thanks for the tip.

i was wondering why after simple green, a bunch of wipes and soaking in paraffin for 2-3 hours that my chain only lasts about 150 miles and i feel it's starting to make some noise. perhaps the leftover simple green is keeping the wax from really getting in there.

i cleaned my chain, soaked it in paraffin for 2 hours, rode 100 miles and though it's really clean, towards the end of the ride i felt it didn't sound as smooth as it did early on. i put some squirt lube on it for tomorrow's 100 miler.

john

John,

I spent a whole late fall, winter and early spring riding a paraffin waxed chain, power meter equipped bike on my Tacx Neo trainer. When I first set the unit up, the Neo and my Power2max read within ~ 1 watt of each other when producing 200 watts and I was thrilled by their agreement. Then over the weeks of use there was a slow shift in the two units reading. I took that as some sort of drift in one or both of the meters and was somewhat disappointed in the situation. Eventually after riding that chain well over 1000 miles there was ~ 4 watts difference in power reading between the Neo and Power2max. Long story short after rewaxing the chain the two meters were back with ~ 1 watt again. So what I'd been seeing rather than power meter drift was decreased lubrication. This next winter season I'll take the time to track the change. My recollection is that the two meters read very close for the first 300 to 400 miles. Waxed chains are definitely especially quite the first 50 miles or so but I believe even though they get louder they're still well lubricated for another 300 miles or so. The Squirt certainly won't hurt though especially if it eases your mind.

YMMV,

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

hugh,

as always, you provide great info. thanks for that. now i'll know that i'm not crazy and i can let it go a few weekends before i keep cleaning it.

i have a question though. if i have a brand new chain, is it best to run it through simple green and ultrasonic for a few mins. wipe it dry, then use denatured alcohol to rinse it (then wipe it), let it dry, then wax it?

i generally heat the wax on high, then put it down to keep warm and put the chain in, is it best to use low/high vs keep warm?

john

Finally took the plunge and cooked my chain in a small Walmart slow cooker today. I used one pound of Parowax mixed with one cup of paraffin candle oil initially. However, the wax was still hard and brittle when cooled down to room temperature, so I added another 1/4 cup of paraffin oil to the mix. I still don't think I have the consistency correct as the wax now scrapes off the chain easily. How much paraffin oil is everyone using?

Zero paraffin oil, zip, nadda. You don't want a sticky mess. You're trying to get away from a sticky mess.

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

I re-waxed the chain on the tri bike Friday evening and I think this is the third time this chain has been dipped into hot wax. With going by the thorough initial cleaning of a new chain in several mineral spirit baths and a couple denatured alcohol baths before waxing the first waxing lasted almost 1,000 miles. The second waxing last much less and probably because I had a few wet rides. This third re-waxing I wiped off any grit but that was all that I did before putting it into the hot wax for about 30 minutes. (note to self to order more quick links) Saturday and Sunday's ride were nice to have a quiet chain again. I have not really tracked wattage on the chains.

I hope to at least start keeping track of training time and/or miles for each bike chain.

I have to say that I am still happy with the result of a continual clean drive train and the chain feels just as smooth to me as an oiled chain. I dropped the chain once on Saturday's ride and not even the slightest black on my finger. I have friends that look at my bike and ask if I just cleaned the drive train, but the bike they have seen has over 500 miles in wet and dry conditions and it looks like it was just detailed.

Edit: my point from the ramblings above was that it appeared the initial treatment of the new chains with the thorough steps, such as from Molten Speed Wax directions, seems to have given me the most miles and I am getting less miles out of re-waxing. However, it is still a super simple process to re-wax even it I do get just a few hundred miles out of it.

Just as a general question to put out there, has anyone been using waxed chains for long enough to comment on chain life of a waxed chain vs oiled?

I've noticed huge differences in the time (or miles) it takes for a chain reach 0.5% stretch with a chain that is regularly cleaned vs a neglected one.

I'm still on the fence as to whether to give waxing a try, but the relatively short "lube-life" of a chain waxing makes me wonder whether I'm going to start wearing through chains more quickly.

For chain life I am new to waxing starting this year so I am curious as to how it will play out. I was thinking about it this weekend how any of us could make this comparison. I suppose we can only compare to ourselves since we have variable route conditions and torque applied? Meaning that I am currently recovering from a crash and torn PCL so I am not putting much torque on my chains and I am using fairly flat routes in this recovery. Others may be putting a lot of torque on the pedals with training intensity and route conditions.

Curious to see if anyone is keeping track of this as well.

