cyccommute 

To be clear, I don’t bother with hot waxing. I tried it many years ago (during the era when it was first a fad) and didn’t like it. It worked but it was just too much of a hassle to do it all the time. I’ve use oils from TriFlow to Phil’s Tenacious oil and never found any of them satisfactory, mainly because of the cleanliness issue. Phil’s Tenacious Oil was the worst because everything stuck to it…including boulders.

In the 90s, White Lightning came along and I found it as convenient to use as oil but not nearly as messy. I could handle my chains without having to spend 30 minutes with pumice scrubs and hard brushes to get it off my hands. My chains last as long as when I used oil and I don’t have to constantly clean my chain or drivetrain or my bike or myself. It goes on easy and quickly. I’ve used it in winter conditions here in Colorado but I’ve also used it across the middle part of my continent. I’ve toured or ridden in 48 of the 50 US states in conditions that you would expect across such a wide country. I’ve used it from the sands of the US southwest to the rains of the US east in addition to the winters of Colorado. It works and is clean.

Lots of people say that wax doesn’t work in wet conditions but they don’t realize that oil doesn’t work there either. If your chain gets rained on, the lubrication should be refreshed independently of what lubrication you use. As an exposed system, bicycle chains gather water when used in rain. Neither wax nor oil is water soluble so neither gets “washed off” but that doesn’t mean that oil is better at protection than wax is. Oil can be lifted off by water since the water is denser than the oil and will settle out next to the metal where it can cause rust. Oil or wax should both be refreshed after rain exposure.

Ryan_M

This could be. As long as the riding conditions aren't horrible I get 200-300km easy before the chain sounds like it needs a refresh, and I'm a princess about it. I use standard paraffin with teflon powder. My chains spend quite a long time in the crockpot too. I have a small crockpot and it takes a while to get to temp, so I toss a couple chains in then go have a few martinis in the hot tub and voila! it's done when I get back.

Duragrouch

Do you use White Lightning "Dry" or "Wet" formula?

It looks like the dry formula is available on amazon in quarts for less than 1/3 the unit price as the small bottles.

I looked up the SDS for White Lightning, it only indicated heptane as the majority constituent, so the solvent, I wondered what the lube part is, so if I could easily duplicate with my hard wax and solvent. Says online, wax dissolves in toluene and xylene, not cheap, also dissolves in vegetable oil (non polar) but I know from experience that gets sticky with time, plus I don't want my chain smelling rancid.

I might try white lightning.

I also used to need to scrub my hands after messy bike work. Then I took a tip from modern auto mechanics, and just wear disposable gloves. I keep a couple pair in my bike pack, for either myself or (more frequently) helping out other broke-down bikers, and for medical emergencies.

cyccommute 

I use the dry. It appears to me to be a saturated solution of wax in solvent perhaps with divided Teflon in it, although that part is questionable. On my fingers, it doesn’t leave any kind of sold residue. Wax should dissolve in mineral spirits as well. Heptane, hexane, mineral spirits, toluene, xylene are all similar enough in properties to be used.

Duragrouch

Unfortunately, evidently NOT mineral *oil*; I have a couple big bottles of tiki torch fuel bought cheap at the end of summer, it's mostly that plus a little citronella; It makes a great chain cleaner, I put it in the Park on-bike chain cleaner, works great. But I put some in a sealed canister along with a couple chunks of wax, months later the wax was still not dissolved.

One would think that white lightning dry ("Clean Ride") has gotta have something else in it besides heptane. Probably wax.

EDIT: White Lightning Wet Ride contains petroleum lubricating oils, and sulfonic acids, the latter of which help polar and non-polar materials (water and oil) combine (think a soap or detergent).

Funny, decades ago I thought about dissolving wax in a solvent to make my own waxed cotton jacket by just spraying on and letting the solvent evaporate. Might have worked, but I found online a proper old-school technique that used beeswax in place of paraffin, raw linseed oil, and real turpentine, all melted in a pot, brushed on, then melted in with a blowdryer, took hours over a whole day; Variations of this were used to make "oilskin" rainwear before rubberized cloth. More wax improves water repellency but at the expense of flexibility, especially at colder temps, the raw linseed oil helps that, and the turps acts as a drying agent for the linseed oil I think, but it still takes a month or two for it all to cure and shrink to a point of fabric flexibility. I did a Filson jacket that had been returned to Filson after being washed (removing all wax) and shrunk to my size, came out better than new.

base2 

I don't want to come across as a Debbie Downer but White Lightning is the worst wax based anything. That is if it even has wax in it at all. I killed a chain once during the beautiful summer of 2014 in under 1500 miles with a bottle of White Lightning. Garbage product.

There is no shortage of superior lubes out there. Dare I say it? Even oil.

