How to make this from 1573:

To make red sealyng wax.

Take one pound of Wax . iii ounces of cleare Tyrpentyne in Sommer, in Winter take fowre: melte them together with a soft fyre: Then take it from the fire and let it coole: Then put in Uermylion berye fynely grounde, and Salet Oyle, of each an ounce, and mix them well together, and it is perfect good.

The redaction of this recipe is fairly easy:

Take 1 pound of wax.
add 3 ounces of turpentine (4 if it's winter).
melt and mix in a double boiler.
allow it to cool, but not harden.
add 1 ounce of a dark red berry (blackberry, red current, etc) which has been dried and ground into a fine powder.
add 1 ounce of cooking oil.
mix well and it should be good!

Partrige, John "The Treasurie of Commodious Conceipts and hidden Secrets" 1573

In medieval times, when the principal use of sealing wax was for attaching the impression of seals to official documents, the composition used consisted of a mixture of Venice turpentine, beeswax and colouring matter, usually vermilion.

The preparation now employed contains no wax. Fine red stationery sealing wax is composed of about seven parts by weight of shellac, four of Venice turpentine, and three to four of vermilion. The resins are melted together in an earthenware pot over a moderate fire, and the colouring matter is added slowly with careful stirring. The mass when taken from the fire is poured into oiled tin moulds the form of the sticks required, and when hard the sticks are polished by passing them rapidly over a charcoal fire, or through a spirit flame, which melts the superficial film. For the brightest qualities of sealing wax bleached lac is employed, and a proportion of perfuming matter storax or balsam of Peru is added.

In the commoner qualities considerable admixtures of chalk, carbonate of magnesia, baryta white or other earthy matter are employed, and for the various colours appropriate mineral pigments. In inferior waxes ordinary resin takes the place of lac, and the dragon gum of Australia (from Xanthorrhoea hastilis) and other resins are similarly substituted. Such waxes, used for bottling, parcelling and other coarser applications, run thin when heated, and are comparatively brittle, whereas fine wax should soften slowly and is tenacious and adhesive.

Being the entry for SEALING WAX in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, the text of which lies within the public domain.

Seal"ing wax` (?).

A compound of the resinous materials, pigments, etc., used as a material for seals, as for letters, documents, etc.

 

© Webster 1913.

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