Finishing Wax

For years I have been using a wax as the last coat over my finish and never really thought about brand until I made some tests. First let me say I have used just about every over-the-counter paste wax known to the retail marrket: Johnson Paste Wax, Butcher’s, Minwax, Liberon, Renaissance, BriWax, etc, etc.

All seemed to do the job but while finishing a project for my wife, I decided to do a little test to see which one gave the highest sheen after steel wooling the finished varnish. I went to my local True Value and checked the brands that they carried and found that they carried one I had never used, Staples Clear which I could remember using years ago but then could not find it.

I looked them up on the web and found out a few other things: Staples Wax is one of the oldest, uses imported premium grades of carnauba wax derived from Brazilian palm leaves, and contains no synthetics, silicones, or soft beeswax (their sales pitch, not mine). Anyway, purchased a can and made some tests on samples of the finished cutoffs from the project and hands down Staples clear gave the best sheen over the finish I was using.

It went on easily, and seemed to flow a wet edge as it was rubbed on to the surface and in a short time dried with a haze as many others do. However, it took a little elbow grease to buff it to a shine/sheen. Once it was buffed out the depth of the sheen was much deeper, didn’t have overlap lines visible with some of the waxes used, and in general gave me the impression it was a much harder finish than the others which was based on my old car polishing days.

Besides the clear, they also make available two different colors an orange, and a brown for I assume darker woods.

Also, because it didn’t contain synthetics, silicones, or beeswax I tried it on the cast Iron tops of my table saw, router table, band saw and the fences of all of the three; it cut the drag way down so the wood slid through like it was greased. How long that will last we will see, but it sure made it allot easier.

I rated it five stars due to the wet edge during application, the lack of synthetics, silicones, or beeswax and the end result of the sheen.

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