Ryan_M

This matches what I've heard. It's nowhere near as good as an immersive waxing, and needs to be left overnight for the solvents to fully evaporate.... again so I've heard. Immersive waxing is easy and requires minimal hands-on time so I don't have a need to do anything otherwise, but different people have different priorities so if it works well enough for them then great.

Duragrouch

Glad to know! Thanks for the info. One or a couple people on here have raved about white lighting dry, but yeah, if it evaporates and you don't feel anything, I wondered about that, but was believing the hype.

"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." - Robert Heinlein, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, 1966

Duragrouch

I did immersive hot waxing for many years, but it was time consuming, as I only did the one chain at a time. If I had done with three chains, it would have taken no more total time, so 1/3 the time for each.

I currently use 75W-90 gear lube. But taking off the bike, cleaning, reassembling, and lubing, was taking as long as wax. Then I discovered the Park on-bike chain cleaner, one was $5 used at my LBS, and there are similar ones much cheaper than new Park price, on amazon. That thing is awesome; Not needing to take the chain off and rethread back on, is an enormous time saver, and less messy. I use tiki torch fuel as solvent, bought cheap at end of season at goodwill. Fill cleaner, put on chain, crank the chain thru about three times, then I let it sit for a while and do something else, let the mineral oil do its stuff, then come back and crank some more, perhaps one more sitting time, then crank again and pull it off, don't even need to wipe down the chain, though I do if relubing right away. Putting a strong magnet into the used solvent shows what the biggest contaminant is, steel dust, which forms a colloidal paste with the oil, that's what thickens it to where it needs cleaning, about 500 miles. I never saw near that much in the melted wax, I think being dry, most of it just dropped off the chain onto the road. Only about once a year will I pull the crank and derailleur pulleys and clean off the sludge. Reoiling, I use a covid-test dropper bottle filled with 75W-90, a drop at each pin.

elcruxio

My experience with white lightning was also so so at best. It didn't make much of a difference in chain wear compared to oil, but it was cleaner. Now that I think back the white lightning wax had a somewhat squishy soft quality to it...

Even if wax doesn't have a wear reducing advantage in and on itself (though ZFC testing would indicate that immersive wax does significantly reduce wear) the thing that likely does have a significant effect on wear reduction with immersive waxing is the flushing that happens with every rewaxing. All the muck gets washed out from inside the chain so the finished waxed chain has clean surfaces and no grinding paste to accelerate wear. And that flushing happens regularly as unlike oil, wax doesn't give a false sense of quiet when the chain needs treatment.

Oil can probably make a chain last a very long time as well, if the chain is properly flushed regularly (every 200-400km). But there's no denying oil starts making the grinding paste the second the chain starts moving.

drip waxes will have a disadvantage with flushing, especially if they're water emulsified. There's no way for the old grit and dirt to get out as new wax is added. Solvent waxes can flush old stuff out to an extent but the effect isn't huge. If you've ever tried cleaning a chain with brake cleaner etc, you'll know it takes a lot of it and it takes forever. And there's still black stuff coming out after a thorough cleaning. The only way I've found to to properly flush a chain is via immersion and agitation. Even a park tool cleaner with naphta doesn't really do a good job.

In our family there are currently eight regularly ridden bikes which I maintain (and when the kids get older, that number is only going to go up). In that context immersive waxing does make the most sense because I don't have to do any drivetrain cleaning and waxing three chains per bike for eight bikes only takes a bit more time than waxing one chain for one bike. With several chains in rotation I can just swap out a chain when I receive a report of a squeak or too much rust. I'll rewax when one bike gets to its last chain. So I'll usually do a waxing less often than once a month.

Duragrouch

I agree, but for different reasoning. When I did hot wax, I NEVER had anywhere near the amount of metal dust as I find when cleaning oil off and putting a magnet in the solvent. I always rewaxed my chains periodically, but especially if started to squeak. So maybe less wear. Or maybe, the metal dust just falls off the chain constantly. Which is why, when my oil lube turns to paste, I clean and relube, because that is essentially lapping paste.

Bike Gremlin

Drip lubes (wax or oil):
- Backpedal for a few seconds while lubing.
- Leave overnight (if wax).
- Wipe off the excess

Immersive waxing:
- Remove the chain.
- Melt the wax.
- Immerse the chain.
- Drip off the excess.
- Leave to cool.
- Wipe off the excess.
- Re-mount the chain.

I would regard the latter as time consuming. If you have any super-fast tricks, please share them.

Relja

base2 

You are forgetting the cleaning process with the oil method. Adding oil to a dirty chain is probably as bad or worse than doing nothing. Maybe, maybe not. But, you get my point.

