Just as a fleeting thought yesterday while making wax dirt, I thought, “What if a trapper could wax a few traps in same container and dirt !” Sorta like two birds at same time. Clean and wax, as long as traps were not contaminated. Works wonderfully!!!!!! I’ll be doing this in future, helps with time spent and expenditures.
I may get a ton of nay-sayer, but remember where you heard this. Good stuff here on Trapperman Forum

Might have to explain that a bit more as I can't picture this?

It would be like a media bowl case tumbler but for traps, and the media is your wax dirt. I don't see why it wouldn't work.

With the volume of wax needed to do both at the same time, I don't think you'd have much more than a cluster at the end of the process.

I’ve searched the archives for this method of heated wax dirt/sand covering traps during the heat of the day (90 degree plus ). I mix 3 cups of wax to each gallon of dirt so as not to short change the wax film transferred to the steel.
Actually it may be more like a vapor transfer to the traps. Sure does a fine job without any danger of burning wax or flame ups
Hopefully one of you with a better grip of knowledge and writing skills can pass this on to be better understood.

Would like to see some pictures please.

So they're lightly covered with dirty wax when they get done? I'm thinking this would be gritty. . Maybe I'm not grasping it correctly. But if that the case I can't see this being good.

I don't think you can get an even coating of the trap with wa.

Still trying to load pictures

I think you will end up with poor wax job on the traps and waxed dirt that may or may not be good. Why not just heat the trap wax in a pot and dip your traps as the sun heats up your dirt and wax nearby?

I don't think your traps will get hot enough for the wax to properly adhear to the steel. It might aear to adhere at first but snap off the trap once it's cooled and see what happens.

Still waiting and interested in seeing

I finally gave upon trying to load the pictures. I thought I was pretty computer literate….well it beat me.
1. Pour a gallon of wax dirt on black plastic in full sun light.
2. Bury a rusty trap complete with wax dirt. Nothing left exposes.
3. Depending on how hot the dirt gets from the sun is how long before trap is waxed. Here in Texas with our hot August 100 degree days. A trap is ready in a couple of hours. Uncover trap. Give it a good shake, dirt falls off. And presto …. A beautiful trap.

I don’t have a cement mixer to try. But results should be the same.

This started out solely as an experiment, and doesn’t seem to affect the wax dirt one bit.

Why would you wax a rusty trap? Wouldn’t you rather have a clean shiny trap and then wax it?

My wax is closer to 200 degrees when I dip my traps, the wax cools off once you add traps just a bit. Then once it comes back to temp I pull my traps out. I use a point and shoot thermometer. I don't think the sun will do as good of job as my burner at heating up to temp.

wws

Have you tried snapping off the trap a few times. If the trap isn't warm enough for the wax to stick then it'll flake off when the trap goes off.

I’ll either dismiss this test of solar wax dirt and waxing traps at same time starting tomorrow, or confirm it’s a waste of time. wax film seems to adhere to traps just fine even after tripping the traps. Tomorrow I will put a trap that has been treated in this trial in a container of rain water just to see how long before trap starts to rust, if it does….I’ll keep you posted.

Thanks for keeping us posted.

just how well will that work if you gotta do 50 or more traps?

It should work just as well as one trap just increase the volume of dirt to cover the amount of traps. Go set in the AC and let the sun do your work for you.

If someone knows how to post pictures. Contact me at
davidgsimpson48@gmail.com
Leave me your e-mail address and I’ll forward the pictures and you can post them for me.

I used a meat thermometer today at 3pm the temperature was 150 degrees, wax dirt, full sun -North East Texas - 96 degrees

Well there’s one important thing I left out, and it should clear matters up for y’all. I’m using flake wax…..melting point is 120 - 150 degrees. So says the manufacturer.

Remove your trap(s) from wax dirt while dirt is still hot and shake wax dirt off of use a whisk broom to remove fine particles.

Flake or block the melting point is the same as their the same , only.differenve id the presentation. Flake melts faster as it doesn't take as much energy to bring it to the melting point because of the sizes involved.

There's plenty of picture posting tutorials on this site

If this was “the way” to do it, we’d have been doing it for years.

Boone, had spare time on my hands, tired of setting in the shade whittling. What started just as an experiment that I shared here on Trapperman grew into a head scratching series of events that wasn’t to change the way we’ve always done it…but just an old man’s passing time.

Failed experiment -for those of you that want to say, “I told you so” I bow my head and admit …. The tried and true method of waxing your trap, if you do wax them, is much easier and less labor intensive than this experiment.

Thanks for sharing and the photos. Do you have a pic of the failed waxing?

Turtledale, No pictures of failed wax….as the pictures above shows, it was a satisfied wax job….it just takes so much more time and effort to do it compared to the old tried and true way.