it's just to help prevent further rusting. my wife laughs at me, she says "you rust your traps to put a dip on them to prevent them from rusting?" then off course she's rolling her eyes.

i know some folks that just wax, i tried that and my traps got too rusty too fast. after every catch the wax comes off and then it starts rusting.

dying them every year stops them from getting rusty.I've never waxed my traps.

It is to get rid of and retard the rust smell and process. waxing does not effect the smell, nor does it stop rust. Waxing in my opinion is only for speed. It is used by me as a lubricate.

In my opinion it is better to dye then wax.... if you were not going to do both.

I don't smoke or use dip so I cannot help with that.

barkstone, I almost didn't catch that... dip haha

I dye mine, don't know why, but I do. I always wax mine for protection and speed. I use a risen in my wax to help make it stick to the trap. It works well last a for atleast one catch LOL. I don't try to catch coyotes much, and so if any smell runs them off, I am glad. I caught one this morning and put it up too. Don't think I will be doing much more of that.

Sometimes I dye, sometimes I don't. There is basically no need to do it, it only helps a little on rust protection.T.20

I do not dye my traps. Rusting the traps weakens the springs. Coil springs or long springs it makes no difference. Rust is metal decomposing. When the diameter of your coil spring reduces due to rust removing metal the strength goes as well. Why would you want to reduce the strength of your traps right out-of-the-box?  The trap is covered with dirt.  The animal can't see it.  I bed my traps with calcium chloride.  I tune the traps, boil them to clean to remove the oil, and that wax them.
 
Here is how to figure out what works.  Take three traps out in your backyard, bed each one as though it were at a set.[list]



Trap one oil cleaned off, no treatment.

Trap two, oil cleaned off, rusted then dyed (no wax).

Trap three new with the oil cleaned off, and then waxed.

I think you be surprised with the results. I bed my traps with calcium chloride. Calcium chloride is extremely corrosive to metal. It's worse than salt. Trap Number one and trap Number two will rust at identical rates.