Life of a waxed chain

[zap]

Originally Posted by muz

I put about 125 miles a week on my commuter, and I am definitely not dealing with waxing a chain every weekend. Currently I use NFS, re-applied maybe once a month.

I ride that much on weekends. I waxed some chains......25 years ago. It was a waste of time.

Nothing lasts anywhere near as long as the lube that comes with a new chain. Nuts to strip that away. Reapply with NFS or whatever as needed for the next 3-4k and then toss the chain. Ti cassette should last 20 plus thousand miles.

Ok, if reducing drivetrain friction is your goal.....racing, use a chain for 700 or so dry miles, clean and refresh the chain with your favorite oil based lube.

[robertbb]

Originally Posted by Dave

Using solvent dissolved wax, there will be far less wax to flake off. A week of riding for me is only about 130 miles, but instead of removing a chain, all I do is apply more lube, that only takes a couple of minutes. Every 3-4 weeks, I'll take the chain off to clean it, and put a different chain in my rotation on the bike.

What do you mean by solvent dissolved wax?

[weaponsgrade]

Just to be clear, that 120 miles I reported are all dirt miles. The 270mi was dirt/road but mostly dirt. The 400mi was dirt/road but mostly road (this gravel bike is also a 2x whereas the others are 1x - not sure if that makes a difference). MSW states 300mi between waxes but I don’t think they made a distinction between road and mtn riding. It’s reassuring to see that my dirt miles are in the ballpark of what others have found.

[JStonebarger]

I don't get too many miles per wax on our cyclocross bikes, but it all depends on the conditions. I haven't really counted MPW on or off the road. I like waxing for the free speed and convenience.

[Ralph]

Originally Posted by zap

I ride that much on weekends. I waxed some chains......25 years ago. It was a waste of time.

Nothing lasts anywhere near as long as the lube that comes with a new chain. Nuts to strip that away. Reapply with NFS or whatever as needed for the next 3-4k and then toss the chain. Ti cassette should last 20 plus thousand miles.

Ok, if reducing drivetrain friction is your goal.....racing, use a chain for 700 or so dry miles, clean and refresh the chain with your favorite oil based lube.

My view also. Wax is a poor lube. Much of the mess some report with NFS and other lubes, comes from over oiling. Just a few drops around the chain every ride or couple rides is usually enough.

[JStonebarger]

Originally Posted by Ralph

My view also. Wax is a poor lube...

Except when actually tested. Then wax outperforms all the other lubes, with less friction, longer life, etc.

[Dave]

A solvent like naptha (camp stove fuel) can only dissolve a limited amount of wax - 1 ounce by weight requires 6-7 ounces of solvent. Any less solvent will just be a mush. At temps in the mid 60's it will turn to a mush, but placing the dispensing bottle in some hot water returns it to a liquid in a couple of minutes.

Putting the lube in the microwave does nothing. The solvent is nonpolar and does not react like water or oils.

I've used this lube for about 5000 miles now and found no short comings. It's very clean, lasts for a reasonable number of miles and is easily reapplied.

Some users of hot wax never clean their chains. They just swish them in the wax and call it good. I think that's inadequate. I take the chain off every 3-4 weeks and use more naptha to clean the chain. Two rinses are needed to clean the chain thoroughly. I buy Crown brand for under $9 per gallon at Wal-Mart. That's a lot less than the typical price for mineral spirits.

I made up a big batch with a 4 ounce block of paraffin. It's going to last several years.

[oldguy00]

Originally Posted by JStonebarger

Except when actually tested. Then wax outperforms all the other lubes, with less friction, longer life, etc.

Exactly.... wax is only a poor lube for those that are too lazy to wax often enough and properly clean the chain.
Used properly, it is the fastest and cleanest. Double win.

[zap]

Originally Posted by oldguy00

Exactly.... wax is only a poor lube for those that are too lazy to wax often enough and properly clean the chain.
Used properly, it is the fastest and cleanest. Double win.

Folks don't have a choice but to wax the chain after a weekend of riding. A chirping chain is pretty annoying.

