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clean melted wax from concrete for staining later

wesalexleft

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 13, 2011
Messages
146
Location
Memphis, TN
I'm putting this in flooring, so the concrete experts can hopefully give some advice. I had a 18' x 38' outdoor patio poured in the late spring. I want to stain and seal it this fall, to tone down the brightness of the patio. I have a few patio tables on it currently, and one had a quart jar citronella candle on it. Roofers were here yesterday putting on a roof. I guess they moved the table and broke the candle. They then put the candle back on the table, but at 96+ degrees and sunny, the candle melted, and dripped onto the patio. Now I have what looks like an oil stain left from the wax and citronella oil. I waited till dark, and scraped as much of the wax off the surface that I could. Now I'm looking for a hopefully easy way to get the remaining penetrated wax/oil out of the patio.
A few searches told me to use vegetable oil, which would dilute the wax, then soak up as much as possible, then use a detergent cleaner. I don't want to spread the problem around, so looking for advice.
 
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jabin

Well-known member
Joined
May 3, 2007
Messages
526
Location
SW Ohio
just like getting it out of carpet. brown paper sack and a clothing iron set on low.

Cut a clean brown paper bag up and place it flat over the wax spot. Use the iron on low and keep it moving over the wax spot to heat the wax and transfer it to the brown paper. Keep moving the brown paper to clean spots to keep transferring the wax to the paper.

three or four hands help out
 
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Negen

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Joined
Jul 15, 2015
Messages
1,909
Location
Seatltle WA
I used to make candle's and used a soy type wax. And like mentioned above I used a torch to melt it and had some towels and absorbent card stock paper to soak it up. Don't go crazy with the torch. Rough it up a bit with a wire brush if it is on thick. After you get all you can get some clay cat little pound to a powder and then heat like hell the spot then put the powered clay down and heat again over that. Then pressure wash should be good enough. If the spot is still there when you go to seal I guess you could etch it down and use s thin layer of mortar patch stuff before you seal. The oil probably won't be and issue with the seal but the wax may cause odd looking spots. I think it depends on what you use to seal.

Sent from my G8141 using The Garage Journal mobile app
 

73surffisher

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 11, 2013
Messages
125
Location
Hampstead, MD
Way back when, we used an iron and a brown paper bag, , rough up the brown paper bag, lay it over the area, use the iron to heat it up , , the brown bag would absorb the wax and potentially the oil.
Similar to Negen approach , , but no torch, , oh and no steam setting
 
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