I hate responding to zombie threads but you’ve got quite a bit of misinformation here.
Originally Posted by
adipe
EVERY base oil is vulnerable to oxidation. that is why every decent lubricant will have along with the base oil some additives to address this problem.
Chemistry says otherwise. Petroleum based oils are mostly saturated aliphatic hydrocarbons. Oxidation of the carbon-carbon bond in a saturated hydrocarbon is a very difficult chemical process to accomplish at ambient temperatures and pressures. Even at high temperatures in oxygen rich atmospheres (i.e. “burning”), the carbon-carbon bonds are difficult to break. Oil fires tend to be very sooty and difficult to sustain. At ambient temperatures, oxidation is even slower.
wax can be worn too (due to oxidation). AND every base oil is MORE vulnerable to oxidation in the presence of water.
Wax is just aliphatic hydrocarbons that are longer chain. Same conditions apply as they do to liquid hydrocarbons. Water has nearly zero effect on oxidation potential. Water is incredible stable and does not contribute anything to the oxidation potential. Dissolved oxygen might contribute but the amount of oxygen dissolved in water is minuscule compared to the level of oxygen in the atmosphere.
the wax i use is not candle wax but petroleum wax. it's not white paraffin wax.
. “Petroleum”, “candle”, and “paraffin” are all synonyms for the same thing. There can be different hardnesses which are due to the molecular weight but they are still the same class of materials. Vaseline is the same material with just a slightly lower molecular weight so that is is soft instead of hard.
the homebrew has some volatile solvents that are very quickly done with at the second stage. first of all i clean the chain in a nonpolar solvent and then in a mixture of alcohols: methanol+ethanol+isopropylic. the alcohol bottle is bought as such from the store, i dont need to mix the alcohols.
Why do people have to make cleaning a chain
soooooo complicated? Clean it with a nonpolar solvent like mineral spirits. And stop. Shake it in a bottle of mineral spirits until your arm gets tired...or about 30 seconds, whichever comes first. You are done. Fish the chain out of the bottle and let it dry.
methanol is able to dissolve salts to some extent while isopropyl alcohol does not - one reason i dont need pure isopropyl.
How about using some capitals? Yes, methanol will dissolve some salt...about 14mg/ml of methanol. Water will dissolve 300mg/ml or about 20 times as much. And you don’t have a toxicity/disposal problem with water. If salt is an issue, just use water.
That article simply isn’t applicable to bicycles. We don’t generate anywhere near the heat that is required for the kinds of oxidation that they describe. Basically what they can do in minutes or hours would take decades to occur on a bicycle. While the article is okay for the conditions they apply it to, I do disagree with one thing about the statement made in the “Temperature” section
Temperature
Heat is often employed to accelerate the oxidation process because temperature has two effects on any reaction. The first effect involves activation energy. If the system does not contain enough energy to push the reaction over the threshold, nothing will happen. The second effect is related to the speed of the reaction. A reaction (oxidation) will approximately double in rate for every 10°C (18°F) increase in temperature. Which means that the oil life will be reduced by one-half for every 10°C (18°F) increase in temperature.
The first two sentences apply to bicycles. There’s not enough energy at ambient temperatures to push the oxidation reaction over the threshold, so nothing happens. No oxidation. Over time (years to decades) small amounts of oxidation can happen but it’s slow enough to fit in category of “nothing will happen”.
My objection is to the second part. It is a rule of thumb that reactions increase at about double the rate with each 10°C increase in temperature but that is a very rough rule of thumb. And that certainly
does not mean that the oil’s life is reduced by 1/2 for every 10°C increase in temperature. It’s not that simple.
The rest of your post is just more over-complication of a relatively simple procedure. What you to ask yourself is does all this fiddling result in your chain lasting longer? Even if it were to triple the life of the chain, is a chain really worth all that attention? Is it worth spending $100 of time, money, and chemicals to clean a $20 chain? And no chain is worth paying more than about $20 for.
I clean my chain
once...when I install it...with the “shake for 30 seconds in mineral spirits” method. I use liquified wax lubricant (White Lightning, for example). I apply it as needed and never clean the chain again because it doesn’t need it. I get 3000 to 4000 miles which is just about what everyone else reports whether they use elaborate multi step methods and/or weekly cleaning.
The only difference is that I don’t spend a lot of time cleaning and futzing with my chain.