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Homebrew chain clean and homebrew hot wax

Old 02-26-18, 08:16 AM
  #76  
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Originally Posted by wgscott
I use a new chain and strip the oil it is packed in with white gas, dry it, and then put it in molten paraffin for a few minutes. I try to stir it around a bit too, but nothing extreme.

I leave the chain on the bike for the life of the chain, and just wipe it off and appy Squirt every 100 miles or so.
I'm considering switching my randonneuring bike over to wax. If it rains it probably won't last the whole ride, so I'm wondering if the hot-wax/squirt combo will work for me. For reference, a 600k is 373mi, which should be fine if it's not raining. A 1200k is 746mi which is right around what I normally get if it's dry. I have two questions
  1. If I use squirt on a ride will I be able to go back to hot-wax without cleaning the chain again?
  2. Assuming worst case it rains the whole time, will the 15ml bottle be enough to get me through a 1200k or will in need the 120ml?
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Old 02-26-18, 09:56 AM
  #77  
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Originally Posted by kingston
I have two questions
  1. If I use squirt on a ride will I be able to go back to hot-wax without cleaning the chain again?
  2. Assuming worst case it rains the whole time, will the 15ml bottle be enough to get me through a 1200k or will in need the 120ml?
(1) Yes. It does seem to attract a wee bit more grime than does pure paraffin, but nothing like standard lubes. I would just wipe the chain a few times with a paper towel and then put it into the wax. (I would do that mainly to keep the wax clean). I'm using "would" here because I haven't actually tried it yet.

(2) I have no experience with how it behaves in the rain, but 120 ml is quite a lot. (The CA drought is back with a vengeance. Last year, before I tried this, we had about 100 inches of rainfall where I live; this year we are up to 14 inches.)
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Old 02-26-18, 10:01 AM
  #78  
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Originally Posted by Racing Dan
Thanks. I tried granulating some paraffin wax (I assume .. , It was a t-light candle, but it didn't say what it was made of) and it did in fact dissolve in white gas. I haven't tested the mixtures efficacy for lubricating a chain yet, but I will. Im not about to heat flammable liquids, but thanks for the warning.

In relation to elaborate cleaning and spending a lot of money on equipment. Thats not me, at all. My fist cleaning of the chain, after using the factory lube, was shaking in a jar of OMS to get rid of the dirty grease. Now I just melt a few t-lights in a old, small sauce pan over a low gas flame, dump in the chain, swish it around for a minute, take out the chain and discard the now blackish, left over wax. This way the chain is cleaned and lubed in one go, with no cleaning chemicals involved. Honestly, it only takes a few minutes and all I have spent is 3$ on a bag of 50 t-lights. I dont think the elaborate methods with ultrasonic cleaners and crock pots, that take forever to heat up, is worth for me.

If I could find an oil that didnt stink when heated, I would add in some oil and then I could also just apply some to the chain if it sounds dry and I cant be bothered waxing it. It will then all come of in the next waxing. I remember from my youth we had castor oil for RC engines. I was thinking about getting some or an other vegetable oil. Any thoughts?
Sorry for the late response.

Candle wax, especially candles that have been prepared is probably a bad choice for wax lubricant. Most candles have stearic acid added to them for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons is to make the candle harder so that it doesn't sag as much when heated. This increased hardness will exacerbate the flow problems that wax already has when it comes to lubrication.

You are kind of on the right track with using hot wax as a cleaning solution but on the wrong track by discarding it. The factory lube is based around a soft wax from what I can tease out of some MSDS information. That soft wax will mix with your harder wax and provide something that is softer and may flow just a little better.

The more soft wax you collect from each "cleaning", the softer the wax will be and the better it will flow. It will never reach the viscosity of an oil but that's not the point. Oil has too low a viscosity for the job at hand. It works well in closed systems...car engines and motorcycle chain oilers...but on a bike it flows too much so you have to constantly remove and refresh it.

If you were starting from scratch, I would suggest trying canning wax (it doesn't have the stearic acid in it) and perhaps adding Vaseline to it to soften that wax. Vaseline is just a soft wax.

