Chain Waxing

I’m not made of money

CeramicSpeed's cleaner is cheaper than Silca so, maybe you're comprised of more cash than you thought?

Bizarrely, it was actually a Christmas gift. A good one.

Is that better the diesel/paraffin/petrol or brake cleaner?

It's probably healthier. I stopped using petrol a few years ago.

What do you drink these days?

Everything else.

Except gin and vermouth, that stuff can fuck right off.

Shelves plans for a Wests Gin & Vermouth evening.

Just halfway through cleaning the chain on the Wife's gravel bike, getting ready to do mine and then read that Zero Friction Aussie says KMC chains don't take wax. FFS.

Really? A specific type because I've waxed KMC chains before.

ZFC does not at this time recommend KMC chains for waxing / wax based lubes as have found their coatings tend to repel wax lubes, leading to very short treatment lifespans which has chains feeling and sounding very dry very quickly - this has also led to very short chain lifespans despite running the best know lubricant choices.

I'm doing them anyway, then will do fresh new ones when/if the wax wears off.

So I recently waxed a posh KMC K1SL single speed chain, it really didn't like it, just didn't take/penetrate. I've waxed plenty of other chains before and couldn't work out what was different.

I imagine the TiN and DLC coated ones are hard to wet with wax

Perhaps it’s just the posh ones. I’ve done one so far and the wax deffo penetrated and seems as it should but time will tell!

So should be ok for S1 and k1 chains

I had asked Adam about the subject of waxing (1/8") KMC chains before. Here's what he had to say about the KMC coatings:

I would check the specs for the chain, if it doesn’t market a low friction coating of some type, then likely it is going be ok from wax bond perspective.

I hate Silca so much, this is from handling a chain that has been flushed with hot water twice, almost a year of spotless chains ruined and I only applied their garbage once. Hope they end up
in endless sales purgatory like Rapha.

1 Attachment

Judging from the number of “sales” emails they keep spamming me with, they’re well on track for that.

I only cared about home waxing for cleanliness, so that's a hard no from me.

What exactly happened there? Did you switch waxes or something?

I usually do immersion waxing with just plain paraffin wax mixed with some bees wax.
In the Silca sale I bought their super secret wax for topping up the chain after a wet ride but I didn't do much research and didn't realize they went so heavy on the additives. I just thought
it's going to be like Squirt but stick a little better.
Am also only interested in the cleanliness.

Isn't the idea of cleanliness along with the not being sticky so doesn't make a grinding paste for the drive train.

The Silca hot melt wax is very different from the drip lube, a lot cleaner and harder. The drip lube
can be smeared around and is darker.

1 Attachment

So, has anyone tried the newest coolest..etc?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEnD95UwE3w&ab_channel=SILCAVelo

I've seen a few youtubers try this. It looks ok, but I'd like to see some more details as to how it works given what a general PITA cleaning the chain is, this feels too good to be true.