Beaumontage stopping

I gave the beaumontage stopping recipe a try the other day and although the stuff that I managed to extract works fine the recipe didn’t go exactly to plan.

I heated the colophony and beeswax (equal volumes) in the double boiler, stirring every now and then. After an hour only 50% of the colophony had mixed, the other 50% forming a sludge. Another half hour and a tad more beeswax produced no change. Moving away from the recipe I added some lamp black powder, took it off the heat, removed the sludge (like a thick toffy) and the rest of the stuff cooled down and hardened.

With an old pair of gloves on I rolled the colophony sludge into a ball the size of a golf ball – I estimate that this was about half of the original volume of colophony I started with. I poured the remaining mixture into a container to set – this is the stuff I’m using as stopping.

Does this sound normal ? (other than the golf ball bit :D)

Best wishes,
Eastie