Another thread got me thinking.
Has there been any testing done to compare waxing with household paraffin wax vs a purchased product like Molten speed wax or Silca Hot wax?
Curious to hear the non marketing reasons for going with the more expensive products.
or.
Inversely is there a reason one shouldn’t simply use regular paraffin?
Just thinking I can get 10lbs of Paraffin for like $30 off amazon vs. $40 for the silca stuff which is 17.5 oz
Just save the money and use Gulf Wax.
Per MSW’s own marketing material, paraffin is just about as good as their product and a fraction of the price.
exactly what I was looking for. Thank you
I thought Silica or Molten Speed Wax were doing a re-formulation of their paraffin & was not tested against the competition or even their own older formula. Anyone know anything about that?
Not sure if Friction Facts did the testing or was going to…
I use paraffin on my daily chain. I have a race chain set aside with MSW.
Is there a reason you use one over the other in a given sceberio? Other than cost?
Data you can point to of msw being worth it?
I wasn’t really looking to see who does what I’m looking for validation of one being superior compared to the other
Though this doesn’t answer the OP’s question, as a recent convert from wax I have to say that I recently switched from waxing (absolute black) to Silcas other product Super Secret. It’s way, way easier to live and if I believe the data, it’s just as good. Every few hundred miles I wipe down the chain with an alcohol soaked rag and then reapply. It’s literally 5 minutes every couple of weeks. The bike cleanliness is same as wax too. Is there any reason to continue waxing when there’s a product like Super Secret?
I’m not sure about friction but since waxing also only takes 5 minutes or so I’m not sure what the value of converting would be unless it does have a difference in friction and wear
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Though this doesn’t answer the OP’s question, as a recent convert from wax I have to say that I recently switched from waxing (absolute black) to Silcas other product Super Secret. It’s way, way easier to live and if I believe the data, it’s just as good. Every few hundred miles I wipe down the chain with an alcohol soaked rag and then reapply. It’s literally 5 minutes every couple of weeks. The bike cleanliness is same as wax too. Is there any reason to continue waxing when there’s a product like Super Secret?I use a combo, standard household paraffin wax is my base, but I use Super Secret as a on bike top up and what happens over time is the tungsten disulfide seems to move to my paraffin and it now has some that adds back on the next waxing. So I do a combo, plain paraffin with the super secret.
I have been told by Silca they use a higher grade of paraffin (stuff that is more pure and a narrower melting point typically used for microscopic sample prep) which is more expensive and harder to get. I am really happy with my solution. I have many thousand km on my chain and it is still well within tolerance on my Park Tool chain checker.
That $40 bag has lasted over a year waxing four different bikes (chains) for about 8000 miles. Not sure what the difference is but at that price I’m in.
Not bad.
But why soend unnecessary money?
If 1pound lasts 1 year then the 20 pounds you can buy off Amazon will last 20 years
That’s a $360ish dollar savings
… I know triathletes don’t give a crao about spending unnecessary money but I just can’t seem to justify it if it isn’t proven to add value
There has been testing. Friction Facts published results in 2014 that included MSW and paraffin. MSW was the fastest at the time around 4.6W and paraffin wax was close behind at 4.8W. Paraffin was faster than all the drip lube at the time, except Squirt. Also faster than Pedro’s, Fast Wax, Finishline, and TriFlow wax mixtures at 5-6.5W.
I recall that also. The plain cheap Gulf Wax does very well. Additives can improve it very slightly.
There is a lot of detailed analysis on the zerofrictioncycling site on testing different waxes but I don’t recall him testing household paraffin. There may be a discussion on it in one of the write ups though.