During freezing and thawing conditions, how long could you expect waxed sand to last before having to re-bed a trap? How about rain and then freeze?

The waxed dirt shouldn't ever absorb water. It is just the snow or ice over that needs to be addressed.

The only maintenance i have needed is to take the layer of frozen water off the top. Northern MN with snow and then thaw but it will still catch and hold a coyote if not taken off. If its made correctly, it will last forever.

Spade if you get a hard freeze then rain, then freeze/repeat your waxed dirt will eventually stop functioning. There's only so much waxed dirt can handle. The waxed dirt itself may not absorb moisture but if/when all the dirt around the bed and the bed becomes filled you'll just have a big frozen puck. I just spent all yesterday chipping sets out that have been in the ground a while thru multiple snow/rain/freeze/that/freeze cycles and then a solid week of sub-freezing temps. They were all well encased in heavily waxed dirt and nothing would have set them off. Waxed dirt is great for relatively consistent temps or light freezing precip but the repeated freeze/thaw/freeze will eventually overcome it's effectiveness.

If you want a mini-experiment fill up a small yogurt cup halfway with waxed dirt, then fill the rest of the way with water and stick in the freezer for a couple days. It may crumble but generally your trap isn't going to have the strength or the dirt will become firm enough that the animal's foot won't have enough ground pressure to fire the trap anymore.

My waxed dirt last all winter.

The problem with a rain and then a freeze is that when rain drops splash mud on your waxed dirt or sand it will make a frozen shell of mud over your trap bed. If you make a trap bed on a slope the water will sometimes clean it off for you but don't count on it.

I had a river come up several feet over my sets and go back down. I went to reset everything and found my traps sty dry in the waxed dirt and actually working. Temperature dropped to 12 degrees after the flood and my sets were perfect. Here's a double in the traps I'm talking about. Frozen mud creek bottom after a flood.

Larry: that is amazing!

Jumper if your waxed dirt is giving up on you I think you need to change something. Illinois is the king of changing weather conditions, right now we are 40’s in the day and high 20’s low 30’s at night . It’s apt to rain this Friday night or Saturday morning ( that’s the forecast ) and be 25* on Sunday. I will not even bother to check mine as I’ve done it enough in years past.

Everyone wants to save a little money wherever they can including me but waxed dirt will last our entire season if done right . Everyone has different dirt , I had to learn the hard way that the dirt on my farm is high in organic material and takes a ton of wax . Not only that but it is so black that a good sunny day will melt the wax of the top letting it eventually freeze or crust over. Now I use dirt from one of the farms that I trap that has a very high fine sand content, I use less wax ( about 6 oz per gallon) and it lasts all season .

Hope this helps,
GB

I learned the same lesson as GB with all the organic material in the dirt. I had good batches of wax dirt and other batches that would work for a couple of weeks and slowly start freezing up. This year I'm going with straight wax sand to see how it handle IL weather. I will say I like bedding the trap in sand real easy to get it rock solid with a a light sprinkling of peat moss over the top to blend in. Already had one whoops with blending in with dirt over the sand got a little heavy handed with the dirt, rained and froze over. I got my sand from a local landscape business 23 bucks for a skid loader bucket full. Made 55 gal and got the rest in the garden covered with a tarp if I need to make more.
J

illinideer - sir I believe you will like the wax sand better I went from peat moss my first year and then my second year used wax dirt it worked ok and used it a few years then I decided to try wax sand and I haven't looked back only use wax sand im very impressed with it. I go to menards and buy 3 bags of the traction sand in a tube. I sift it through a sifter I made to remove the bigger stuff so im left with the finer stuff. takes a whole lot less wax than the dirt does as its just coating the sand instead of absorbing the wax like dirt does. I make it on a turkey fryer burner in a 8in deep pan probably does about a gallon and a half to 2 gallons at a time. I just put on short gauntlets and heat the sand stirring it by hand and once its hot enough that it gets a little uncomfortable to touch I kill the heat and add the wax and start mixing it with a stir stick I use a big stainless spoon. and after typing this all out I actually finished reading your post and realized you already made your sand lol. got all excited like I had something to bring to the table!!!