Polaris OBark

For a new chain, I wipe it off with a paper towel and dump it in the hot wax, let the temperature equilibrate, swirl it around a couple of times, and then I pull it out to cool/drip dry. Like Stuart says, at worst the wax will be softer and more pliable. I do the same to re-wax. Basically the only waste is a paper towel and used wax when it gets dirty enough to discard.

Schlafen

Went to cheap chains also, from CN-M9100 / PC-1170 to HG-601 / PC-1110. Weekly cleaning (more often when riding in the rain) gets me about 4-5k miles out of a £10 chain, using regular Finish Line wet lube after cleaning chain and cassette with a solvent, usually petrol, never water. For the money spent on the rotating chains, wax, croc pot etc, I'd rather buy new chains and cassettes, which is better for the drivetrain anyway. I only ride on the road.

Just had a new cassette and new chain so I'm testing 5w30 engine oil as chain lubricant on my commuter, seems to have the same viscosity as the Finish Line wet lube I've been using for ages.

buddiiee 

Do what we have been doing since the 70's; yank the chain, coil it up, and drop it in a steel coffee can full of gas. Let it soak a few days, come back, rinse it off,string it up and blow it out with an air compressor, then relube.

cyccommute 

…and burn down your house and spend months in a burn unit…if you are lucky. Don’t use gasoline! There are other solvents that are safer. Do something less dangerous if you need thrills…like juggling chainsaws.

sdmc530

same here,

clean a new chain once and just keep rewaxing as needed. I keep it very simple and have a couple chain rotation. Super simple and its a great, no muss or fuss.

SoSmellyAir

I soak and agitate the chain in OMS (but no alcohol) prior to each waxing.

Camilo

That's "lazy"? Phew. I'd say you just posted a definition of over kill and the opposite of lazy! Why the Simple Green before the mineral spirits? And why rinse with anything after the mineral spriits. And why take the time to hand dry and blow dry when just leaving it will dry it without any effort at all?

Lazy, economical and eco-friendly is OMS/Mineral spirits, one and done. Swish n jar #1, swish in Jar #2, air dry over night. Let the used OMS settle and pour off the clear stuff. Gather the dirty stuff in a separate holding jar and after a few chains done like that, you have some dirty mineral spirits in a jar, which in turn also settles, leaving more clear to pour off and reuse. The "waste" from mineral spirits is very little over time. I end up with a cup or so per year of stuff I can't re-use and I just dump in on a bonfire when I happen to have one. It's not very flammable at all, not explosive like gasoline. I could also take it to the hazmat bin at the transfer site if it was any significant volume, but there's not.

But I don't do the full immersion wax, I use a drip on commercial wax lube. Usually, I just wipe the chain with an OMS soaked rag and drip on the new lube. A couple of times a year I might do a soak routine, but generally not. Like someone said above - don't over think it. Chains are cheap and time is not unlimited.

snapshot46

I alternate between 2 chains and switch them on a monthly basis.. While one is on the bike I'm cleaning the other. My initial step is to soak my dirty chain in mineral spirits over night. Then I put the chain in an ultra-sonic cleaner in a solution of the citrus de-greaser from the Dollar Store and water. Let it cook for about an hour. Everything comes out bright and shiny.

icemilkcoffee 

Don't forget about cleaning your cassette, jockey wheels and chain rings too. Otherwise all your hard work cleaning your chain is all for naught.
Also, I measured the temperature of my pot of wax in the crockpot. It pegged the far end of the meat thermometer right away. I estimate it to be over 230F (the meat thermometer markings only go up to 220F). So there is no need to worry about traces of rinse water remaining in/on the chain- if you leave the chain in the crockpot for half an hour all water will evaporate.

buddiiee 

Somehow I still haven't burned down any houses. Odd! Maybe I just think things through before I do them I guess lol. Nothing cuts grease like gas.

cyccommute 

…yet. Go talk to your local fire department. At least warn them that you are soaking chains in…checks notes…”a steel coffee can full of gas”. That way they know what to expect.


