Beer Mug

[Frodo]

Unfinished,  i need bees wax,  

 

[fredk]

Bees wax on its own melts at a low temperature and dissolves easily in many drinks, such as beer. I suggest a mix of food-grade carnauba and bees wax

[billybopp]

Looks great!  If your taste in beverages leans more toward coffee or hot tea, you might want to consider a food grade epoxy to line your mug!

Did you use anything to stiffen your mug?  Particularly the handle?

 

- Bill

[Frodo]

28 minutes ago, billybopp said:

Looks great!  If your taste in beverages leans more toward coffee or hot tea, you might want to consider a food grade epoxy to line your mug!

Did you use anything to stiffen your mug?  Particularly the handle?

 

- Bill

soaked it,  then baked it

[tsunkasapa]

Jas Townsend sells brewer's pitch for lining mugs.

 

Brewers Pitch 1 Lb – Townsends

[maxdaddy]

Looks good Frodo.

I've made well over a hundred mugs that I sealed with beeswax have never had an issue with the wax melting. It is susceptible to cracking if dropped/squeezed/compressed too hard. But under normal usage melting will not be an issue. I've even left mugs outside on my picnic table in the sun for a few days at a time with no harm done. If you use it for cold and room temperature drinks it will be fine. 

I've always been able to get 10 pound blocks of beeswax from a local keeper so that's what I started with. Unfortunately he passed away last week so I may have to explore other options. I'll probably try some of Townsend's pitch and I can give a full report here if anyone is interested.

Shoot me a message if you want me to mail a bit of beeswax to you to do this. Or, better yet, mail it to me and I'll seal it here and send it back. You'll want a double-boiler to be safe and it took me a while to get the technique figured out to apply a nice smooth thick coating. 

[Bert03241]

I would think that pouring a hot liquid into a leather mug would cause the leather to become pliable again and loose its shape.Is there a way to prevent this from happening?

[Frodo]

Because  I made 2, one for coffee and one for tea

i think the best solution is to use a food grade epoxy, and be done with the worries about the heat/cold

Thanks for the offer maxdaddy.  I got a guy a couple miles down the road with bee hives. 

 

[maxdaddy]

27 minutes ago, Frodo said:

.... i think the best solution is to use a food grade epoxy

That's cool... I'm interested in knowing what you buy and how it works out.

I did perform a test with some Envirotex Lite brand epoxy just to see how it worked and it was VERY messy and much more difficult to apply than the beeswax. The company says it is safe for food contact, like a cutting board, but not rated for immersion, like a bowl or cup. So, I just did it to test how I would apply an epoxy to the inside of a mug in the style that I make. 

Beeswax cools from liquid to solid much faster than the epoxy hardens which means that the epoxy will try to settle to the lowest point for several minutes, and while it's settling it is trying to find stitching holes to seep through. So I had to keep rotating the mug to keep it from collecting at the bottom, all the while it was getting on my hands.

Good luck!

[Frodo]

46 minutes ago, maxdaddy said:

That's cool... I'm interested in knowing what you buy and how it works out.

I did perform a test with some Envirotex Lite brand epoxy just to see how it worked and it was VERY messy and much more difficult to apply than the beeswax. The company says it is safe for food contact, like a cutting board, but not rated for immersion, like a bowl or cup. So, I just did it to test how I would apply an epoxy to the inside of a mug in the style that I make. 

Beeswax cools from liquid to solid much faster than the epoxy hardens which means that the epoxy will try to settle to the lowest point for several minutes, and while it's settling it is trying to find stitching holes to seep through. So I had to keep rotating the mug to keep it from collecting at the bottom, all the while it was getting on my hands.

Good luck!

I thought about applying beeswax on the outside ,to plug holes. pour epoxy into cup. then turn to evenly apply.

then turn it upside down and let the excess run out.  it should. in my crazy mind, leave a thin coating on the inside

in 24 hours, apply another coat using the same method. 

 

[kiwican]

Great work! 

[billybopp]

At one point I got pretty good at making leather beer cozies, using Al Stohlman's method from The Art of Hand Sewing Leather, and figured it wasn't a big leap from there to a full-blown leather mug.  I looked into beeswax and pitch to line them, but realized that those may not do so well with hot beverages which is how I came across the idea of using epoxy from a post on LWN.  It occurred to me that even with epoxy, the mug could be a pain in the neck to clean, so I re-thought things a bit and came up with the idea of just making a leather wrap for a glass mug that would be easy to clean: dishwasher safe, even!  Most mugs have sloped sides which would make the wrap need to be an odd shape, but with some research I came up with these straight sided mugs from Libbey.  After a couple of iterations my final solution is shown here.