Chain Waxing

Sounds easy enough. £15 crockpot here I come! :)

Whats the forum recommended wax?

I've no idea. I used cheap shit from a hobby shop and then

Kerawax 422/P9056 Quality Paraffin Wax off ebay as someone said the purer stuff might last a bit longer.

@greeno has had a positive experience using his leg-wax pot, which is a bit more compact.

User snoops has long been in my ear about chain waxing and I relented. I sat down the other night and devoured this thread and I don’t want to be all billy big balls about this, but I think I’ve nailed it from the off.

I bought this leg / salon wax pot. It’s very compact and just the right size if you don’t want anything big lying around. You wouldn’t want any smaller. It looks like the one campanaerts is using in his vid and it has a temperature gauge.

I bought this kerrawax and PTFE off eBay as it was the path of least resistance.

I also bought 100g of beeswax as it popped up on Amazon (sorry) for £3.75 when I bought the pot.

I think I went 225g kerrawax, 25g beeswax, and 25g PTFE and it was perfect amount and depth to submerse my chain in this pot, without wastage. So I’ve got half my ingredients left and extra beeswax.

The actual metal pot itself has a handle so you can pull it out (it sits inside a secondary pot) which will come in handy for cleaning it.

I won’t look back and I’m even giving up on squirt for optimum cleanliness.

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What are the best quick links to be using for an 11 speed shimano chain (in terms of being able to re-use them)? I’ve just used the one that came with it so far.

I use cheapest YBN quickies off eBay. Not been a problem and I pop it every two weeks or so to clean my drivetrain.

Are you re-using them or one time only?

Reusing them until I drop them down the floorboards, or they don’t click on reinstall anymore, or I put on a new chain when I get bored of how long my chains last now.

PTFE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene#Ecotoxicity

Are you just leaving it out or substituting? Do you notice a difference?

I've never used it. I've only ever waxed with plain paraffin (unless you count the CeramicSpeed chain I've used on the TT bike that was prepared by them not me)

I went even lesser path of resistance with the boil in the bag approach. Hot water, chain in the bag with the wax, turn off when wax is melted, swish around and done.

Okay. After this batch I’ll go sans PTFE

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Saves having to buy/eco impact of another electrical appliance in my life too

I was initially going to use a casserole dish in the oven, but then decided against it. I’m glad as I needed to swish the chain a bit.

Boil in a bag sounds good, didn’t think of that. Assume you just keep the bag with leftover wax in and reuse it? Any special bag?

Note I can use my appliance to actually wax my legs too tho… that’s not happening in a bag.

Boil in a bag is less energy efficient. You can buy a second-hand crock pot or wax warmer.

Presume the zip lock or whatever will fail pretty quick too, putting wax into your cooking pot anyway.

If you've been able to calculate the energy consumption of boiling a kettle and then know how long it's on the hob for Vs the energy draw of your slow cooker plus all the energy that went into making it and shipping it from China....then maybe, I'm not sure. But good point, yes there's definitely heat escaping for sure.

Edit I got a bag of Silca for £25 on old exchange rates and have done a dozen batches of chains in. Will keep going with it until I notice the results decline

There’s lots online about this. And plenty of used slow cookers available.

I bear no grudge against your method.

Where out of interest? I've read plenty on the TR forum but happy to be educated about the carbon calculations

I’d Google it for you but I’m on holiday.

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Long-ish and very muddy ride at the weekend - washed the bike on my return home and then brought it indoors. I didn’t have the energy to take the chain off to sort it out properly, and hoped that there would be enough residual wax to prevent rust particularly as the bike was going in to the warm and dry.

I am swapping two waxed chains on this bike and got round to taking the chain off today. There were a couple of links with light surface rust, and a few stiff links that loosened up ok. To be fair I had left this chain on for a bit longer than I usually would. Brushed off what I could and re-waxed it.

I was hoping that the wax in the rollers would survive the mud and (water only) hosedown, but the 2 or 3 stiff links suggest not. Am I ok to keep that chain in the rotation?

I have been re-waxing chains with a little surface rust for my commuter. But I'm definitely curious what other people think.

I think fine. I’ve had a bit of surface rust every now and then and I’ve ignored it if I can rub it off. I haven’t got to the point of a stiff link, though.

Really should wipe down and dry the chain after a wet ride.

Best to ask https://zerofrictioncycling.com.au for an expert opinion. He’ll probably make a 90 minute video and a white paper on the subject.