There is a solvent that cuts grease better than gasoline. Mineral spirits is as efficient…if not more so. I’ve never had to let a chain…checks notes…”soak for a few days”. I put the chain in a Gatorade bottle, shake it until my arm gets tired…about 30 seconds (I am a cyclist, after all)…, take it out, and let it evaporate. The chain is clean and ready for lubrication.

An added benefit is that the solvent isn’t likely to ignite from some random spark. The flash point of gasoline is -45°F which means that it will ignite at any temperature that we humans are going to encounter. It has has a high vapor pressure which means it evaporates easily and spreads widely. The high vapor pressure also means that the fuel burns hotter and faster.

Mineral spirits has a flash point of between 70°F and 150°F, depending on the grade. Most are around 100°F. Mineral spirits also have a low vapor pressure which means it doesn’t evaporate that easily nor spread that widely. It also burns slower. It’s far better than gasoline because it works and you aren’t playing with explosive material.

SoSmellyAir

Not to mention that gasoline fumes are not so good for you.

Hiro11

Leaving a bunch of chains in mineral spirits and then shaking in isopropyl alcohol is "complicated"? This is maybe five minutes total "work". Doing six chains is the same amount of work as one chain, so it's not something you have to do often either. It's also the suggested method from basically every "expert" (lol). I filter and reuse the mineral spirits and you need only a little isopropyl alcohol so it's not particularly wasteful.

Is it "necessary"? Who knows? Does this process give you a very clean chain that wax will readily stick to? Yes, absolutely. Maybe I could save five minutes of my time, maybe I shouldn't mess with success?

cyccommute 

You detail a 7 step process that takes up to 5 days. That’s not “five minutes”. I’ve used lots of complicated multistep processes in my work and, in a laboratory setting, something that takes 5 days to do, even if it involves hours of basically inactivity on the part of the analyst, is still considered to take 5 days, not 5 minutes. The actual measurement may only take minutes but the process is what is counted, not just the measurement.

As for the “experts” on chain cleaning, they only got to be a “expert” by calling themselves that or by developing a complicated process to a simple problem because they felt it needed to be complicated. I will guarantee you (almost) that the “experts” have never tested the effect of the steps of their process nor can they tell you why the steps are used in the first place.

When I develop a chemical procedure…and I’ve developed many of them…I start simple and add complication only as needed. And I test each added complication to see if it is really needed. If I’m using someone else’s procedure, I test to see if a step is needed. If it doesn’t change the results, I eliminate that step.

You are asking the wrong question. Do the chain need to be very clean for the wax to stick to it? People with little chemical experience…and I’d say most of the “experts” on chain cleaning fall into the category…seem to think that wax is vastly different from the solvent used to remove it or from other hydrocarbon oils used in lubrication. They are slightly different. They have a higher molecular weight but, functionally, they are the same. The solvent that dissolves oil and wax is not going to prevent the wax from adhering to the chain. For that matter, oil isn’t going to prevent the wax from adhering to the chain. Once molten, the wax is a solvent just like mineral spirits.

Test your process to see if all those steps really are needed. If you leave out the isopropanol step, what effect does that have on the chain life or the adherence of the wax to the chain? If you leave out the second wash with mineral spirits, does that have an effect? If you only wash once with mineral spirits does that have a large impact on the chain life?

My own chain cleaning/lubricating method is based on my own testing. I used to do 2 washes with mineral spirits (although I’ve only used agitation and have never let the chain just sit in solvent). I used to clean my chains frequently (mostly when using oil). Then I stopped using the second wash. I keep records and found that the chains lasted just as long, so the second wash was stopped. Then, because I use solvent wax, I noticed that my chains were clean and didn’t need the frequent cleaning. Now they get cleaned once on installation and don’t get cleaned again because they don’t need it. My chains last just as long as previously so why do more work?

As I said in post 2, keep it simple. Don’t do 10 steps if 2 will do. Don’t do 2 steps if you only really only need to do one. Don’t do something blindly. Test it.

70sSanO

The easiest and most productive method is to remove the chain, pour gas on it, set it on fire, and make s’mores.

”We’re doing the tandem tonight, invite the neighbor kids over.”

