Ok two questions....

How much faster is the Molten Wax vs. paraffin from the hardware store?

and

When you get some black stuff at the bottom of your wax in the crock pot is there a way to skim off the clean wax and then get rid of the dirty wax? Or do you just spend the $.50 and put in all fresh wax now and then?

Oh snap, I'll just try decanting....

Depending on the shape of the bottom of your slow cooker you may well be able to turn the heat on long enough to pop the paraffin cake out whole. You can then turn it upside down and scrape off the polluted stuff with the appropriate sharp edged tool. It's easy to see when you get to clean paraffin.

I'll add some pictures to this post later.

Paraffin cake just popped out with crud on bottom


Part of the crud scraped off



Reasonably clean cake ready for more use



The top cake had been used to lube on the order of 20 times with a good bit of paraffin added over time. This was the first time I decrudded it.

YMMV


Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Yes, I do a very basic wax job for my training chains. typically just dip them and give them a quick wipe down with a paper towel while hot. Do that basically once every 3-4 weeks (500mi, and I basically split time most weeks 50/50 between road bike and tri bike). After I've ridden them one time, they don't seem to be particularly sticky.

I have a bottle of squirt, but I rarely use it because I find that waxing every 500mi is plenty (where I live) for training.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Thanks!

Has anyone tried wax with a dash of another lube on top?

I ask because I seem to find that drivechain feels much more slippery when I put a tiny dash of triflow on the top of a waxed chain, this is on the neo though.

Adding a wet lube on top in large part defeats one of paraffin's chief advantages, the cleanliness aspect. This winter I ran one paraffined chain ~ 1200 miles between coating on my trainer bike with my Neo and had nary a squeak, squawk or other problem. I do run high velocity fans so there is no sweat that ever hits the chain.

YMMV,

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

I'm not bothered about the cleanliness side of things on the turbo.

The wax doesn't necessarily play well with other lubes. I used the Rolled. Gold on a chain along with a wax-based lube and it was just a gooey mess. I do use the squirt wax on waxed chains though. You are basically adding a liquid wax on top of old wax, so it works quite well.

I know you weren't asking me, but Harbor Freight has them at a very modest price.

Don't take my word for it, I may be applying too little ;-)
I apply it pretty generously to the inside bottom, and just spin it for a while. Then I lightly wipe off the excess - leaving it still pretty saturated but just not dripping.
I also use a paper towel to get the excess off of the jockeys and chain ring. It's still there when I'm done, just not as much.
Then I let it dry before riding.

For subsequent coatings, I just use a clean lint free rag to wipe off as much as I can from the chain, then re-apply, perhaps lighter than the first time.

I did get the black gunk you mention once.
Possible factors: 1) bike that lives on the trainer 90% of its use, 2) brand new KMC chain, 3) chain has "skeleton" side plates where the holes could retain excess wax from the first application, 4) brand new cassette, maybe giving off tiny particles of metal wear?
For whatever reason my commuter and mountain bikes never got like that, only my Tri bike.

Squirt has pretty detailed application instructions on their website - which I am not following exactly.

I've tried a combination of wax lubricants
Squirt with LPS1 Works OK
LPS1 with T9 Boeshield is the best.

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res, non verba

Here's my method... your mileage may vary. I had a chain (lubed with oil) that I took on a gravel ride and it seems like it brought back about half the road. I unhooked the chain and dropped the whole thing into about a cup of clean engine oil. Swished things around until a lot of gunk came off, then wiped and transferred to a second oil bath. Again, 10w30 (I'm not using that in any cars at the moment so it's just sitting anyway). I then got out the Park chain brush and scrubbed out the remaining dirt from the inside of the chain and flexed each link back and forth to ensure the oil got in there and that old lube had a chance to get flexed out. The objective was to get the grunge out of the chain, but to make sure the inside of the chain wasn't loaded with degreaser, which is what happens when you use any of the degreaser solvents.

Then I used an old one-liter tomato can to melt a couple of old candles. I filled a small (2 or 3 quart) sauce pan with water, then put the tomato can, with the candles and chain, in it to make a double boiler. On the stove (the wife is also a cyclist and so this is OK) until the water boils and the wax melts, and the chain submerges in the wax. I swish the chain around to make sure it gets fully coated by the liquid wax. Once about 10 minutes have gone by, I take all that to the garage and pull the chain out, wipe it immediately (before the wax solidifies) and it's clean as a whistle. If there is any oil left in the links and pins, that's all to the good - it's sealed in there by the wax. I let the wax congeal in the can, and I'll re-use it next time until it's too dirty.

Using the boiling water technique ensures that the wax never gets over about 200F, so it's pretty safe as long as you don't spill the wax on yourself.

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Less is more.

Ok, so I have gone through the whole process and waxed up a few chains and I have one installed on the bike. It certainly is a lot cleaner than traditional oil lubes but it is anything but quiet. Granted, I have only turned the pedals with the bike on the workstand for ten minutes and, while there is no squeaking as you'd get from an underlubed chain, there is a lot of chain/cog meshing noise. It is loud. Is this something that will improve with a full hour or so on the bike on the road? If not, I will be back to my old lube pretty swiftly. After a full bike clean and fresh lubing of the chain, I used to not even hear my chain for a few rides.