Edit on the idea of using a vegetable derived oil: I would counsel against it. Vegetable derived oils have lots of unsaturated carbon-carbon bonds which are susceptible to oxidation. This causes them to "gum" up or solidify with time. That makes maintenance more difficult since the solids are more difficult to find a solvent that will dissolve them. Petroleum based oils are more stable.
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Old 02-26-18, 10:03 AM
  #79  
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Thanks, @wgscott. I'll start with the small bottle then.
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Old 03-04-18, 03:28 AM
  #80  
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In post #4 on this thread, I wrote that I had just tried straight Gulf Wax for the first time.

Tomorrow, I'll re-apply Gulf Wax for the third time in only ~500 miles. In each case, I've waited until squeaking grew annoyingly loud, which seems to happen after just one or two rainy commutes. To make the hot wax method reasonably practical for commuting in the Pacific Northwest, I might buy a couple more chains. (Then I won't have to heat up the pot so often.) I really like not having oily grime on my chain, sprockets, hands, and clothes.
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Old 03-05-18, 04:45 PM
  #81  
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Originally Posted by BritishV8
In post #4 on this thread, I wrote that I had just tried straight Gulf Wax for the first time.

Tomorrow, I'll re-apply Gulf Wax for the third time in only ~500 miles. In each case, I've waited until squeaking grew annoyingly loud, which seems to happen after just one or two rainy commutes. To make the hot wax method reasonably practical for commuting in the Pacific Northwest, I might buy a couple more chains. (Then I won't have to heat up the pot so often.) I really like not having oily grime on my chain, sprockets, hands, and clothes.
It's not a very impressive testimony to the waxing method of lubrication. I still use oil and am not tempted to try wax.
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Old 03-05-18, 07:38 PM
  #82  
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I wax my chains, have been doing it for I don't know how long, probably the last 10 years.

Here's the wax recipe I use. This was published by UltraFast wax a few years back. I found it works better than straight paraffin wax.

1 pound Gulf Paraffin
5g pure Teflon (PTFE) 3-micron powder (From Howard Piano Industries)
1g pure Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2) sub-micron powder

I have this mixed in a 1 1/2 qt slow cooker I picked up from Amazon for $9.

For the cleaning routine I do the following:
  1. When the chain needs to be changed due to miles (~250-350 miles depending on the bike) or dirt/rain/snow, I pull out another chain and the one that comes of goes in the parts washer.
  2. When I have enough chains that need waxing, I'll brush down the chains in the parts washer, then collect them for cleaning in the ultrasonic cleaner. My parts cleaner has odorless mineral spirits in it, but it is pretty heavily used and leaves an oily film. I could fix this by using fresh mineral spirits but changing 20 gallons of mineral spirits is a little daunting.
  3. I clean the oily film off the chains I clean them in a 10:1 mix of Simple Green Aircraft cleaner for the longest cycle on the ultrasonic cleaner.
  4. Rinse the chains in hot water to get rid of the Simple Green.
  5. Dry the chains by immersing in denatured alcohol and 90 second run on the ultrasonic.
  6. Let the chains air dry.
Chains that get used on the trainer go straight into the wax.

Now that the chains are clean, I'll put them in the molten wax whenever I have the time. Or when I remember to turn-on the slow cooker. Toss in a chain, let it sit at least 10 minutes, then pull out. Most of the time the chains will be in the wax 1/2 hr to a couple of hours. I'm usually doing other things and will drop in a chain, go keep working whatever else I was working on, pull out the chain next time I go by and drop in another.

When I write this out it sounds involved and time-consuming, but the reality is I'm usually doing both the cleaning and waxing while I'm working on something else. I move the chains around whenever I happen to go by and probably don't spend more than 10 minute total cleaning and waxing 4 chains. I think doing this write-up took longer than I spent cleaning & rewaxing the last batch of chains.

FWIW I have 2 chains for each of my bikes, and use a quick-link to allow me to change them easily. I either have a clean waxed chain waiting to go, or have 1 getting rewaxed. So far the most miles I have on a drivetrain/2 chain combination is 12,000 miles (6k per chain.) Chain wear is edging towards 1/32" now.
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Old 03-06-18, 07:30 AM
  #83  
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Originally Posted by RGMN
I wax my chains, have been doing it for I don't know how long, probably the last 10 years.

