The Europeans got to know on the process of batik 'canting' or 'tulis' in the early 1800s from a book written by Raffles, 'The History of Java'. The batik 'stamp' or also know as batik 'cap' was developed almost a century later, in the mid 1900 [1]. Preparation of batik wax is an easy process as long as you know the melting temperature of each ingredient. Always start with material having the highest melting temperature. Once it has fully melted, then only add in other ingredients in the order of decreasing melting temperature. In Indonesia, the ingredients for batik wax consist of a combination of paraffin, beeswax (kote), residue of pine-gum distillation (gondorukem), cat's-eye resin (damar), microwax, recycled wax (lilin gladhagan), and animal fat [1]. In Malaysia, the main constituents of batik wax would be a mixture of paraffin, microcrystalline wax, beeswax, dammar or vegetable oil.
An excerpt on the procedure of melting batik wax [1] is shared below.
'After deciding the composition of each amount of the batik wax ingredient, a batik artisan heats the stove and starts the process with cat's-eye resin (melting point 85 deg C), followed by the residue of pinegum distillation (melting point 80 deg C) when the first ingredient starts melting, then continues with other ingredients until to animal fat (45 deg C, the lowest melting point). When all ingredients mix well, usually added by kerosene to make the wax dissolve properly,'
References:
[1] Batik Artisan's Judgement of Batik Wax Quality and Its Criteria: An Application of the Many- Facet Rasch Model.
Comments