tkamd73 

Way too much time, thought, and effort, for what on my bikes, is a less then 10 dollar part. Just buy a new one, add some chain lube, and ride. Lots of better thing to do in life, if you have one.
Tim

TiHabanero

Earlier today I went out to the garage and poured about a cup of gasoline on the garage floor and lit it. Beautifully ignited, and it stayed within the bounds of the "spill". I then went outside of the garage with another cup of gasoline and dropped a lit match into it. A small flash occurred as the flame passed through the vapor, but no explosion and no fire. If there had been a breeze, the small flash would not have happened.

I am not mistaken.

HillRider

Next time try pouring that cup of gasoline on your garage floor, wait about 10 minutes, then light the match. Let us know how you make out.

DaveSSS 

I see you have quite a list of ancient bikes. There is no such thing as a 10 dollar chain for a modern bike. I have all 12 speed bikes - that's with 12 sprockets in the back, not 5 or 6. The cheapest chain I've bought recently was a SRAM Force AXS for $35. Campy Chorus are usually in the upper forties. I like my drivetrains clean and a wax based lube does the trick.

canklecat

I hope you're kidding about this and it just doesn't translate to the internets.

It takes only a few minutes to Google the properties of gasoline and why occasionally people get lucky with spills. And why in other circumstances the vapor can spread to an ignition source several feet away and flash back.

But if you'd see the injuries and deaths I've seen from careless handling of flammable liquids, you might be persuaded it's not safe to take, umm... lightly. That includes an experienced welder I interviewed in a hospital. His buddy didn't survive. They were just certain that it was safe to weld below the liquid line of a diesel tank because "We'd done it that way for years." Nearly killed or injured several other people nearby too.

A typical scenario includes employees panicking during the flashback event, kicking over an open container of gasoline or other flammable liquids, and creating an even worse situation.

Wish I had a dollar for every injury and fatality investigation I did where employees or managers said something like "Well, we've done it that way for years and nothing ever happened before." That was pretty much every injury and fatality investigation. There were few true "accidents" which were unforeseeable. Most were negligence.

Getting lucky isn't a substitute for safe practice.

canklecat

BTW, TiHabanero , I hope I didn't come across as snooty and condescending. Not my intention. And that never persuades anyone. I'm just seriously concerned about safety and health stuff. It became a career after seeing some pretty awful injuries as a kid and teenager. I was a Navy Corpsman, then a newspaper reporter covering the police and fire beat, then an OSHA safety inspector. So, yeah, I know I come across as a nanny about this stuff. Just be careful.

TiHabanero

What can I say? I am a lucky pyromaniac. Been playing with it all my life, and was a firefighter with a lust for it. What smells better than burned material? The concentration of vapor and oxygen need to be necessarily correct to provide efficient combustion. I forget the ratio, but it is needed for combustion to take place. A cup of gasoline, when spilled, will dissipate enough in 10 minutes to avoid disaster.
No more needs to be said other than what he said: "Getting lucky isn't a substitute for safe practice."

Hey, it is the internet, and intonation of voice is not available to detect snootishness. Never take comments on forums in a personal manner. No harm, no foul.

DrIsotope

My friend, how have you forgotten the stoichiometric ratio? Anything more than 14.7kg of air per 1kg of fuel is lean, and anything less than 14.7kg of air per kg of fuel is rich. In air-to-fuel ratio, 14.7:1 makes the perfect bang.

bpcyclist

​​​​​​Uh, okay--now, you are scaring me.

HillRider

What you are describing are known as the LEL (lower explosive limit) and UEL (upper explosive limit) which are the range of concentrations needed to support combustion for a given material in air. For gasoline those limits are 1.2% and 7.1% respectively. Your cup of gasoline evaporating in a garage is very likely to be in this range.

rydabent

As I have posted many times, lubing with Mobil 1 oil I get 8000 miles on my chains.

DaveSSS 

Oil is fine as long as you can tolerate a perpetually dirty drive train and don't mind doing a lot of wiping. I used oil for many years, but find a wax based lube to be a huge improvement.

