Historical use

Historical use

• Beeswax was ancient man's first plastic, and for thousands of years has been used as a modeling material, to create sculpture and jewelry molds for use in the lost-wax casting process, or cire perdue.^[9] Lost-wax casting of metals involved coating of a wax model with plaster, melting the wax out of the resulting mould and filling the space with molten metal. The technique is still used today by jewellers, goldsmiths and sculptors, in dentistry and even in the industrial manufacture of complex components by investment casting of metals.
• Wax tablets were used for a variety of writing purposes, from taking down students' or secretaries' notes to recording business accounts.
• Traces of beeswax were found in the paintings in the Lascaux cave.
• Traces of beeswax were found in Egyptian mummies.
• Egyptians used beeswax in shipbuilding.^{[citation needed]}
• In the Roman period, beeswax was used as waterproofing agent for painted walls and as a medium for the Fayum mummy portraits.^[10]
• Nations subjugated by Rome sometimes paid tribute or taxes in beeswax.
• In the Middle Ages beeswax was considered valuable enough to become a form of currency.
• Used in bow making (see English longbow).
• Used to strengthen and preserve sewing thread.
• As a component of sealing wax
• Beeswax is the traditional material from which to make didgeridoo mouthpieces and the frets on the Philippine kutiyapi, a type of boat lute.
• Beeswax has been used for hundreds of years as a sealant or lubricant for bullets in cap and ball and firearms that use black powder. It is often mixed with other ingredients such as olive oil (sweet oil) and sometimes paraffin. Beeswax was used to stabilize the military explosive Torpex before being replaced by a petroleum-based product.
• Beeswax from Timor island in the south-east Asia archipelogo was used for Javanese batik in the early 1500s, with a significant trade continued by European companies into the late 1700s

Uses as a product

Uses as a product

Beeswax candles and figures

• Beeswax is mainly used to make honeycomb foundation for reuse by the bees.
• Purified and bleached beeswax is used in the production of food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals:
  • Beeswax is used as a coating for cheese, to protect the food as it ages. As a food additive, beeswax is known as E901 (glazing agent).
  • As a skin care product, a German study found beeswax to be superior to similar "barrier creams" (usually mineral oil based creams, such as petroleum jelly), when used according to its protocol.^[7]
  • Beeswax is an ingredient in moustache wax, as well as hair pomades.
  • Beeswax is an ingredient in surgical bone wax.

• Candles
  • Beeswax candles are preferred in churches because they burn cleanly, with little or no wax dripping down the sides and little visible smoke.^{[citation needed]} Beeswax is also prescribed as the material (or at least a significant part of the material) for the Paschal candle ("Easter Candle") and is recommended for other candles used in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church.^[8]
  • Beeswax is used commercially to make fine candles.

• Although only about 10,000 tons are produced annually, a variety of niche uses exist:^[8]
  • As a component of Shoe polish
  • As a component of Furniture polish, dissolved in turpentine, sometimes blended with linseed or tung oil
  • As a component of modelling waxes.
  • As a blended with pine rosin, beeswax serves as an adhesive to attach reed plates to the structure inside a squeezebox.
  • Used to make Cutler's resin.
  • Used in Eastern Europe in egg decoration. It is used for writing on batik eggs (as in pysanky) and for making beaded eggs.
  • Formerly used in the manufacturing of the cylinders used by the earliest phonographs.
  • Used by percussionists to make a surface on tambourines for thumb rolls

Beeswax

Beeswax cake

Uncapping beeswax honeycombs

Fresh wax scales (in the middle of the lower row)

Beeswax is a natural wax produced in the bee hive of honey bees of the genus Apis. It is mainly esters of fatty acids and various long chain alcohols. Typically, for a honey bee keeper, 10 pounds of honey yields 1 pound of wax.^[1]

Anatomy and production

Worker bees (the females) have eight wax-producing mirror glands on the inner sides of the sternites (the ventral shield or plate of each segment of the body) on abdominal segments 4 to 7. The size of these wax glands depends on the age of the worker and after daily flights begin these glands gradually atrophy. The new wax scales are initially glass-clear and colorless (see illustration), becoming opaque after mastication by the worker bee. The wax of honeycomb is nearly white, but becomes progressively more yellow or brown by incorporation of pollen oils and propolis. The wax scales are about 3 millimetres (0.12 in) across and 0.1 millimetres (0.0039 in) thick, and about 1100 are required to make a gram of wax.^[2]

Honey bees use the beeswax to build honeycomb cells in which their young are raised and honey and pollen are stored. For the wax-making bees to secrete wax, the ambient temperature in the hive has to be 33 to 36 °C (91 to 97 °F). To produce their wax, bees must consume about eight times as much honey by mass. It is estimated that bees fly 150,000 miles, roughly six times around the earth, to yield one pound of beeswax (530,000 km/kg). When beekeepers extract the honey, they cut off the wax caps from each honeycomb cell with an uncapping knife or machine. Its color varies from nearly white to brownish, but most often a shade of yellow, depending on purity and the type of flowers gathered by the bees. Wax from the brood comb of the honey bee hive tends to be darker than wax from the honeycomb. Impurities accumulate more quickly in the brood comb. Due to the impurities, the wax has to be rendered before further use. The leftovers are called slumgum.