Here's the wax recipe I use. This was published by UltraFast wax a few years back. I found it works better than straight paraffin wax.

1 pound Gulf Paraffin
5g pure Teflon (PTFE) 3-micron powder (From Howard Piano Industries)
1g pure Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2) sub-micron powder

I have this mixed in a 1 1/2 qt slow cooker I picked up from Amazon for $9.

For the cleaning routine I do the following:
  1. When the chain needs to be changed due to miles (~250-350 miles depending on the bike) or dirt/rain/snow, I pull out another chain and the one that comes of goes in the parts washer.
  2. When I have enough chains that need waxing, I'll brush down the chains in the parts washer, then collect them for cleaning in the ultrasonic cleaner. My parts cleaner has odorless mineral spirits in it, but it is pretty heavily used and leaves an oily film. I could fix this by using fresh mineral spirits but changing 20 gallons of mineral spirits is a little daunting.
  3. I clean the oily film off the chains I clean them in a 10:1 mix of Simple Green Aircraft cleaner for the longest cycle on the ultrasonic cleaner.
  4. Rinse the chains in hot water to get rid of the Simple Green.
  5. Dry the chains by immersing in denatured alcohol and 90 second run on the ultrasonic.
  6. Let the chains air dry.
Chains that get used on the trainer go straight into the wax.

Now that the chains are clean, I'll put them in the molten wax whenever I have the time. Or when I remember to turn-on the slow cooker. Toss in a chain, let it sit at least 10 minutes, then pull out. Most of the time the chains will be in the wax 1/2 hr to a couple of hours. I'm usually doing other things and will drop in a chain, go keep working whatever else I was working on, pull out the chain next time I go by and drop in another.

When I write this out it sounds involved and time-consuming, but the reality is I'm usually doing both the cleaning and waxing while I'm working on something else. I move the chains around whenever I happen to go by and probably don't spend more than 10 minute total cleaning and waxing 4 chains. I think doing this write-up took longer than I spent cleaning & rewaxing the last batch of chains.

FWIW I have 2 chains for each of my bikes, and use a quick-link to allow me to change them easily. I either have a clean waxed chain waiting to go, or have 1 getting rewaxed. So far the most miles I have on a drivetrain/2 chain combination is 12,000 miles (6k per chain.) Chain wear is edging towards 1/32" now.
I've said it before (probably here) but I'll say it again: What is it about chains that bring out the Rube Goldberg in people? You have a chain that is clean to begin with. The wax will not pick up grit and dirt like oils will. There is no need to use mineral spirits to begin with. Put it in the hot wax and be done with it. No need for a parts washer, no need for washing with Simple Green, no need for rinsing with water or anything else.
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Old 03-06-18, 08:55 AM
  #84  
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Every other Tuesday, my waxed chain comes off of the bike and goes into the crock pot full of hot wax. About an hour later I take it out and put it back on the bike. That's it. One of the strengths of hot waxing is needing to clean the chain only once, to get the factory lube/protectant off of it.
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Old 03-06-18, 10:02 AM
  #85  
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Thank you RGMN for turning us on to PTFE and MoS2 in powder form. I didn't realize those were so easily sourced, and I may have other uses for them too. Cool!
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Old 03-06-18, 12:31 PM
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Originally Posted by cyccommute
I've said it before (probably here) but I'll say it again: What is it about chains that bring out the Rube Goldberg in people? You have a chain that is clean to begin with. The wax will not pick up grit and dirt like oils will. There is no need to use mineral spirits to begin with. Put it in the hot wax and be done with it. No need for a parts washer, no need for washing with Simple Green, no need for rinsing with water or anything else.
In my riding conditions I do get dirt on the chains that doesn't come off any other way than running the chain thru a cleaning cycle. My previous batch of wax was just straight paraffin. In that batch before I put any chain in it would get wiped down, blown out with compressed air (probably still to much cleaning,) then put in the molten wax. By the time I dumped the wax it had taken on a color very similar to the crushed limestone trails in the area. I had our lubrication lab analyze a sample of the wax and it showed high silica content, indicative of dirt. On my current batch of wax, which I've been using for about 3 years with the cleaning routine I listed, I decided to try to keep the silica level down as silica can be wear agent. Analysis shows that silica is detected but is below the threshold to get a reliable particle count. All I can conclude is that the cleaning is removing the dirt prior to depositing it in the wax. And I'm quite sure you'll tell me I'm wrong.
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Old 03-06-18, 12:36 PM
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Originally Posted by BritishV8
Thank you RGMN for turning us on to PTFE and MoS2 in powder form. I didn't realize those were so easily sourced, and I may have other uses for them too. Cool!
You are welcome. I would have posted the links to the powders but being a newbie they won't let me until I get a few more messages in.