How many miles a person gets from a chain varies enormously depending on riding conditions, rider weight, chain quality, chain width and how many chains can be used before trashing the cassette. You're not going to get that many miles from a modern 11 or 12 speed chain. I used a high quality campy 10 chain for 6,000 miles, oiling and cleaning frequently. It had minimal elongation but lots of roller and side clearance wear. When that chain was retired, a new chain skipped on some of the most worn sprockets. 6,000 miles from an expensive campy record cassette was the result of failing to either change the chain more frequently, or at least alternate the use several chains.

Now I see that you're talking about a recumbent bike, you should know that the chain being at least twice as long means you really only aren't getting anything close to 8,000 miles from a single chain. Apples and oranges comparison.

DrIsotope

...and as I have posted every time he wheels out that 8,000 mile figure, that number comes from a ‘bent, which has a chain about 12 feet long, so the mileage needs to be divided by however many chains were cobbled together to make it. I’ve never seen a recumbent use less than two chains, and some need ~2.5.

So again— nowhere remotely near 8k out of a chain.

TiHabanero

E-gads, it has been 35 years since firefighting. Back injury has plagued me since. I figured someone out there would know what I was referencing when referring to concentration of vapor. Anyway, I will play with some more fuel this coming week and let you know what burned down! lol

Ever get a chance to smell well used firefighting gear, I guarantee you will love it! Sounds a bit nutty, but it really is a great scent. Right up there with motor oil and grease.

canklecat

[ironyfont]...and "wax isn't a chain lube"... for recumbents. Contrary to all evidence from Friction Facts.[/ironyfont]

Speaking of which, I just noticed from that Friction Facts study from a few years ago they found White Lightning Epic Ride to be relatively inefficient compared with other chain lubes, in terms of Watts. Doesn't surprise me if it's anything like White Lightning Easy Lube. That stuff stays tacky. It's got to be causing some drivetrain drag. And it's not much cleaner than regular oil. I've been trying it on one road bike but I'm about to switch back to Gulf wax in the crock pot.

Boeshield T9 ranks a little better on the Friction Facts study, but still not on par with paraffin. And it also tends to attract some grime if it's not completely dried before the first ride.

LV2TNDM

Glad to hear some people chiming in with some sensible caution and safety comments.

Wax is no big deal, right?

Well, maybe not so fast:

BERKELEY, Calif. –A storm has dropped a big snow on Lake Tahoe resorts, and there’s a flurry of activity at the California Ski Company as hordes of skiers and snowboarders prepare to hit the slopes. In a cluttered workroom at the back of the shop, technician Bobby Panighetti is getting a pair of skis ready to make their first tracks – infusing the bottoms with a coat of hot wax. This essential ritual is being performed at winter sports centers around the world as the ski season gets underway.

Now scientific research suggests that ski wax can expose users to perfluorochemicals (PFCs) that build up in their bodies and may carry potentially serious health risks, including cardiovascular disease, liver damage, hormone disruption and cancer.

Racers, in particular, covet waxes with high amounts of fluorinated compounds because they make skis go faster. But that extra speed could come at a cost, especially to thousands of junior ski racers and parents who may layer on highly fluorinated race wax week after week without knowing how to handle it safely

Two new studies, conducted in Sweden and Norway and published in September, found that wax technicians working for World Cup ski race teams had very high levels of PFCs in their blood. Their median levels of one compound, perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA, were up to 45 times higher than the general population’s. The second-highest compound was perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), a common contaminant in wildlife that is now on the rise in people....."

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...buildup-blood/

And that's not the only issue. Wax is left behind in the snow, which then travels downstream into water supplies, affecting everyone and everything utilizing the watershed.

https://onetreeatatime.fr/2019/10/17...e-environment/

We've been utilizing these compounds for what, 75 years? How much chemical load resides within our watersheds as a result? I don't know. Further study would be good.

Even wax, apparently so benign, may be of more concern than previously assumed. I'd rather take a precautionary approach and NOT assume the myriad chemicals available on the market are safe.

LV2TNDM

I think it depends more on the lubrication being used. DuMonde Tech, for example, requires the chain be completely cleaned before applying their product for it to perform as intended. One should remove ALL pre-existing grease and lube. Then apply per instructions. I'll admit that I have used their product both as instructed, and disregarding their chain-prep advice. I'm pretty sure I've noticed better performance by thoroughly degreasing the chain as they suggest/require.