The wax may further be clarified by heating in water and may then be used for candles or as a lubricant for drawers and windows or as a wood polish. As with petroleum waxes, it may be softened by dilution with vegetable oil to make it more workable at room temperature.

Mining

Mining

The mining of ozokerite was formerly carried on in Galicia by means of hand-labor, but in the ozokerite mines owned by the Boryslaw Actien Gesellschaft and the Galizische Kreditbank, the workings of which extend to a depth of 200 metres, and 225 metres respectively, electrical power is employed for hauling, pumping and ventilating. In these mines there are the usual main shafts and galleries, the ozokerite being reached by levels driven along the strike of the deposit. The wax, as it reaches the surface, varies in purity, and, in new workings especially, only hand-picking is needed to separate the pure material. In other cases much earthy matter is mixed with the material, and then the rock or shale having been eliminated by hand-picking, the "wax-stone" is boiled with water in large coppers, when the pure wax rises to the surface. This is again melted without water, and the impurities are skimmed off, the material being then run into slightly conical cylindrical moulds, and thus made into blocks for the market. The crude ozokerite is refined by treatment first with oil of vitriol, and subsequently with charcoal, when the ceresine or cerasin of commerce is obtained. The refined ozokerite or ceresine, which usually has a melting-point of 61 to 78 °C, is largely used as an adulterant of beeswax, and is frequently colored artificially to resemble that product in appearance.

On distillation in a current of superheated steam, ozokerite yields a candle-making material resembling the paraffin obtained from petroleum and shale-oil but of higher melting-point, and therefore of greater value if the candles made from it are to be used in hot climates. There are also obtained in the distillation light oils and a product resembling vaseline. The residue in the stills consists of a hard, black, waxy substance, which in admixture with India-rubber was employed under the name of okonite as an electrical insulator. From the residue a form of the material known as heel-ball, used to impart a polished surface to the heels and soles of boots, was also manufactured.

Mining of ozokerite fell off after 1940 due to competition from paraffins manufactured from petroleum, but as it has a higher melting point than most petroleum waxes, it is still favored for some applications, such as electrical insulators and candles, or in extra-soft paper tissues

Ozokerite

Ozokerite

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Ozokerite, Wasatch County, Utah

Ozokerite or ozocerite (Gr. Όζο oze, stench, and κερί kero, wax) is a naturally-occurring odoriferous mineral wax or paraffin found in many localities.

Specimens have been obtained from Scotland, Northumberland and Wales, as well as from about thirty different countries. Of these occurrences the ozokerite of the island (now peninsula) of Cheleken, near Turkmenbashi, parts of the Himalayas in India and the deposits of Utah in the US, deserve mention, though the last-named have been largely worked out. The sole sources of commercial supply are in Galicia, at Boryslaw, Dzwiniacz and Starunia, though the mineral is found at other points on both flanks of the Carpathians.

Ozokerite deposits are believed to have originated in much the same way as mineral veins, the slow evaporation and oxidation of petroleum having resulted in the deposition of its dissolved paraffin in the fissures and crevices previously occupied by the liquid. As found native, ozokerite varies from a very soft wax to a black mass as hard as gypsum.

Hair wax

A small pot of hair wax

Hair wax is a thick hairstyling product containing wax, used to assist with holding the hair. In contrast with hair gel, most of which contain alcohol, hair wax remains pliable and has less chance of drying out. Consequently, hair wax is currently experiencing an increase in popularity, with many manufacturers releasing versions that are referred to as pomade, putty, glue, whip, molding gum, or styling paste.

