No More Johnson's Paste Wax

Ben

Moderator
Staff member
The yellow metal tin of Johnson's Paste Wax with the red stripe seen in household cabinets for decades has been discontinued as of the end of 2021.

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I have two cans, ( the wax is now selling for $99 for 2 cans on Evil Bay ). I always paid $6 a can for it locally in the past.
Seems like every time I come up with a nice bullet lube recipe, Johnson's discontinues the product that I need. Has been the case with BLL and Ben's Red bullet lubes.

I have two cans of the old standby Johnson's paste wax in my inventory, but I've been looking for workable alternatives. As far as I can tell it is the Carnauba wax that causes it to work well in bullet lubes.

I'm not certain if what I purchased today for $14 a can will work or not. Some trial and error with small batches of bullet lube will tell me ? ? ?

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The ingredients of TreWax :

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Dimner

Named Man
i don't get it, do people just not have wood furniture anymore, or do people just have constantly dull and dried furniture? Maybe it's not necessary since everything is super thin veneers nowadays?
 

JustJim

Well-Known Member
I've been using a homemade version for woodfinishing. Put 5 ounces beeswax, 2 ounces parrafin, and 2 ounces carnauba wax, in a jar. Add 5 ounces of mineral spirits and 8 ounces of turpentine. Stir the mix daily til all the waxes dissolve. It is a little thicker/harder than Johnson's, without all the nifty microcrystalline waxes, but that recipe might give someone a starting point.
 

smokeywolf

Well-Known Member
Pretty sure I have 1 can of the Johnson's Paste Wax somewhere. Plus, I have half dozen cans of the SC Johnson One Step.
 

Jeff H

NW Ohio
Looks like we're way behind the curve on this one. This happened LAST YEAR - the scalpers got ahead of us.

I've used this stuff forever on furniture, gun stocks, precision-ground surfaces on machines and tools in my shop, and I used a gob in a batch of 45/45/10 about 2012, which I am still using. I did hope to mix some Ben's Red though, so I need to find a can of this and save my old can for the regular uses.

I told my wife about this and her response was "what - did someone make a bomb out of it or something?" She's VERY rarely sarcastic, but when she is, it's funny.

There are alternatives out there, but odds are that they will be going away too. It was probably about the solvents, not that SCJ just didn't want to make it anymore, so start looking now. The stuff last forever as long as it's sealed. I've inadvertently left the lid off a can over a weekend before to no disadvantage, so it's not like its going to go bad on us.

I'm trolling some woodworking sites as soon as I get a chance. SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE had to have gotten word early on and probably already sorted out what might be out there with the same general composition. I think Minwax's version differs mostly in the TYPE of SOLVENT, but is otherwise pretty much the same stuff, except it's more "waxy" and SJC is more "pasty." I personally like the Minwax version better for all the normal applications.

BUT, I'd be looking at alternatives and stocking up, because it's probably about the evil nature of the product which brought its demise and others similar are sure to follow.

I mean, applying paste wax is like work, right? So why would anyone want it these days anyway,... right?
 

Ian

Notorious member
SC Johnson is all about "green" and "carbon neutral" and all the other granola buzzwords and have been eliminating anything with a "VOC" content for years. Get used to it.

I agree with Mike, powder-coated bullet technology arrived at quite a good time.

Johnson's paste wax is primarily paraffin and aliphatic solvents with a trace of carnauba wax. Not difficult to duplicate. JustJim's recipe would be a good one too.
 

Jeff H

NW Ohio
i have a can of Johnstons paste wax for my rifle's stocks. my dad bought it in the '70s or early '80s. i still have 1/2 of a can left.
It goes a lot faster when you make bullet lube with it.:oops:

I think the can I use for "normal" stuff was bought in the late eighties and may still be half-full.

The can I bought to try 45/45/10 with has a pretty big hole in it from just that one batch of bullet lube.
 

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
First question is who waxes wood floors with paste wax anymore. Unless you can do it with an app, it ain't happenin'. But that's not why I'm replying here. When I saw the recipes in an earlier thread about Ben's Red and BLL and noticed that the recipes were in other threads, I decided to cut and paste the info in those threads into a document that can be easily shared. So, attached here are the recipes for both those lubes. Maybe there is a place here where the doc can be posted for anyone to download.
 

Attachments

  • Ben's Lubes.pdf
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BudHyett

Active Member
For wood and metal on target rifles, I'm slowly transitioning to Renaissance Wax Polish. The Imperial War Museum uses this for wood, metal and leather on their displays.

For hunting and prairie dog rifles, I still stuck on Lin-Speed. I only hope it stays on the market.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
I can honestly say that outside of good old Lemon Pledge, which I'm sure doesn't count, I have never waxed any furniture, nor do I know anyone personally that I can think of that has ever waxed any furniture. Floors, yes, but that was liquid wax the Corps told us to use. I haven't waxed a car since I got out of the body shop in the early 80's.

Life is good, wax-wise. Not so hot for Bens Lube though!
 

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
SDS for JPW says mostly Stoddard solvent, approaching 100%. The rest is paraffin and hydrocarbon waxes. My guess is any other brand of furniture or floor paste wax will be damn close. When you look at JPW it looks like beeswax based lube. Yeah, I have an old can too.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
tre-wax works but it's darker than JPW.
i have a half used can sitting on top of my can of JPW.
the clear is kind of hit or miss around here but the stained stuff is available all the time.
i use the tre-wax to replace some of the JPW when making 45-45 lube.
i use it for the stain so i can see it on the bullets easier.

never thought i'd be using it as a JPW replacement at some point in the future.
 

JustJim

Well-Known Member
I did a simple search "Carnauba wax at wholesale price". For $49 can buy 1 Kilo (2.2 pounds). Should make enough "Red" for the next 30 years.
I've learned it is pointless for me to buy something like this in bulk. I use a few ounces and put it away, then when I need it again 5 years later I have no idea where it is. I bought 4 ounces of "cosmetics grade" carnauba wax on Amazon for $10 or so.

The recipe I gave dries a bit tacky unless heated in or burnished in. If you dissolve 1 ounce of carnauba in about 10 ounces of odorless mineral spirits, then add about 7 ounces of paraffin, it dries hard and is just a bit lighter in color than JPW when dry. I've used this recipe as a tumble lube; it worked about as well as JPW for that purpose. Also works great on cast iron machinery (a bit more carnauba to make it harder wouldn't hurt).

What doesn't work as a tumble lube is old-school butchers wax (by volume, 50/50 beeswax/turpentine). Picks up every bit of dust within 10'.