If you do use the PTFE powder be a little careful with it. There are reports out that very fine powder PTFE & PTFE fumes (usually due to heating, like when waxing a ski) can cause respiratory issues similar to smoking. I usually use a carbon respirator mask when I'm handling it.
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Old 03-06-18, 01:36 PM
  #88  
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Originally Posted by DrIsotope
I follow a slightly modified version of this process: on my rest day, remove the chain and put it in the Lil' Dipper crockpot. Then forget about it for 4-8 hours. Remove it right before bedtime, after thinking, "Omigod, the chain!" put it back on bike.

I need to go get the chain out right now-- it's been in for about 7 hours. This thread reminded me.
Hah, that's why I went to putting my Lil' Dipper on 'Low,' instead of high lol

Kept remembering 4 hours later, running out to the garage, and it's full of smoke
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Old 03-06-18, 01:40 PM
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Originally Posted by noglider
It's not a very impressive testimony to the waxing method of lubrication. I still use oil and am not tempted to try wax.
I don't think I would use it in the PNW either.

I'm in Chicago...I've taken to only using wax in the summer. May through maybe October, wax, new chain for November through April.

Wax holds up for a couple rainy rides. Any more than that, and you do need to re-dip. I don't really get wet enough in the summer to not be able to get my allotted mileage out of a dip. Kept getting rained on this fall/winter, and chain got squeaky too often, and then a bit rusty because the wax doesn't protect too well against salt.

Wax is definitely not the better option in wet weather.
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Old 03-07-18, 09:51 AM
  #90  
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Originally Posted by RGMN
In my riding conditions I do get dirt on the chains that doesn't come off any other way than running the chain thru a cleaning cycle. My previous batch of wax was just straight paraffin. In that batch before I put any chain in it would get wiped down, blown out with compressed air (probably still to much cleaning,) then put in the molten wax. By the time I dumped the wax it had taken on a color very similar to the crushed limestone trails in the area. I had our lubrication lab analyze a sample of the wax and it showed high silica content, indicative of dirt. On my current batch of wax, which I've been using for about 3 years with the cleaning routine I listed, I decided to try to keep the silica level down as silica can be wear agent. Analysis shows that silica is detected but is below the threshold to get a reliable particle count. All I can conclude is that the cleaning is removing the dirt prior to depositing it in the wax. And I'm quite sure you'll tell me I'm wrong.
If your riding conditions are putting so much dirt on the chain that it carries over to your melted wax without settling out, then your are carrying around a bunch of dirt contaminants every time you go for a ride. A bicycle chain isn't in a sealed system so an elaborate (almost clean room like) cleaning procedure is senseless exercise. It's even more senseless considering that you spending a lot of time and money on cleaning a cheap, easily replaced and consumable part.

Compare how much you've spent on the parts washer, solvents, degreasers, water, alcohol, ultrasonic bath, wax melting equipment, chemicals, etc. to get twice as much (claimed) mileage out of your chain to my method of half a cup of mineral spirits to rinse a dozen chains and approximately 3 oz of White Lightning (if I apply it very liberally at 600 mile intervals). The mineral spirits cost me 1¢ and about $3 for the White Lightning. Yes, I get half the mileage out for my chains that you do but I spend a whole lot less time messing around with a chain that is going to wear out anyway.

