Chain Waxing

It's fun and £8 for a 1kg paraffin vs. £50 for 180ml of UFO speaks for itself.

Interesting. At the moment I'm only using plain paraffin wax, no PTFE or MoS2, but probably everything going on the bike is harming something somewhere.

For just £100 I will guarantee your chain will be different to when you handed it to me.

Does it work? Do you recommend?

Not riding enough to tell. I'm also still learning the cleaning process so my first couple of chains probably aren't the best. I did flat the SS the other day and after dumping the chain in the dirt and handling it to stick it back on I was happy with how little residue was left on my fingers. If that was the same chain a week earlier I'd have been covered in oil. So, for the carpet in here it's probably going to be great, which was half the goal.

So, for the carpet in here it's probably going to be great

Main bit I'm interested in. Cleaning bikes makes me want to die. I think I'll pester my friends and see if we can split an ultrasonic cleaner and slow cooker

see if we can split an ultrasonic cleaner and slow cooker

Surely they will then be guaranteed to leak?

Half and half, sealed together with grout. Does both jobs at the same time. The Waxyomatic

I got LBS to clean first two chains. You could also do the 'container shake' if you didn't want to shell out for a US cleaner. Slow cooker was £15 from Robert Dyas so probably the cheapest part of this equation.

Future cleans will obviously be easier as there will be less shit on the chain.

Have you ridden it in the wet yet?

Much less interested after reading you have to redo it after every 2(?) wet rides...

Obvs.

Main issue now is filtering all my degreaser so I can reuse it - the coffee filters are pretty shit at this.

I need to do the other half's SS new chain, I want to do my turbo chain before tomorrow (currently it's UFO Drip) and I've still got a pile of used stuff from the cupboard to clean.

Only wet roads, not rain.

MSW say:
"If chain was ridden in wet conditions, cleaning not required, but some cleaning will keep wax cleaner in SC for subsequent chains:

After wet ride rinse off chain and other drivetrain components with water and wipe with rag to remove dirt and dry chain. Note: recommend re-waxing chain after no more than two consecutive wet rides to prevent oxidation. If chain is extremely dirty, clean with mineral spirits to remove majority of grime before waxing."

That's why most people have a couple of chains in rotation per bike so they can just swap the chain and rewax the other when required.

I've been waxing my chains for over two years now and have no intentions of going back to lube; as you've found it's a bit of hassle getting started, buying equipment, degreasing chains etc etc but once you get yourself set up and into the swing of it, it's fantastic.

My motivations were very similar to yours', keeping the drivetrain cleaner and reportedly with the added benefit of better efficiency. Anecdotally I would have said that in my experience the lifespan of the chains was a little bit worse, so I was surprised by the data in the CyclingTips link you posted, but perhaps I've been trying to eke out too many miles between waxings.

Would you recommend buying an ultrasonic degreaser then? I've always done my initial (new) chain cleanings with a brush, repeated dunkings in solvent(s) and ultimately, dumping them some molten paraffin wax, which always flushes out some remaining grease in there; I usually use some old wax for this first run and then switch it out for some fresh stuff for all the subsequent waxings.

For actually waxing the chains, I used to just use an old camping mess tin on the hob, but this year I splashed out on the same Breville mini-slow cooker that you posted; takes a good kilo of wax to fill it up and as such, takes a good hour to melt down each time, but keeps things nice and contained and doesn't feel quite so sketchy as having a big dish of molten paraffin above an open flame! I have 4 chains on the go at the moment and just wait until they all need re-waxing and do a whole batch at once; I just give them a quick wipe down with a clean rag to remove any dust/dirt and chuck them straight back in the molten wax; and also give the cassette/derailleurs a wipe down of all the accumulated wax flakes at the same time because it does build up.

Finally, I've tried both with and without the PTFE and MoS2 additives; I'd take it or leave it to be honest. It might be saving you a couple of Watts, but they both sink to the bottom of the molten wax, so I'm always a bit worried that they're mixed in with any grit and dirt that might make its way in there and as you swish it around to mix up the additives, your also mixing in all that (potential) grit. The MoS2 does give it the wax a bit of a grey tint, but it doesn't really "stain" anything, if anything it makes it a bit easier to spot the wax flakes that accumulate around your cassette/jockey wheels/cogs.

Good luck with your waxing experiments!

Would you recommend buying an ultrasonic degreaser then? I've always done my initial (new) chain cleanings with a brush, repeated dunkings in solvent(s) and ultimately, dumping them some molten paraffin wax, which always flushes out some remaining grease in there;

Yeah, I like it because I don't want to have to be there working on this stuff - busy hippy is busy breaking something else. I can just run the US cleaner while I do other stuff then rinse/wipe clean the parts when its done.

Good idea keeping an old and new wax block.

kilo of wax

Nah, I broke the kilo block I had into 4 pieces and only use one at a time.
250g of wax easily covers a chain. Also I split that 250g into smaller pieces the first time to speed up melting.

I guess If I was doing a batch of chains I'd add some more.

Just had a bash at this, while my bike is in bits waiting for frame to come back from the painters.
Bag of paraffin wax from Hobbycraft, slung the chain into an old saucepan and waited for the bubbles to stop. Couldn't be arsed with ultrasonic cleaning so did multiple washes in white spirit and alcohol until it didn't leave marks on a cloth.

Will be a month until I can test it out, and sods law it'll be raining until March now anyway...

I did another one today just for the LOLs. Going on a newly cleaned cassette on the grav boik

Did the first one, for a bike that's not being built for a while though so I've chucked the MTB chain in turps yesterday so I can wax it today and try it tomorrow.

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I've noticed that after the wax has set, one end of the chain is quite flexy and one end is quite stiff, which makes me thing much of the wax is ending up at the bottom of the chain when it dries/cools.

I've already tried letting the wax cool down to 50C to let it accumulate better but perhaps it needs to be cooler? Anyone else noticed this?

I've been using waxed chains for the last 6 months on road, just recently tried a waxed chain on my cross bike. It runs really smoothly even when covered in mud. But mud definitely still sticks to the chain so a pretty aggressive wipe down was required. I think I'll just top up with Squirt between waxes as I don't want to pull the chain off after each muddy ride to wax it.

What's the chain run like after a race and a hose down?

It was still running really smoothly but I felt like I'd stripped all the wax from the outside plates so I topped it up with some Squirt to avoid any corrosion. My cassette was remarkably clean - no greasy muddy build up at all.

Has anyone seen Squirt for sale in a London shop that isnt Sigma Sport? Anything central ish?

Not as a product but am sure there used to be “models” in soho who offered it as a service.