Carnauba Wax Use for Dummies

Carnauba wax flakes

The staff woodworker will be the first to admit that, while he likes making sawdust and gluing wood parts together, he really does not care for applying finishes to his projects. So when a topic titled "How to Use Hard Carnauba Wax on Bare Wood" from HomeSteady.com showed up on the nominating agenda, he was only mildly interested. Then he thought about it for a minute: could Krista Martin teach him something useful? He figured, "What the heck: I'll take a look."

It turns out that Martin didn't have anything to teach him, mainly because she didn't know jack about carnauba, wax, wood finishes, or woodworking in general. Three cheers for J-schools that teach their students they can speak like an authority about any topic. Hint: they can't, though, and Krista's work here is proof.
Like most eHowians, Martin went to Wikipedia to write her intro, explaining where the stuff comes from (a palm tree) and that it is hard and buffs to a nice shine. She then proceeded to tell us how to use the stuff, drawing heavily on three resources... none of which say how to use carnauba on bare wood. Hmmmm.... perhaps that's why Krista tells her readers to,

"Break off the carnauba wax with a chisel or utility knife and melt the carnauba wax until it dissolves into a solvent."

Based on that, it's pretty clear that Martin has no idea what a "solvent" is. Most instructions for using hard carnauba tell you to melt it and then mix it with a solvent. It's also clear that she also doesn't know squat about finishing wood furniture, since she also tells her readers to,

"Apply pure tung oil or other finish to maintain the glossy shine and protect the carnauba wax polish."

We have absolutely no idea where this idiot came up with that notion! You might wax a surface finished with tung oil, but we're pretty sure that the presence of wax would render a penetrating finish like tung oil useless. What you should do is reapply the wax periodically to "maintain the glossy shine"...

We've heard that you can use solid carnauba on wood that's been turned on a lathe: just lightly play a stick of the hard wax over the surface while it's turning on the lathe. As the wood turns, the friction will heat the wax to the melting point and apply a thin coat of wax.
Sadly, Martin knew even less about using carnauba wax on bare wood than anyone here, and we freely admit we had to look it up. Apparently, our search skills are better than those of our Dumbass of the Day.

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