John

Racing Dan

Is it even required cleaning/stripping a new chain at all. I tried hot waxing with some old school castrol MC hot melt wax. Worked perfectly fine, just dumping in a new chain direct from the package. Im betting simply swishing a new chain in what ever mixture of paraffin, or what ever is used for bikes, would make it adhere just fine, just like the castrol wax did. Cant see why it wouldn't. Its all hydrocarbons anyway, - but of course Im not a chemist and at this point Im just guessing. Did anyone ever try, or did you go straight to the ten step plan .. ;-)

cyccommute 

I have often pointed out just this point. The factory lubricant on chains is a soft wax. Candle or canning wax or even other types of wax are hard waxes. A soft wax bends and flexes while a hard wax is brittle. Adding the soft wax to the hard wax would result in something in between the two which would stick on better and not flake off.

It doesn’t matter anyway. Although I’ve not been brave enough to try it, I doubt that you’d get any different results with regards to chain wear if you didn’t put any lubrication on it. No matter how many cleaning steps you have or secret sauce lubrication recipes or magic enchantments, a chain is going to wear out in about the same amount of mileage.

Racing Dan

Thats my thinking too. There is an old video somewhere on YT, from a bike chain factory, showing the uncut chain running through a bath of hot lube. Most likely wax .. Stripping it all of in some elaborate process seem very redundant. Id like to see a comparison between a new, fully prepared, waxed chain and a non prepared one after 500 km. Im betting the difference is nil or at least very close.

Crankycrank

Campy factory even. Lube starts at 4:14.

bbbean 

This is directly at odds with what both wax manufacturers and independent testing labs recommend. See https://zerofrictioncycling.com.au/wax-instructions/ for a pretty definitive explanation from the gold standard for independent testing labs.

cyccommute 

Wax manufacturers want you to use their wax without other lubricants present because they can’t control for what those other materials will do to their wax. Testing labs want experimental control for testing. The average home (or even professional) mechanic doesn’t need to come up to those standards. Failing to have a clean room clean chain probably won’t have any effect on the mileage of the chain. Even if it does have some effect, it is likely to be minor. You aren’t going to get half the mileage out of the chain if you don’t strip every single molecule of the previous lubricant from the chain before you start using their wax.

I also don’t consider Zero Friction to the be gold standard for chain testing. I question their results and can find little about how they arrive at those results. They say something about variance of the measurement but don’t list the variance. Their results are very suspect in my opinion. On their chain longevity testing page, they claim that they only get 1000 km (600 miles) out of an inexpensive Shimano chain, which is unbelievable. They claim only 3000 km for the best actual measurement on a chain. That’s extremely low from what most people report. They also list only one 9 speed and one 8 speed chain but give an average for “all” 8 speed and “all” 9 speed chains. That’s lazy science.

Finally, if someone…manufacturer, testing lab, or home mechanic…suggests a long involved multistep process for chain cleaning, they had better have good reasons for doing all those steps. I have yet to see anyone provide a reason. I also have yet to see anyone actually test if those steps result in different results than something less involved.

kingston 

I just bought several new chains for the spring cycling season, and I'm going to throw caution to the wind and toss one of them in the wax crock-pot without cleaning it first. I'll report back in a few weeks and let you know how it goes. If it works, it could save me hundreds of seconds a year in chain cleaning.

SoSmellyAir

I mainly switched to chain waxing for the improvement in cleanliness; drivetrain longevity (if any) is just a bonus.

Subscribed.

Racing Dan

This is true, but outside of nebulous claims no one ever explained how or why they arrived at their super elaborate cleaning methods, that only the most anal would consider doing on a regular basis.

Same with the claim you must use a crockpot, that slows down the process even further. I tried both the before mentioned MC wax and paraffin. Both can safely be heated on the stove. Its no more dangerous than cooking an egg and your done in a few minutes rather than waiting a hour for a 100w crockpot.

buddiiee 

Well, to be up front, a lot of those chains were either not maintained, or were bmx chains. If it's a chain that's maintained super frequently like the one that are talking about on here, then a few hours would do it. Nevvvvver had a problem, and all my chains always came out super clean.