With wax seals, practice makes perfect! Do not worry if you ruin a seal or waste some wax. Unsatisfactory seals or scrap wax can be re-melted, over and over again until you do get a perfect seal. You can use a spoon, a glue pot, or a heating tool to re-melt the scrap wax. You cannot "waste" sealing wax.

By mixing different color wax bits and pieces you can produce unique and beautiful "marbled" seals.

To make a wax seal, press in the stamp straight (vertically) into the molten wax gently but firmly. Wait for about 30 to 45 seconds until the wax solidifies, then rock the stamp around gently and pull up.

Incarnation brass seals need no oiling before pressing into the molten wax. Other manufacturers’ seals may require oiling. Just smear the seal (stamp) face with a bit of any oil.

You may also apply colored or metallic ink to the stamp face for beautiful and decorative appearance. Simply tap the seal lightly on to an inkpad before pressing it into the hot wax. The ink will automatically transfer on to the wax seal.

Although a seal can be made directly in place, we highly recommend, specially when you are making a lot of seals, that you make them first on a cookie sheet, aluminum foil or wax paper. The seals can then be easily slid off, and glued in the desired places with any common glue. This way you will not ruin your envelop (or whatever you are making the seal on) if the seal does not come out to your satisfaction. This also allows you to make the seals in advance, and makes it easy to attach ribbons or other embellishments under the seal at the final location.

Heat tool mentioned in some techniques is also called embossing tool. It is available at any craft or rubber stamp store. It looks much like a blow hair dryer or a hot air gun.

To make a seal using sealing wax candles, light the end of the candle and drip wax onto paper, making a pool of wax of the desired size. Press in seal. While dripping the molten wax it is important to hold the candle at an angle with its flame end lower than the other end, but not so much that the molten wax flows onto the flame and put it out. Also, keep rotating the candle so that the candle melts evenly. But do not rotate too fast or too abruptly; otherwise the flame will go out. This is a little tricky, and may need some experimentation and practice. Alternate methods are:

2) Making seals

    a. Gently push a wax stick in the gun as far as it will go without too much force.

    b. Connect gun to wall AC outlet. Let it heat up for 3 to 5 minutes.

    c. Push the stick in some more. If the gun is new, almost all of the stick will go in without any molten wax coming out of the nozzle. This is normal. If this happens, feed in another stick.

    d. When molten wax starts oozing out of the nozzle, make a puddle of wax at the desired location using circular motions. The rate of flow of the molten wax may be controlled by applying more or less pressure on the end of the wax stick.

3) When making seals in quantity: To speed up the process when making many seals at one time, follow these steps.

    a. Make puddle of wax for first seal as above.

    b. Set gun aside in the spot where you want a second seal to be. This way, any wax that drips out of the gun will automatically start forming your next seal.

    c. Press brass seal into first puddle and let set.

    d. While first seal is setting, complete the second puddle.

    e. Remove brass seal from first seal and press immediately into second puddle.

    f. Repeat steps a - e for more seals.

4) Different colors of wax have different melting points. Accordingly, apply more or less pressure on the wax stick to control the rate of flow of the molten wax.

5) Note that some wax, and a part of the wax stick will always remain in the gun. Do not attempt to remove it when finished or when changing colors. To change wax colors, simply insert the new color stick in behind the old and make a few more seals from the old color. Before the new color comes out, you will notice that the two colors mix and produce a marbled wax. We highly recommend that you make seals from this marbled wax -- each one will be uniquely beautiful!

6) Do not keep the gun plugged for extended period of time. To clean gun after making seals, UNPLUG AND LET COOL COMPLETELY. Scrape wax residue off nozzle with dull knife or sandpaper. Gently unplug the nozzle using a pin or the end of a paper clip. Do not insert too deep; it is not necessary to remove all residue from the inside of the nozzle.

1) Place a wax medallion at the desired location.

2) Connect heat tool to wall outlet. Set to low heat setting, if available. Turn on.

3) Blow heat on to the medallion, holding heat gun vertically so that the air blast goes straight down on to the medallion.

4) Vary the distance of the gun from the medallion to control the melting of the wax.

5) Apply heat only for a few seconds. Do not let wax bubble up. Move gun away if necessary to reduce heat. Stop heat application as soon as a uniform shiny smooth molten surface is formed on the top of the medallion. If bubbles form, remove heat temporarily, let bubbles subside, and reheat.

6) Press seal in.

GLUE POT METHOD

Candles, sticks, medallions, odds and ends of broken candles, sticks, medallions, etc. can be melted in a glue pot (available at most craft stores). When wax has melted, grease two spoons with vegetable oil. Scoop up the desired amount of melted wax with one spoon and scrape it off on to the desired location with the other spoon. Press in seal. Teflon-covered glue pots work best for this purpose.

Collect scrap wax in a heap just enough to make a seal. Apply heat with heat tool, taking care that the wax bits do not fly away due to air blast. To control the flying wax, you may use a rubber O-ring or some kind of a barrier of appropriate size around the heap. You can also tilt the gun and use the air blast to control it. Press in the stamp when wax melts. Mix different color waxes to make "marbled" seal.