Wax is relativly clean and I'm sure it is fast for a 40K tt. Can't speak to longevity......I stopped waxing after 2-3 months. I was brewing beer that summer as well......I preferred doing that than performing chain voodoo.

In terms of what is best for bicycle chains, I rely on information from the likes of Campagnolo and Shimano.

[johnniecakes]

Where I work part time I meet with many vendors of power transmission components. These include gears, belts, sprockets and chains. I ask every engineer of chain suppliers about wax as a lube. I have never had any engineer tell me that wax is an acceptable lube. Companies spend millions on research and development of lubrication products.

Please ride what ever you prefer but in all the professional opinions and data I have been provided with not using an actual chain lubricant is "waxing" nostalgic back to a time when there were not as many good options

[makoti]

I've always been intrigued by waxing, but the frequency of it and replacing even master links every time stops me.
Riding 150 a week in season, I'd wax the chain weekly? Rotating in another chain would keep the bike on the road quickly, I guess. And the master links...a new one each time? I usually will stretch mine out for two uses, but more than that seems dicey & since I only pull the chain off once during its life right now, it works.
Currently an "NFS & wipe with a rag" guy.

[Dave]

Some of the previous posts point to why I use my home brew wax lube that contains some heavy weight oil. There is a real lubricant in the mix. No hot dipping, quick and easy relubing whenever needed without removing the chain. Dry and clean like hot waxing. I still prefer occasional chain removal for cleaning.

Wipperman quick links can be reused for the life of the chain, but their 12 speed chain and link have yet to be released.

[oldguy00]

Originally Posted by johnniecakes

Where I work part time I meet with many vendors of power transmission components. These include gears, belts, sprockets and chains. I ask every engineer of chain suppliers about wax as a lube. I have never had any engineer tell me that wax is an acceptable lube. Companies spend millions on research and development of lubrication products.

Please ride what ever you prefer but in all the professional opinions and data I have been provided with not using an actual chain lubricant is "waxing" nostalgic back to a time when there were not as many good options

Wax has been tested on bike chains to be just as slick and usually slicker than the best oils, even if only by a fraction. So knowing that it is just as fast , the real win then IMHO is the cleanliness of the wax. I love not having a grungy drivetrain, etc. I get that some people would think waxing a chain once every 1-2 weeks would be a pain, but some of us don't mind working on our bikes. And I've re-used my KMC quick links more times than I can remember.

[Dave]

As many have noted, there is never any evidence that pure paraffin works well as a lubricant. That's why I put heavy weight gear lube into my wax and naptha liquid lube. Today I did a little test to see how much oil in the paraffin was too much. I first took 2 ounces of paraffin and added 1 ounce of gear lube, then melted it down and mixed it well, before cooling it back down to hard wax. With that much oil in the paraffin, it scraped off the top of the hardened block, about the same as pure paraffin.

I then added another 1/2 ounce of gear lube and went through the same procedure. This time the paraffin was definitely soft and would probably leave more residue if it was mixed with naptha and then allowed to dry after applying it to a chain.

Unless my figures are off, I also figured that an ounce by weight of paraffin is about the same as a fluid ounce, so if you're mixing melted paraffin into naptha, both can be measured as a liquid.

With regard to how much solvent to mix with paraffin, it can be as low as 4 parts naptha to 1 part paraffin/oil mix, but the less solvent used, the warmer it must be before use. I suspect that some of the solvent has evaporated from my early batch of lube that's been sitting around in a water bottle for over a year.

With a 4/1 ratio, there is 4 ounces of naptha, and 1 ounce paraffin/oil that has .5 ounce of paraffin and .5 ounce of oil. That comes out to .5 ounce of oil in 5 ounces of lube, or 10%, which is a lot more than I have been reporting.

[JStonebarger]

Originally Posted by Dave

As many have noted, there is never any evidence that pure paraffin works well as a lubricant...

Simply not true.

In 2013 the VeloNews/Friction Facts study showed straight parrafin wax performing much better than any commercially available lube at the time. The same and subsequent studies have also shown that most additives to parrafin don't help it's performance, they hurt it.

Rationalize your own mixture however you want, but actual evidence to the contrary is out there.