The cleaning process, with a citrus degreaser or even with Odorized Mineral Spirits in a dedicated bike mounted chain cleaner and the necessary subsequent rinses appropriate to the solvent and the drying time so the cleaner itself and/or rinse agent doesn't displace whatever lubricant you want to use can be fairly involved. Citrus degreasers' purpose is to kill the oil you lube with. OMS will dilute what ever you lube with. A follow up with something to flush out either is just good practice. And this is necessary every single time if you are to be thorough in your regimen as wax. The disparity often missed is immersive wax only requires this effort the first time and never again.

Wax on the other hand...You have your order wrong. After the initial clean (same as above)
Put the wax pot on the counter top. Flip the switch to "on."
Go for a ride. Clean house. Do laundry. Whatever.
Remove chain and drop in pot.
Go give your curious dog a scratch behind the ears and a cookie because he is wondering what you are doing in the kitchen.
Swish the chain around in pot to ensure good flushing and penetration.
Remove and hang to cool from ~210f to ambient.
Flip on the Tele watch an episode of Pawn Stars or Ice Road Truckers.
Go back to the kitchen for some ice-cream & remember the chain is still hanging on a hook.
Install chain on bike.
Take your clean hands back to the bowl of ice-cream and enjoy a weekend well done.

You'll notice a lot of slack time in the process. That's a feature not a bug. There is virtually no involvement from you necessary at any stage that can not be done at your convenience. The time commitment to lower your arm to drop a chain in the pit and raise it again is measured in seconds.

choddo

You seem to have missed off the most time consuming part of the first one there. Cleaning the chain, cassette, jockey wheels and chainrings.

Bike Gremlin

Fair point. To clarify:

Drip-wax (from a bottle, that cures once you apply it) keeps the chain and chainrings quite clean (at least the two models I used).

Oil - yes, it gets a bit more dirt (depending on how "thick" it is), and if cleanliness is your high priority, you will spend a lot of time cleaning the chain.
In terms of chain durability - wiping the chain with a rag (with some degreaser, and without removing the chain) takes a minute, then you can re-apply the oil.
It isn't thorough cleaning, but with that procedure the chains seem to last just as long as they do when running cleaner with wax.

Relja

cyccommute 

Paraffin wax wouldn’t show up in the SDS because it is considered a non-toxic product.

I’m not surprised that the mineral oil wouldn’t dissolve the wax (much). Heating it would probably help but it would likely crash out when the mixture is cooled. White Lightning probably uses heptane now (they have used a mixture in the past) for better control of the dissolution.

[QUOTE]EDIT: White Lightning Wet Ride contains petroleum lubricating oils, and sulfonic acids, the latter of which help polar and non-polar materials (water and oil) combine (think a soap or detergent).

I tried Wet Ride once and didn’t like the result. It was very much like using TriFlow and not worth the effort.

cyccommute 

That has not been my experience. I’ve been using it for more than 20 years now. Chains on just about everything I use it on from road bikes to touring bikes to mountain bikes (in dirty, dusty conditions) last 3500 to 4500 miles. I am actually tracking a current chain on one of my bikes to see the interval of lubrication and wear. So far, at almost 900 miles, the chain shows less than 0.5% wear and has been relubricated 3 times at roughly 300 mile intervals.

cyccommute 

You are misunderstanding how wax…hot or drip…works. There is far less grit and dirt to deal with than with oil because there isn’t a mechanism for much dirt and grit to be gathered by the chain. I doubt that you see that much grit in the bottom of your hot wax melt at the end of a soak because there just isn’t that much stuff on the chain to begin with. Oil traps the grit and dirt and will hold an astonishing amount of it. I’ve seen chains, drivetrains, and even whole bikes that have more dirt than oil on them and could even hold more.

With either wax methods, dirt doesn’t really stick to the wax and any that does tends to spall off with the wax on the exterior of the chain. Duragrouch mentioned that fewer wear products are observed in the melt than in solvent cleaning an oiled chain. This is because the wear products tend to fall off (along with most of the accumulated dirt) as the chain is being used. Even grit inside the chain is going to fall off due to gravity. Wax is cleaner because it just doesn’t hold on to the wear products nor the dirt causing the wear. White Lightning’s instructions are to put enough on so that it drips through. That’s more than enough to flush what little grit is on the outside of the chain out.

As to water emulsion wax lubes, I’ve not used them. I somewhat dubious of using that product anyway. Unlike White Lightning which using an organic solvent and just wax, water based wax lubricants use a surfactant to keep the wax in an emulsion. An organic solvent/wax mixture will leave just water insoluble wax behind. A surfactant/wax/water mixture leaves the surfactant/wax mixture behind. Add water and you have an emulsion again which isn’t water insoluble. Wax does not “wash off” in rain. A wax/surfactant mixture most certainly can.

icemilkcoffee 

YES. It needs to be left to dry overnight. The bottle tells you that. If you just drip it on and start riding, it will attract all kinds of gunk and it will be the opposite of 'clean ride'. If you let it dry overnight it works very well.

