Originally Posted by
gauvins
I currently rotate chains that I clean in solvent and lube with a thick oil. Works well (commuting & long tours), but last week for some reason I got fed-up with the problem of solvent disposal and decided to switch to citrus-based solvents (and possibly just dish soap). One thing leading to another, I now plan to wax my chains for next season (commuting & short tours).
Chain waxing is a time tested way of fighting chain tattoos and I very much doubt that 50 years ago cyclists agonized about how to clean their chains prior to dipping them in molten wax. Searching for advice, I found a very wide range of opinions, as casual as no prior cleaning (people dipping dirty chains in wax and saying that over time they get rid of oil) to the imperative of several baths in OMS followed by a couple of rinses in denatured alcohol in order to get the wax to stick to the chain (the latter from a site selling high-end wax).
My current thinking is to use a citrus solvent followed by clean hot water rinse, but I'd be interested to read about others' experiences.
People like to over complicate chain cleaning...way, way, way over complicate it. It’s a chain, it wears, it’s cheap (or you should be using cheap chains because they are just the same as expensive ones), and it doesn’t need to be clean room clean.
Frankly, mineral spirits will do the job just fine with a lot less volume than citrus cleaners. In my experience, a cup of mineral spirits cleans at least a dozen chains. A cup of citrus cleaner probably won’t clean one...and you’ll need several times the volume of the citrus cleaner in water to make sure the citrus cleaner is removed. Then you need something to remove the water. See where I’m going? A cup of mineral spirits (divided by 12) or 12 times 1 pint of citrus cleaner, 4 to 8 pints of water, and 1 to 2 pints of acetone or denatured alcohol. In other words, that’s about a tablespoon (20 mL) vs up to 10 gallons (about 40 L). Which one has a disposal problem?
Additionally, hot waxing a chain doesn’t require stripping everything off the chain each time it is waxed. It probably doesn’t need stripping the
first time it is waxed. The factory lubricant is a soft wax and will mix readily with the harder canning waxes that most people use. It will result in a softer wax...similar to Speed Wax...that won’t flake off as easily. You can think of the molten wax as just being mineral spirits with a higher melting point.
Bottom line: Keep it simple. There is no real need to generate gallons of waste just to clean a chain prior to waxing. If it takes more than 30 seconds...or however long it takes for your arm to get tired while shaking the chain in a bottle of mineral spirits...you taken far too long.