Sure, it'd be difficult to pin definitive numbers on something like that, but just wondering if anyone has any stark anecdotal observations such as going from 6 months per chain down to 2 months.

I'm keen to give it a try, but I think I'll save it as a winter fettling project.

Hmm, I was following this video: https://www.youtube.com/...=4&v=gF9nbwsaSHs

According to the author (starting at 3:28 in the vid), paraffin wax by itself is a bit too hard and will just flake off in shards. You would need to soften it up a bit by using paraffin oil.

Many thousands of miles on the chains for 4 different bikes tell me that plain paraffin is just fine and doesn't flake off. I actually wipe down the hot chain to remove the bulk of the residual paraffin as I pull it from my hot pot so there's only a very thin layer on the outer plates.

YMMV,

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

That's weird. I've been using simple green as a degreaser for awhile now and never had a problem. I'll let my chains sit in it over night if I'm doing the waxing treatment.

Have I just been lucky?

It can take longer than overnight to take off a finish depending on what kind of finish and coating is additionally protecting it. However, it's def true - be careful with leaving Simple Green on metal parts - I've had some aluminum chainrings with some sort of alu-alloy coating corrode over time; at first I thought it was normal sweat-related corrosion, but turns out its' much more likely to be from simple green, as it even worsened significantly when I WASN'T riding the bike over a few months due to the combo of residual Simplegreen + humidity. Lesson learned.

As stated above, you don't need to soften it, although it is possible that softening it may make it stick to the chain (but also attract dirt) a bit better.

I've been using 100% block paraffin without oil no problem, and it runs super clean. But I do re-wax my chain every 3-4 weeks of riding just to be sure; I don't try and push my limits with it, as I know its not as tenacious as those wet weather lubes.

Okay, will try 100% paraffin blocks next time. Regarding the brands, any differences between Parowax and Gulf Wax? Do you have a preference for one over the other?

Getting ready to to switch to waxed chains and the one question I have is with the clean drive trains do you lube jockey wheels separately or leave then alone. Never did anything with them because I figure chain lube was enough.

Chain lube is enough

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Good question.
I forgot to clean off the jockey wheels on one of my bikes and was surprised how much dirty oil transferred to the new waxed chain. The other two bikes I dampened a rag with mineral spirits and cleaned off the old caked on dirty mess from the teeth. I did not add anything to the jockey wheels once cleaned. One of the bikes has anodized alloy wheels and it still sounds and runs smooth.

To continue with the gun analogy....gun owners will sometimes wash guns with hot, soapy water alone. Then they'll pour some boiling water through them to accelerate the drying process. Lube when dry. Simply Green can strip the finish off of a gun. It depends on the type of finish, the quality of that finish, and how long is it left on before rinsing. No need to use Simply Green. Hot soapy water will suffice.

So I gave this a try at the weekend, just used straight up paraffin wax, no additives, with reasonably successful results.

I was following the Molten Speed Wax instructions so deliberately didn't wipe down the chain after removing from the wax, just hung it up to cool and dry. The results was a chain coated rather heavily on the outer links with unnecessary dried-on wax. I'm running a KMC X11-EL chain that has cutouts in the outer and inner plates and all of these were clogged up with wax too.

I've been on a couple of quick 20 mile rides since and some of it has flaked off (making a bit of a mess on my nice clean cassette, chainrings and jockey wheels in the process) but it still seems like a wipe-down would be beneficial after the waxing. What do you guys do?

Should I wipe down the chain when it comes out of the molten wax?

As I pull the chain up out of the wax pot I pull it through a paper towel once if not twice taking off the majority of the excess wax. I also heat the wax above 212*F so it has an extremely low viscosity. It seems to work for me, my wife and the gal we train. I'm not sure why one would want the excess.

YMMV,

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Yeah, I guess one possible issue is the wiping down drawing some of the molten wax out from inside the rollers; could reduce the lifespan of the treatment? For sure, taking it out and just leaving it to cool will leave maximum wax on/inside the chain, but it does seem to create a lot of mess.

Do as sciguy said - just wipe it down with a paper towel while it's still hot/wet.

Even with your heavy paraffin coating, it'll still self-clean though - give it more miles and the extra stuff will flake off even more. That wax 'mess' you show is still a ton cleaner than any traditional lube that blackens quickly after outdoor riding!

My feeling is that the capillary forces keep the spaces between the pins, bushings and plates filled with wax and that the wiping just removes excess from the outer surfaces of the plates that don't need it.

YMMV,

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.