Originally Posted by
Koyote
So, to save yourself the trouble of re-lubing daily (which takes about one minute, if you are doing it properly), you spent a whole bunch of time running your chain through mineral spirits baths and cooking your chain in wax?
Sounds like you had a good system, and you can buy Prolink in large jugs at reasonable prices.
Although it might look like chain waxing is a lot of trouble, it simpler than using wet lube ... in my opinion anyway.
Yes, initial cleaning and setup is a lot of work. The chain has to be cleaned to the bare metal and one needs to buy a crock pot and paraffin.
My initial investment was about 15 US dollars and a couple of hours of work.
The expectation was that after the chain is cleaned and the paraffin bath is ready, reapplying wax is super simple:
1. turn on crock pot
2. take off the chain from the bike (easy with a quick link)
3. put the chain into a sifter and rinse it with hot water
4. put the chain into a crock pot and let it sit for 15 minutes
5. take off the chain and reinstall it on the bike
6. done
The process takes 5-10 minutes of my time. Mostly done indoors and generates no mess and garbage and I have clean hands at the end of the process. And I only have to do this once a week.
Contrast this to lubricating the chain:
1. I lube the chain in the garage in a cold.
2. Spin the pedals and apply the lube to each roller.
3. Spin the pedals for 5 mins to let the oil get inside the rollers.
4. Wipe the chain.
At the end of the process I'm cold (have to spend in the garage good 15 minutes), my hands are greasy and smell with bike lube (wife hates the smell), and I have bunch of greasy towels to dispose. Plus this has to be done every day.
The only benefit of the chain lubing is that the chain works great in cold weather. Which is important but I still did not give up the hope to make paraffin waxing work.