You can continue to do what you want but to others I just say "there's just no need for this kind of elaborate cleaning system." Chains are cheap and don't need the kind of care and time commitment that many people think they do.
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Old 03-07-18, 10:49 AM
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That's my attitude, too. If a chain is super dirty and disgusting, I toss it. (If I can clean it easily, I do.) When it's half-worn, I toss it, because I might miss the ideal time to get rid of it, and that will wear out my cogs. Cogs are expensiver to replace than a chain. I'm conservative with most things I buy, so I allow myself to be wasteful with chains.
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Old 03-07-18, 07:27 PM
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I just started waxing, think I'll just buy plain wax from here on and just add pfte and moly. Biggest difference is how quiet the drivetrain is.
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Old 05-18-21, 09:00 AM
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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.

wax can be worn too (due to oxidation). AND every base oil is MORE vulnerable to oxidation in the presence of water.

my method involves getting first in the chain one homebrew that has NO WAX in it and then getting the chain in a jar half filled with wax that gets almost to 100C in 10 minutes or so. a lid over a pot with a bit of water that gets heated and release water vapour, the jar is does not contact the water directly but stands above it so that heat is transferred through condensation.

the wax i use is not candle wax but petroleum wax. it's not white paraffin wax.

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. methanol is able to dissolve salts to some extent while isopropyl alcohol does not - one reason i dont need pure isopropyl.

so, one of the reasons i use an alcohol (with isopropyl) wash at the end of the chain cleaning procedure is to clear the nonpolar solvent that is less volatile. and then the hot bath with wax at the end does away with the alcohols.

i dont really need to clean the chain very often, i might skip some part of the cleaning stage sometimes. and i don't need to reapply lube to the chain very often with the homebrew i use. most people need to do it more frequently as wax wears off in time, even in dry weather.

https://www.machinerylubrication.com...tion-lubricant

and there's one more thing when it comes to friction in the chain... it helps a lot to minimize temperature fluctuation, especially when there's no liquid lubricant flowing there. you might say that there's too little heat produced in the chain but mind you... wax is a very poor heat conductor and the surface where heat is produced is very small and in a very short moment. every base oil is more vulnerable to oxidation when heated and you also want the solid lubricant to stay in place. btw, one way to tell the waxy stuff keeps sticking where it was applied is that it keeps the chain at shorter length (even after stomping the pedals etc.) than compared to the length it would have with just oil in it. it's easier to tell this with a singlespeed setup as you just see the chain slack being much less than it would have been with just "chain oil" products.

so this is the most important thing to know about... there is an additive that is an excellent heat conductor and also a very good electrical insulator. i guess there's no point to suggest the percentage of this additive in the whole mixture but i surely use a much higher concentration of hBN than what products known as "ceramic wax" (commercial lubricants) have.

i also use a synthetic gear oil (GL4) product - with all the additives in it - along with the hBN separate additive before the wax dip.

Last edited by adipe; 05-18-21 at 10:32 AM.
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Old 05-18-21, 09:12 AM
  #94  
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Squirting anything on a waxed chain to "extend" between hot waxes will totally defeat the purpose of no grime/gunk. Might as well just use your favorite "lube" at that point. Having said that, if keeping the drivetrain gunk free was not a criteria for the hot waxing then ignore above.
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Old 05-18-21, 11:18 AM
  #95  
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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.
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Old 05-18-21, 11:46 AM
  #96  
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Originally Posted by cyccommute
I hate responding to zombie threads but you’ve got quite a bit of misinformation here.

...
dude... read more carefully what i wrote.

every base oil is vulnerable to oxidation which is more easy to occur in the presence of water, salts, pressure, heat. what i mean by heat is not boiling temperatures but sudden, short, localized increases in temperature.

one of the reasons gear oil is flowing in car's transmission for example is to transfer heat away from where it gets produced and that is friction. so i explained the main reason the hBN additive shines when it comes to solid lubricants.
in a solid lubricant environment you will have friction that is not dissipated by the metal which does NOT contact metal. what you might call a small bit of temperature increase is a detrimental factor that is not to be taken separately but contributes to the likeliness and speed of lubricant degradation in time. it can also make the wax move away due to having a not so negligible thermal expansion.

