Double steam wax melter injected from boiler

01 · THE FIRST HOUR MELTS NOTHING

Light it first, load it afterwards

The boiler is filled to about 5 or 6 cm below the lid — the level reads through the gauge tube — and the burner lit with a strong flame. The maker recommends propane.

From there you wait an hour for proper steam. One filling gives around 4 hours of work; on a longer day you top the water up gradually, and hot water is better: cold water sends the boiler back to the start.

With the steam running, the machine takes 24 frames and melts around 25 every 12 to 15 minutes. Working alternately — one melting while the other loads — there is no gap between batches.

02 · WHY THE BOILER SITS OUTSIDE

Generating the steam outside is what lets you steer it

The steam is not raised inside the chamber: it is made in the boiler and comes in through piping with its own valves. That lets you close one chamber and send all the steam to the other, the manoeuvre that produces the output — you melt one side right down until barely any wax runs, then open the second.

The settling tank has its own steam feed and is levelled with the adjustable foot. Leave a little steam going into it: if it cools, the wax sets where it should not.

03 · THE PRESS IS NOT INDUSTRIAL

Moderate pressure, and in layers

Each chamber has its own press, and the slumgum goes in with the supplied shovel, slipping in a perforated steel mat every two or three shovelfuls until full. A complete load can take two or three rounds.

It is driven by the supplied adapter socket, with a drill or — better — an impact wrench of the kind used on car wheels, which is not included, in short bursts and watching through the sight glass. The maker warns that this is not an industrial press: the pressure has to stay moderate.

04 · IT IS CLEANED HOT

At the end of the day, not the next morning

Wax melts between 62 and 65 °C and sets as soon as it drops below that. Left to cool dirty, by the next day the piping, the settling tank and the press have seized and everything has to be heated again just to be cleaned.

You clean it while it is still hot: the only moment when the wax comes away on its own.

05 · WHAT YOU NEED BEFOREHAND

Space, floor, gas and ventilation

It is 1.40 m long, 85 cm wide and 1 m high, and 150 kg. The feet on each chamber are adjustable, so it settles on uneven ground — you just have to get it there.

It runs on a gas burner: it needs a ventilated room and its own propane cylinder, separate. And you work with steam and molten wax — gloves and workwear to match the temperature, and the gas shut off at the end.

06 · BEFORE YOU BUY

The water-level valve stays open while you work. The propane cylinder and the impact wrench are separate.