Do you guys edge out your night latches after dying and waxing? I tried to set my #2 4 coil Bridger and my hand felt a little something because my night latches was covered in wax.

If I wax I always take it off the the night latch or else for me its too touchy

I just take a knife and scrape the wax off. Way to touchy if you don't.

I use a torch and burn it off. It only takes a second to hit the pan and the dog on each trap

Like setting waxed conibears, right? Really fun to set waxed night latches too. Scrap it or burn it off, and save those hands.
Jim

Thank you all for the advice. Our season starts on Tuesday and I’m making my list and checking it twice.

THAT is why we have a 6" file in the truck or just clean it before going afield.

I bought one of those kits from Walmart that has a bunch of random files in it and I took all the wax off the top of the dogs and out of the latches.

I’ve just been powering through it by scraping the dog back and to in the latch a little before releasing the tension on the jaws. I didn’t know I was supposed to address it further. Seems like they set about the same?

Check your mail box.

I might have let mine sit in the wax for a little too long then. I gave them about 10 secs each, and I couldn’t even set mine without them firing immediately. I sat for 4 hours today and filed the tops of my dogs and the latch and nightlatches. I had to blowtorch my file a few times to rid of the wax it collected.

when you pulled the traps out of the hot wax, did they turn white? traps have to remain submerged in the wax til theyre the same temp as the wax, before pulling them out. i cant imagine they were in the wax long enough if only 10 seconds. when you pull them out, they should look like they were dipped in water. the wax will harden, and still have a wet look to it.

They definitely have a murky white tint to them, especially the coils and the jaws. They looked wet until the next day where I noticed the discoloration from the wax.

I use the edge of the Wolf Fang anchor attached to the trap.

10 seconds is not long enough to heat the steel properly

have ya thought about reading in our Trap Prep Archives : page 2 has Waxing https://trapperman.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/forums/13/2/trap-preparation-archives

THEN, go to Land Trapping Archives
THEN check out Water Trapping Archives
they are all listed by target species

Questions will be answered you didn't even know to ask, at least that's how it works for me!

I am always very particular about cleaning the wax off the trigger/dog contact points.I like a little paring knife to scrape what I can.It is a little hard to get the wax under the pan notch,especially on traps like the MB coils.There,I finish up with an emory board,like used for filing fingernails.As one part of the emory board gets clogged with wax,just shift to another spot.When one side of the board gets clogged,flip it over.I keep several packs of these in my trap tuning gear.It assures me that every last bit of wax is out from under that pan notch.I have been doing it this way for 50 years.It takes longer to describe than to do.I consider it one of the most important steps in MY trap prep.

I will also add,I get this done at home,before season.I don't want to do anything in the field,especially at sets,that could be done before hand.Winter days are too short.

i have a small wire brush that i use for cleaning blood stuff off traps after a catch and i took a small triangle file and zip tied it to the back of the brush with about three inches sticking out past the brush giving me six different surfaces to use to clean wax with seems to work good for me

Knife to scrape off the dog, sometimes there will be a little blob of wax under the pan also. I've had them go off after I've made a set and I turned to walk away when I failed to remember to clean wax off. Way too touchy when not cleaned off.

I use a Dremel with a wire brush.

use eye protection and slower speed! those little wires can fly off if you aren't careful.