a day (goes much faster in a heated ultrasonic)