Hair wax has been used for many years and in fact, a waxy soap-like substance was invented by the ancient Gauls as a hair styling agent and was not used as a cleaning agent until many years later

Specialized scissors

Specialized scissors

Among specialized scissors and shears used for different purposes are:

• Agriculture and animal husbandry
  • Grass and hedge shears are used for trimming grass and hedges.
  • Pruning shears (secateurs) and loppers are gardening scissors for cutting through branches of trees and shrubs.
  • Sheep shears and machine shears are used for cutting an animal's fleece to make wool.
• General domestic use
  • Kitchen scissors are for general-purpose kitchen use
  • Nail scissors, for cutting finger- and toenails
  • Poultry shears are used to cut cooked poultry.
• Hair care
  • Thinning scissors are used for thinning thick hair to avoid a bushy look
  • Hair clippers – for cutting hair by barbers, hairdressers, and pet groomers. Functionally like several small pairs of scissors side-by-side, operated by a single handle or a motor.
• Metalwork
  • Jaws of Life are hydraulic rescue tools for cutting heavy sheet metal.
  • Throatless shears are used for cutting complex shapes in sheet metal.
  • Tin snips are scissors for cutting through sheet metal.
• Trauma shears, or "tuff cuts", are robust scissors used in emergency medical response and rescue.
• Sewing and clothes-making
  • Pinking shears are scissors with a serrated cutting edge for cutting cloth so that the fabric does not fray.
  • Sewing Chatelaine Scissors. Chatelaine is a French term meaning "mistress of a castle, chateau or stately home", and dates back to the Middle Ages. It refers to an ornamental clasp or hook from which chains were hung from the waist, holding perhaps, a purse, watch, keys, scissors or thimble case. The sewing chatelaine became a popular ornamental appendage worn by Victorian ladies at their waist, but disappeared when fashion changed and skirts were no longer full and long. Sewing chatelaines are now produced and worn as pendants around the neck.
• Ceremonial
  • Ceremonial Scissors are scissors used, and often presented for, ceremonial ribbon-cutting events such as building openings etc

Handed scissors

Handed scissors

left-handed (left) and right-handed (right) scissors

Most scissors are best-suited for use with the right hand, but left-handed scissors are designed for use with the left hand. Because scissors have overlapping blades, they are not symmetric. This asymmetry is true regardless of the orientation and shape of the handles: the blade that is on top always forms the same diagonal regardless of orientation. Human hands are also asymmetric, and when closing, the thumb and fingers do not close vertically, but have a lateral component to the motion. Specifically, the thumb pushes out and fingers pull inwards. For right-handed scissors held in the right hand, the thumb blade is further from the user's body, so that the natural tendency of the right hand is to force the cutting blades together. Conversely, if right-handed scissors are held in the left hand, the natural tendency of the left hand would be to force the cutting blades laterally apart. Furthermore, with right-handed scissors held by the right-hand, the shearing edge is visible, but when used with the left hand the cutting edge of the scissors is behind the top blade, and one cannot see what is being cut.

Some scissors are marketed as ambidextrous. These have symmetric handles so there is no distinction between the thumb and finger handles, and have very strong pivots so that the blades simply rotate and do not have any lateral give. However, most "ambidextrous" scissors are in fact still right-handed in that the upper blade is on the right, and hence is on the outside when held in the right hand. Even if they successfully cut, the blade orientation will block the view of the cutting line for a left-handed person. True ambidextrous scissors are possible if the blades are double-edged and one handle is swung all the way around (to almost 360 degrees) so that the back of the blades become the new cutting edges. Patents (U.S. Patent 3,978,584) have been awarded for true ambidextrous scissors.

Kitchen scissors

Kitchen scissors

A pair of kitchen scissors

Kitchen scissors, also known as kitchen shears, are traditionally used in the kitchen for food preparation, although due to their tough nature they can serve many other purposes. In modern times they are often made from stainless steel (for food hygiene and oxidization-resistance reasons). They often have kitchen functionality (other than cutting) incorporated, such as bottle-cap and bottle-openers built into the handles

Description and operation

Description and operation

A pair of scissors consists of two pivoted blades. In lower quality scissors the cutting edges are not particularly sharp; it is primarily the shearing action between the two blades that cuts the material. In high quality scissors the blades can be both extremely sharp, and tension sprung - to increase the cutting and shearing tension only at the exact point where the blades meet. The hand movement (pushing with the thumb, pulling with the fingers in right handed use) can add to this tension. An ideal example is in high quality tailors scissors or shears, which need to be able perfectly cut (and not simply tear apart) delicate cloths such as chiffon and silk.

Children's scissors are usually not particularly sharp, and the tips of the blades are often blunted or 'rounded' for safety.

Mechanically, scissors are a first-class double-lever with the pivot acting as the fulcrum. For cutting thick or heavy material, the mechanical advantage of a lever can be exploited by placing the material to be cut as close to the fulcrum as possible. For example, if the applied force (i.e., the hand) is twice as far away from the fulcrum as the cutting location (e.g., piece of paper), the force at the cutting location is twice that of the applied force at the handles. Scissors cut material by applying a local shear stress at the cutting location which exceeds the material's shear strength.

Specialized scissors, such as bolt cutters, exploit leverage by having a long handle but placing the material to be cut close to the fulcrum.

For people who do not have the use of their hands, there are specially designed foot operated scissors. Some quadriplegics can use a motorized mouth-operated style of scissor