A waxed chain is a bit louder than a freshly oiled chain but so what. Being perfectly silent does not mean less friction. Riding outdoors the extra noise won't bother you at unless you suffer from significant OCD.

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Offhand I don't recall it being all that noisy to start with, on the stand.The amount of noise does vary a lot depending on how much cross-chaining there is for a given chainring/cog combination. On the road or on the trainer it's essentially noiseless.

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Less is more.

OP here - FWIW, I agree that the waxed chain is actually louder and more mechanical sounding than a well lubed oil chain up on the stand.

I honestly don't notice it on the road though - the buzz from my powermeter hub while coasting is MUCH louder than any chain noise. I only notice the extra noise when I've got the bike up on the stand, but yes, while it's up on the stand, it does sound louder to me than the oiled chain - my first instinct was to think "I gotta oil this chain!" and then remembered it was waxed and done.

On the road though, I've never once thought 'wow, my chain is noisy!" since I've waxed it - it sounds perfectly fine, albeit not dead-quiet. And although it still picks up small gritty road debris specks after rides, there is no chain tattoo for sure, and you can grab the chain outright with your hand pretty hard, and only have small light specks of the blackened wax which rub off between your hands really easy. No tenacious black grime that needs degreaser to remove. That's been the biggest and best change for me.

I won't reveal the numerical secrets of paid Friction Facts results, but I will say that I only use my homemade wax brew (with PTFE and MoS2) for the most "A" of "A" races. Straight wax for everything else.

But the #'s are in the Friction Facts report of straight wax vs. wax with additives.

Meh-- I don't doubt it works, but it's just too much time and fuss for me. I'm time crunched as it is just to fit my training in, let alone fussing with a bike. My chains typically are installed once and don't come off the bike until they are replaced-- just an occasional wipe down, some drops of oil, and another wipe. I just use the $18 variety KMC chains or whatever I can source cheaply, and change out a little early.

louder at first, gone within 30 minutes. here's proof of how good this stuff is - 110 miles of gravel grinder racing this weekend. Drive train looks almost perfect.

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Yeah, I was that way in my pre-bike maintenance days (years).

Now that I'm into maintaining my bike in excellent condition after learning the hard way what 5+ years of low maintenance can do to it, I'm finding that waxing the chain is faster than lubing it - if you do the correct method of clean & lube, you're talking bike chain cleaning followed by careful link by link application of lube. The wax chain is literally dip the chain in the melted wax, wipe off, and mount. Don't even have to clean the chain before dunking it since waxed chains stay so clean.

If I weren't working on my bikes now it wouldn't be as big a deal, but now that I am, it's a huge deal for me.

Ok, so I put two hours on the bike this morning after re-waxing a chain last night. I had a closer look at the MSW site and it seems I err'ed in wiping down the chains lightly when they came out of the wax bath. So I didn't do that this time and simply hung the chain to drip dry.

Well, I can say that it's 'one and done' for me. The noise did diminish compared to my initial waxing but the whole ride it felt like my drivetrain was gunked up and the shifting was anything but crisp. I took a look when I got home and the derr pulleys were coated with waxy gunk and the chain was covered in globs of it with a good bit that had flaked off stuck to my chain stay.

Well, that experiment is done. I fully stripped the chains I had waxed in an OMS bath and then put them through the ultrasonic cleaner with more OMS and I will be reverting to the NFS lube I was using that, while not as clean to the touch as was, is a heck of a lot quieter and better running. I'll put up with a five second wipe down of the chain after each ride to keep things clean.

I suppose that's where the YMMV comes into play.

My experience so far has been quieter than oil lubed chains from what I can discern and there has been no build up of wax on the drive train. When I pull the chains out of the hot wax I don't wipe them and hang them on a nail to cool. After they have cooled for a while I sit and break the links loose before I put the chain back on the bike. Although I really don't need to do this it is kind of addicting like popping bubble wrap. There is a very slight amount of wax that comes off the chain while breaking the links loose.

I had over 800 miles on my first waxed chain this year before it really started to make much noise.
I am not doubting your experience. I am just saying it looks like many of us are having different experiences with this process. While reading the different methods in these posts I kind of understand why there are different experiences.

You described exactly what I did.

My guess is that you were either too close to the melt temperature when you took the chain out, or your chain wasn't clean before you waxed it. The chain should be slick and clean after it's cooled. If there are globs of wax, that isn't good IMO. My wax is ~200F, and I do wipe it with a paper towel in addition.

I didn't see anyone mention this, but I rotate 3 chains, so they all get waxed in the same session about once a month. Chains, cassette, and rings get replaced together.

Someone mentioned paraffin oil. That's sounds potentially interesting but I've never heard of using that.

I pretty much followed MSW's directions to the letter. I started with brand new chains and put them through two baths with OMS (one in an US cleaner) and two rinses with de-natured alcohol. They were clean and completely free of anything that would contaminate the wax. As for temperature, I heated the wax up to 195-200F as per my candy thermometer and swished the chain around in that for about a minute before pulling it and hanging it to drip.