Best wax to use for the shaft

[SSDiver2112]

Because of the humidity here the wood fibers would often raise and have to be smoothed out, so I had bought some Mako tip/shaft wax which really helped a lot. I did this first by hand and now on my lathe. As I have been delving deeper into maintenance and repair, I learned most people seal the wood prior to waxing. I just got some Speed Seal from CC.

When I burnish the wax with a piece of leather after the sealer, the wax builds up and doesn't smooth out right away like before. After my initial WTF moment, I fixed it by using a paper towel which I assume just absorbed excess wax as it heated up. In the end it came out smooth as glass. Logically I figure the sealer is doing its job, and before more of the wax was going into the wood. I didn't think I was using too much wax, but the next one I will go lighter and see the difference.

 

[MajorMiscue]

For your cf shaft, Pledge works great.

 

[Ģüśţāṿ]

For your cf shaft, Pledge works great.

We don't use CF shafts 'round these parts.

 

[MajorMiscue]

We don't use CF shafts 'round these parts.

Like hell we don't.

 

[Ed13]

I already have 2 CF shafts to save time on maintaining wood shafts.

 

[phreaticus]

I’m mostly in the zero maintenance CF camp these days, but I’ve never found wax or a finishing product of any kind to be useful or necessary on wood shafts. Brown paper bags, heavy paper towels or even newspaper work great. Joss sells these cotton polishing cloths that work best of all to clean & burnish with zero wear & tear. I think they are the same as guitar cleaning cloths available on Amazon for a few bucks.

 

[boogieman]

For your cf shaft, Pledge works great.

That's all I used to use on my McDermott in the 90s. It worked a treat, not sure why I ever stopped using it, it worked really well and had a nice pleasant lemony scent.

 

[DeeDeeCues]

Before using pledge, consider what it is. Pledge is made as a dusting agent for finished furniture. Mostly it is made to put an extremely thin film of silicone derivative on a hard surface to make it look shiny.

It is liquid with solvents. If you put it on in enough quantity to lubricate, it is attracting dirt and dust.

A hard wax, properly applied doesn't attract as much dust.