Chain Waxing

Light it on fire to get rid of residue petrol.

The chain waxing guy on youtube dunks the chain in degreaser after a petrol clean, but then he is slightly obsessive

I will never be at that level (hence Squirt over the home-made concoctions) but it does make some sense.

@Tijmen Dafne Fixed should make a video out of that.

petrol

Carcinogenic (thanks to no one for telling me that for the first 20 years of my life). Can you not use something else?

.

I used to have access to Rozone Smartwashers, but since then unfortunately I have never had great results with regular degreasers.
Are you happy with your current set-up / process?

I use standard white spirit - Should I not be? Even when black after a few uses it still degreases really well.

It works well but it fucking reeks and I'm pretty sure it's not too healthy for you or the environment. Mine also sort of turned into two layers which was really odd.

I've not done anything for a while now. I started wearing in a chain with a view to waxing it and then I've just been too lazy to take it off and process it.

I think the clever people will buy a few chains and do them all at once but I hate the idea of missing out on that nice "factory lube" period of chain use. I only use water-based degreasers now although I still have the stronger stuff in bottles as I don't want to tip it.

What did I do wrong? I cleaned the chain in petrol, then degreaser, then meths. Melted the paraffin wax and left the chain in for a while made sure there were no rising bubbles, took out, fexed the chain and wiped off excess wax deposits, chain showed signs of rust in a week's use!

What did I do wrong?

You made the mistake of thinking that waxing has anything to do with corrosion protection.

I only drag the chain out when the wax has almost started to solidify again otherwise much of the wax runs off. Rewax if/when it's rusty/covered in road grit.

So how do you stop the chain from rusting?

Move to Spain.

Only cycle in zero oxygen environments?

So how do you stop the chain from rusting?

Chains generally come with some form of anti-corrosion coating, which varies in effectiveness. Some packaged lubricants include corrosion inhibitors.

I've just been too lazy

I hope the current situation has helped with finding time for essential drive train maintenance.

Anyway, Silca has a new wax-based lubricant
on the market. I'm very happy with Squirt but it's good to see more options available.

I saw that but didn't read about it yet.

Summary? How much does it cost?

It sold out in minutes, but $25 I think.

It's basically a wax-based lubricant with a thinner alcohol carrier, and an additive:

Secret Chain lube also utilizes the world's fastest, most lubricious additive, nano-scale Tungsten Di-Sulfide. NanoPlatelet WS2 has less than 1/3 the dynamic coefficient of friction of PTFE and 1/4 that of Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2.). Even better, the nanoscale WS2 seems to lock up in the crevices of the metal and stay there even after cleaning/melting off of the wax. In theory, the chain will get faster with age due to the WS2 loading up on these surfaces.”

In theory

Reads like the back of a protein powder from a gym shop.

In theory

The theory of WS₂ is great, but getting it to coat the relevant surfaces by dripping a colloidal mix onto an assembled chain which has already been greased at the factory is another matter. What you really need to do is to coat the clean and dry parts using some method (not sure which, probably at least 4 main options and research needed to pick the one which is optimal in terms of lubricity and durability in the roller chain application) before assembling the chain

So most people will probably be adding it to a dirty chain and then it'll do 3/8ths of fuck all?

most people will probably be adding it to a dirty chain and then it'll do 3/8ths of fuck all?

Well, maybe more like 1/8th of what could be achieved by coating the parts before assembly.

If you get the chain clean (multiple passes through the ultrasonic in a solvent, then bake out any residue) and then vacuum impregnate with the WS₂ colloid, you might be getting somewhere, but a tiny little bottle isn't going to do it, you need to immerse the chain.

WS₂ nano-powder is $550/100g, I imagine you'd want about 500g to make enough soup to sink an assembled chain in your vacuum bucket.

So I was right? It's basically the chain lube equivalent of some gym junkie sport supplement.

It showed 68% increase in force generation in a sample of invitro mouse calf muscle so CrushedCauliflowerBulkMATRIX4000™ is now included in ARSE RIPPER pre-workout for maximum GAINZ!