livedarklions

Just cuz!

Them nits ain't gonna pick themselves, y'know!

ksryder

Yeah I don't want to have to re-wax a chain every 300 miles than I'm going to replace 3-4 times a year anyway.

kingston 

Pretty sure this is why the vast majority of people don't mess around with wax. From what I've seen, most of the people who run wax do it because they like having a clean bike, not because it's "better" in any other way. I still use oil on my commuter bike because it's filthy all the time anyway.

kingston 

I have noticed that chains don't hold the wax as well until they have been run and re-waxed a few times, which could explain our different experiences. Obviously nothing wrong with using oil if that's what works for you.

ksryder

Yeah I have nothing against it, just not for me.

I'm lazy and conventional chain lube works well enough.

livedarklions

That's probably it. Generally, I hate working on my bikes, and if there's a quick and easy way to do something, I'm going with that, mess be damned.

Took a quick peek at your posting history out of curiosity, and I think it's safe to say that your cat knows more about bike mechanical stuff than I do, assuming you have a cat. I would defer to you on all such questions.

DrIsotope

Shhhhhh! He does this in every single chain wax thread, always. He's trying to be a pedant, but not doing very well. Lubricant is Latin-- we just took the word straight from Latin-- and literally means "making slippery."

Look at the two "non-lubricants" of this group, MSW and Smoove, just being their absolute best non-lubricant selves.

ksryder

Sidebar: I ordered some bottles of Smoove after that Cyclingtips article came out. It was kind of hard to get at the time, since it's made in South Africa and doesn't have a lot of distribution in the US (or didn't at the time.) So I ordered 4 bottles to make the shipping worth it.

Anyway, I followed the instructions which are basically "clean the everliving dog snot out of your chain before applying" and ... yeah. It turned into a sloppy mess almost instantly. Even more of a black, greasy, gets on everything mess than conventional lube.

And I didn't notice any particular difference in my shifting, and it was a pain in the butt, so I just went back to conventional lube. I still have 3.9 bottles of Smoove somewhere in my basement.

kingston 

Hence the recommendation to just get a bag of MSW and be done with it.

DrIsotope

Well, I started with straight paraffin, then on to the Friction Facts recipe, then started tinkering with my own blend, then when crockpot 2 showed up I bought a bag of MSW. It's great, it absolutely does what it advertises.

But I'm ever so cheap. Not counting the bag of MSW, I have ~$50 invested into the whole waxing shebang-- 3 crockpots, 10lbs of paraffin, lamp oil, Slick50, etc. I dunno if I should include the Zogs, as I was buying 10-packs when I was bodyboarding a lot more, and still have a big box of 'em-- and each puck is good for about a year.

Based on my best guesstimate, waxing the chains of 4 bikes (combined monthly mileage ~1,0000 miles,) every time I dip a chain it costs 4 cents. I should run out of wax and/or additives in 2025 or 2026. I'll probably change the formula several times before I get there, though.

Unca_Sam

^^
This is why I have a bottle of dry lube and a bottle of wet lube. The effort behind this just doesn't make sense, for me. Keep innovating, good Dr.

ksryder

Slightly OT but every time I see a chainwax thread I think of a certain Key and Peele sketch that centered around a NSFW phrase that included the word chainwax and I giggle.

Google at your own peril.

redlude97

This. I'm less than 1/4 way through my first bag in over a year of waxing. I also bought blocks of plain paraffin to dilute the MSW when it comes time but it lasts so long I haven't needed to. If the chain is clean and just needs a rewax you can just wipe the exterior and drop directly into the wax. If its seen a lot of rain or muck on the road a couple jars of OMS to flush and it can be dropped straight into the wax without drying also. Never need to clean or completely replace the wax in the crockpot, just keep topping off. I usually do 6-8 chains at a time and keep a rotation going on 4 bikes

RGMN

Funny, that's the same reason I wax my chains.

In 14,000 miles I've cleaned my drivetrain twice using the Ultrafast wax formula. I'm still on the original 2 chains, and they'll probably make 10,000 miles each before they will come close to needing to be replace.