Wax on stove

Mstech3 said:

So I have a rather unusual question for all of you I just recently installed a buck stove and am quite happy with it. So the question is about my my wife she wants to put scented wax in a cast iron skillet on top the stove so when it gets hot it will melt the wax and in turn (make the house smell good) any thoughts on this good bad? My worry is the wax getting to hot and causing a fire

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Paraffin wax melts around 195 degrees and soy wax around 120 degrees. The wax would get too hot on the wood stove and potentially cause a fire. Definitely not a good idea!

Wax must be melted in a double-boiler set-up to prevent ignition. The pan with the wax, in other words, must be set into a larger pan of water. I was thinking this was a joke or something, but maybe not??

Plus, even with the double-boiler thing, one must be careful not to let the water all dry up. Not worth it; just get scented candles and burn them somewhere away from the stove.

Coming from someone who did this once, don't. I thought hmmm, I have one of those fancy scentsy things, why not just put the smelly stuff in a container on the stove?

Bad idea.

Sounds like wax is a no-go but you can use potpourri in water in a pot or steamer and get the same effect.

I bought the wife a candle warmer, best 13 bucks ever spent. She used to leave candles burning all the time, always scared she would burn the house down.

SCOTT S. said:

I bought the wife a candle warmer, best 13 bucks ever spent. She used to leave candles burning all the time, always scared she would burn the house down.
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I think there might be a better chance of that Chinese made warmer burning down the house! ( I have opened up a bunch of Chinese electronics and have found many times the ground is cut and not even connected inside the unit!! Also have seen neutral wires as the switch instead of the hot. Scary stuff)

I have melted a lot of wax (bees wax) on top of my stove. I first thought it would be too hot so I set it on top of a piece of stone ( granite) spaced up with a piece of door seal gasket. This keeps things from scratching the soapstone. It would not melt to wax fully. I have to move it down to the actual top to get the wax to melt. If this was a scented wax situation I would guess a pot sitting on a trivet would work well. The melting point of wax is below 200 degrees but the flash point is far closer to 400 degrees. A candy thermometer can easily monitor this.