To be fair I have only used the Clean Ride drip wax and the Finishline drip wax. Of the two the Clean Ride is better. The Finishline seems to have much less wax content.

13ollocks

You make it sound like you're standing there, waiting for the wax to melt . I wax three chains at a time - usually at the weekend. I turn on the crockpot in the garage, go about my day. A few hours later, I brush the loose dirt off a chain and drop it in the molten wax, continue with my day. Later, I retrieve the chain, hang it up to cool, brush off another and drop it in the wax, continue with my day etc etc
When they're all done and cooled, I reinstall one chain on the bike and run the crank around a few times to loosen it up and shed the excess wax flakes. I put the other chains in Ziploks for later use - done.
The whole process, from turning on the crockpot to bagging the chains, takes half the day, but the actual "hands-on time" is maybe 20 minutes every ~1000 miles.

Bike Gremlin

That's a well-organized procedure.

With oil, you're good to go in one minute. Even mid-ride (should you need to re-lube for whatever reason).

base2 

But you are not "good to go in one minute" if you are actually cleaning your chain inside where it matters. Waxing does both the clean and the lube with out the repeating the cleaning procedure every single time like that of a robust oil regimen requires to "do it right."

Oil is faster because you are skipping the most important step: The clean.

choddo

I have to agree with this. I’ve only done it a couple of times now and the amount of cleaning needed is massively reduced to near zero so far and it’s the middle of winter.

Ryan_M

As others have mentioned, your comparison is incomplete. You left out cleaning the drivetrain.

When I used to use oil, this was my procedure:
- remove chain
- remove rear wheel and remove cassette
- remove jockey wheels if bushing type
- wipe it all down as much as I care to with a rag
- put it all in the ultrasonic cleaner with citrus degreaser
- go back to bike and clean chainrings with spray cleaner and a rag
- go back to ultrasonic cleaner, refresh degreaser and run again (I only have a hobby ultrasonic so need to run the parts through 2-3x for me to be happy. If I'd spent $$$$ on an industrial one, once through might be good enough)
- after I'm happy with the level of cleanliness ill remove the cassette and jockey wheels and do another run with the chain in the ultrasonic with plain water to get out as much of the degreaser as I can
- after that the chain gets a swish in a jar with isopropyll to displace the water and is hung to dry
- while that's running I'll wipe down the cassette, reinstall it, and put the wheel back in the bike
- wipe down and reinstall jockey wheels
- when dry, reinstall chain
- lube the chain
- do a few revolutions to work it in then wipe off the excess

Now that I wax, I do this:
- remove chain from bike
- rinse under hot tap water
- put it in crock pot and plug it in
- go back to bike and give the drivetrain a visual inspection and knock off any wax bits that might be there with a stiff bristle brush
- go do other things
- after some time come back to the crock pot, pull the chain to drip and cool, and unplug it
- go do other things
- reinstall chain

I would regard the latter as less time consuming and I like the end result with waxing better. It's a much cleaner and more pleasurable experience that ,again, requires minimal hands-on time.

Duragrouch

My experience is that with wax, based on low quantity of metallic particles shown in melted wax after, doesn't need a flushing, just get more wax in there. Although metal particles may embed in the wax inside the pivots, so I'm sure that being in a hot melted wax solution doesn't hurt.

Oil, on the other hand, DOES need a flushing, not just a wipedown on the outside. Inside the pivots is a big buildup of oil thickened to a paste due to the suspension of very fine metal particles. This shows up blatantly in my cleaning solution, upon insertion of a magnet.

My current gear lube on the chain is really easy, now that I use an on-bike cleaner. That solvent is not an issue with the lube, if I don't wipe off it evaporates in a day.

Sounds from above that I use wax, right? No, not as easy to do in my current residence, plus I occasionally got caught in the wet and wanted rust prevention (though could still see some rust on the edges of the rollers, if not dried in a warm house so dries faster). And I thought perhaps that hot wax didn't do as good a job at lubing, thought perhaps the wax in the pivots quickly got pushed aside. But folks on here confirm my past wax usage, no squeaks for about 500 miles, evidently the hard wax inside holds up. I might go back to wax.

The big reason I might go back to wax, is the sludge buildup on the derailleur pullies (especially), chainrings, and cogs. Cleaning all those is a WAY longer cleaning time, like by 20X (because I don't have one of those big solvent cleaners, then it would only be 10X). Which is why I only clean those about once a year. I do recall the great cleanliness of hot wax.

On the other hand, if I tour, it would be a tossup between:
- If I brought a backpacking stove (most probably), bringing a tin of wax, or
- Bringing the on-bike chain cleaner, solvent (which can be reused if bringing a small magnet to pull out metal dust), and small bottle of lube.