First you need to clean your traps. If you have access to a propane burner and a metal bucket (like they use for boiling crawdads) you're in business. Put your traps in the bucket, add 5 gallons of water and set it on the burner to heat. As it begins to get warm, but before it boils, add one cup of Sani-Flush. Bring it to a boil and then lower the heat until you have a slow boil. Let it boil for about 20 minutes. Turn off the burner and take the bucket off. Use a garden hose and run water into the bucket while it spills over the top. The oil and contaminants on the traps will be on the top of the water and when you overflow the bucket the oil will flow out. DO NOT pull your traps up through the oil on top....it'll just get back on them.
After you've cleaned your traps you need to leave them outside until they get a light, uniform coating of rust on them. The rust will help the dye stick to them.
When a good coat of rust is on the traps it's time to dye them. Walnut hulls or logwood dye works wells. Put your traps in a metal bucket, add water to cover them completely by 2 or 3 inches and then add the amount of dye for the number of traps you have. Heat the water to a boil and leave it boiling for about an hour. After the hour, use a hook to fish out one of your traps and see if it's dyed. It should have a uniform blue/black color. If it does, turn off the heat and fish the traps out. Hang them to dry. If the color is not uniform or dark enough add some more dye and let them boil longer. Some people will tell you to add the wax to the dye water and when you pull the traps out they'll be coated with wax. They will, but wax will not consistently stick to wet traps. After the wax dries some of it will flake off.
To wax the traps....and you should wax them because, 1) it helps with scent control, 2) it helps prevent rust, and 3) it will make your traps fire faster, get yourself some Gulf paraffin wax (most supermarkets have it) and some rosin (you can normally find powdered rosin at bowling alleys). For 10 pounds of wax you'll need 1 oz of rosin. I don't recommend beeswax. Beeswax is collected from honeycombs and will have a sweet smell to it. Most animals can smell it and you could have dig-ups if you use beeswax. I also wouldn't use that candlewax you have unless it's raw paraffin. Most wax for candles has scent added to it. Once you get the wax and rosin, put your wax into a small metal pail. Put it on your burner and melt the wax then add your rosin. Put a thermometer in the wax and heat it to 225 degrees. Be very careful with this wax. Wax is highly flammable and your propane burner is an open flame. When the wax is heated to 225 degrees, take one of your traps (make sure there is absolutely no water on it), put it on a hook (I use an old garden hoe with just the hook and not the blade) and then lower it slowly into the wax. To get a nice thin coat of wax, the trap needs to heat to the temperature of the wax. This will take about 30-45 seconds. Once the trap has been in for that long, slowly remove it from the wax and let the excess wax drip back into the pail. When it's done dripping hang the trap until the wax is dry. After it's dry, don't handle it with bare hands again.
That's the right way to prepare a trap, but others will tell you differently.
There are also other "preparations" you can and SHOULD do, but these are optional. All these would be done before you do the steps above. You need to file the end of the dog until it's perfectly flat and doesn't have any burrs on it. You need to file the notch in the pan until it's flat also (most of them are pressed at the factory and aren't uniform). If you want to night latch your pans or dogs then you should also do this now.
The final preparation is done after the traps are cleaned, dyed and waxed. This last adjustment is setting the pan tension. Most modern traps have a brass screw that holds the pan to the frame. This screw can be tightened to set the amount of pressure it takes to fire the trap. Most canine traps are set for 2-2.5 pounds. Most trapping supply houses sell a simple scale to test this.
Other optional preparations include laminating the jaws, four coiling, baseplating and customizing your chains. Some people do it, some don't.
Taking care of your traps shows you are a professional and care about minimizing the damage done to animals. In today's environment, it's imperative for us all to keep a good image.
Mike