Chuckles1

I thought about using Teflon or molybdenum sulfate additives, but I like to keep things simple. Here's what I'm doing on my indoor trainer: I filled a quart jar about a third full of pieces of paraffin, then added equal volumes of kerosene and acetone. Every hundred miles or so on the trainer (I put the wireless gizmo on the rear wheel and the monitor on the top bar) I shake up the jar, open slowly to vent the minor pressure that results, then paint the slurry on to the chain right on top of the chainring with a long handled artists paintbrush. It's long enough so i can turn the crank backwards and not hit my hand holding the brush. A half dozen or so dips does it, and it takes about two minutes start to finish.
Results are good, the chain doesn't squeak and runs smooth, and with a little practice I've gotten to where I don't drip any onto the cardboard under chainline. I plan to try the same thing on the chains on my outdoor bikes this spring; they were hot dipped when i put the bikes away in the fall. I'll report later on how well this works when I'm out on the local gravel roads for a month or two.
I share safety concerns, and was very careful when hot dipping. I'm surprised how quickly the fumes dissipate when I paint my waxy slurry on; I thought it would be much worse. The artist's brush is the key; long handle and roundish bristle profile slightly wider than chain seems ideal for getting a lot of wax on per dip, with minimal waste.

DaveSSS 

Kerosene is really just a light oil that evaporates at an extremely slow rate. There really is no need for it. Acetone does not readily dissolve paraffin, but it does evaporate quickly. A slurry will not readily flow inside the chain, where the lube is needed.

A true liquid lube that is much easier to apply can be made by dissolving paraffin in naptha or camp stove fuel. If done at room temperature, it may take six parts of naptha for each part of paraffin. It also takes quite awhile for the solvent to dissolve the paraffin at room temperature. If the paraffin is melted first, as little as 3 parts naptha will create the slurry that you describe. In the summer, when indoor room temperatures are higher, the slurry may change to a liquid with a viscosity similar to water. If the lubricant slurry is placed in a appropriate applicator bottle and warmed by placing it in container of hot tap water, it will return to a low viscosity lube that can be applied one drop at a time to each roller, or sparingly with a very small stream. This should be done on the lower section of chain. with a paper shop towel held close to the chain to catch any drips, not on the chainrings or sprockets.

I prefer to add some high quality lubricating oil to this mixture, but only a small percentage, so the wax that remains does not attract dirt.

RGMN

As a skier this is quite relevant for me since I use fluoro waxes on virtually all of my skis. I've been trying some alternative waxes with limited success, but the chain wax mixtures discussed here that incorporate PFCs are likely to have very low risks since they use PTFE, not PFOA or PFNA.

There is ample evidence that PTFE heated to the relatively low temperatures needed to melt a hydrocarbon wax presents little risk of the PTFE decomposing. The particle size of the PTFE is large enough that it will likely pass thru your digestive system if ingested, and will be expelled if inhaled. As far as the paraffin wax I figure this is roughly the same impact as the liquid hydrocarbon mixtures typically used on chains, and likely lower impact due to the lower volatility compared to most of the mixtures. None of this is intended to minimize the hazards of both PFCs and hydrocarbons, but understanding which compounds represent the risk is important.

u235

I use standard spray lubes and spend maybe 3 minutes on my chain per week. I think the "crazy dirty chain if you don't use wax" is way overblown. Pictures are from my routine workout route on gravel of about 40 miles. If it's rained in the last 72 hours this dirt and grime is typical. I probably get critical mass of grime in about 5 miles and it's falling off as fast as it comes after that point. The chain and lube work as they should with no problems, I could probably do this three times without touching the chain. Most times I'd wash the bike (chain and drive-train too) before riding it again but sometimes just wipe it off and replenish my lube because why not. I get about a year or roughly 3-4K per KMC-X10SL chain. I was getting maybe 1/2 that with the KMC regular X10 chain. Considering the conditions and environment the lube is doing great. 1st pic is right after the ride, second is after 30 seconds of wiping the chain off with a dry rag and some back pedal. Now... brake pads, that's another story..