Foundation machine Puff for Layens

01 · POUR THE WAX AT 70-75 °C

And that figure was nowhere to be found

Beeswax melts between 62 and 65 °C, but to pour you need to go somewhat above: around 70-75 °C it runs and fills the mould before it starts to set. Below that it stops halfway and the sheet comes out with bald patches.

There is a ceiling too, and it deserves respect: above 85 °C beeswax darkens. Working at 90 so it flows better costs you in colour, and colour is the first thing anyone buying foundation looks at.

02 · NO RELEASE AGENT, JUST WATER

The open circuit is the whole installation

The plates carry internal water cooling on an open circuit: connect it to a nearby tap and let it run. That is what chills the wax fast enough to demould in half a minute.

And it needs no release agent at all. That is the difference from roller mills, which carry it as a consumable: here there is nothing to buy, nothing to apply and nothing to clean off afterwards.

03 · 5.4 MM AND 780 CELLS

Or whatever cell size you ask for

The standard mould is 5.4 mm worker cell, giving 780 cells per square decimetre counting both faces. It is the lifelong worker size and it covers 99 % of cases.

To order it is made in 4.9 and 5.1 mm and in 7 mm drone cell. These are different moulds, not an adjustment: order them with the machine or afterwards, and allow for the lead time.

04 · LAYENS AT 30 × 35

And that is why it costs more than the Langstroth one

The sheet size is Layens, 30 × 35 cm, a good deal larger than the Langstroth of the same family. That is where the price difference with its Langstroth and Dadant sisters comes from: the mould is bigger.

It runs at 40-60 sheets an hour, the pace of an operation that supplies itself. It is not an industrial figure and does not pretend to be: what it buys is controlling your own wax and closing the cycle with your cappings.

05 · FOR LAYENS THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE

The air-cooled press is not made in this size

This one asks for a water supply, and in some wax rooms that is not trivial. The air-cooled press in our range would look like the way out, but it is only made in Langstroth and the two Dadants: in Layens it does not exist.

Nor would it save you an installation. That one swaps the tap for compressed air at 4-6 bar to open the mould, and asks for an alcohol spray before every cast. Here an open water circuit is enough, and there is no consumable at all.

06 · BEFORE YOU BUY

It needs a water supply and a ladle of wax at 70-75 °C.