later edit: wax, as any other base oil, is a very poor heat conductor and that heat due to friction will pose a problem if the lubricant does not flow around as the metal does not directly contact the wax layers which press against each other when sliding occurs. wax is a very poor heat conductor, either in solid or liquid form.

what people that are interested in using wax should take from what i wrote is that wax is a crappy lubricant if the needed additives are not there. i explained why, you seem to not have had the patience of reading that part which helps people get convinced to get a homebrew and not just some candle wax etc. and remember the whole bits when it comes to practice. maybe i should not explain too much, let marketing do it's thing, let people stick to brand lubes and never try some homebrew...

another erroneous thing on YOUR part... quote:
“Petroleum”, “candle”, and “paraffin” are all synonyms for the same thing.

they are not the same thing. ever heard of
Microcrystalline wax?

forget about imputing the lack of capitals on my part, it's the content that really matters, not the lack of capitals. i never insert capitals at the start of the sentence for that reason. and i hate putting effort in some post on the interwebs and then having someone else accusing me of "misinformation" (which is a false accusation) and on top of that... the lack of capitals. next thing will be the occasional grammatical mistakes, right?


rly?

Last edited by adipe; 05-18-21 at 12:09 PM.
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Old 05-18-21, 12:36 PM
  #97  
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a final post in this "zombie thread"...

paraffin is crap. really. it flakes off too easily - for me at least. it is brittle, no elasticity. this thing is even more important when the chain is deflected as in a derailleur (multispeed) setup.

microcrystalline wax has some advantages and also some disadvantages. i prefer it as i don't like dipping the chain very often. the disadvantages over paraffin wax... are dealt with the proper additives so that it does not degrade as much. a bit harder to find - although not expensive - but better.

just one example of a product containing it... not that i support it:
https://www.momum.cc/en/2019/12/12/3133/

i don't get paid by any company nor do i sell such products. i have no dog in the fight, i just wrote a bit of how things work and how people could choose the ingredients to mix a rather inexpensive homebrew. i mean inexpensive as once you buy the ingredients in the amounts available... they will last you a lifetime and you can also share with many friends. chain(s) can last much longer too.

but there's always the option of buying a cheap to make but also pumped up (by marketing etc.) price product. AND one which will not be top quality as customers never measure chain wear accurately enough or have the patience to compare one lubricant with another.

my chain developed less than 0.1mm stretch over 50*25.4mm length after 1000 miles or so. much, much better than what i expected and i dont relube every hundred of miles. i use a magic gear setup... so i really need to minimize chain wear as i hate to use any kind of chain tensioning device. but that is quite irrelevant to this thread. i just thought to point out the reason why i spent the money, albeit less than 50 dollars for all the stuff involved (not that dollar would be the currency where i live and english is not our native language btw). amounts of products that make up much, much more than 1 litre of lubricant. the proper wax was hard to find, the other things were really easy.

Last edited by adipe; 05-18-21 at 12:43 PM.
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Old 05-18-21, 01:27 PM
  #98  
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@davei1980, how are your routine and chain?
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Old 05-18-21, 02:08 PM
  #99  
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Originally Posted by noglider
@davei1980, how are your routine and chain?
Hi!

I still have my crockpot full of wax and my mineral spirits on hand! I wax when needed. When the chain starts making some noise I know it's time. I've noticed it's HEAVILY dependent upon riding conditions (mountain/commuting, dry/wet/dusty) etc.
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Old 05-18-21, 02:15 PM
  #100  
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Originally Posted by adipe
dude... read more carefully what i wrote.
Don’t “dude” me. I read what you wrote. You are wrong.

every base oil is vulnerable to oxidation which is more easy to occur in the presence of water, salts, pressure, heat. what i mean by heat is not boiling temperatures but sudden, short, localized increases in temperature.
Water doesn’t oxidize oil. Water doesn’t “oxidize” anything. Water is mostly in reactive. Salts...of just about any kind...are neutral to petroleum based oils. They don’t disassociate in oil nor would they have much effect if they are dissolved in water. Vegetable oils are much more reactive than petroleum based oils...more olefinic groups...and they don’t oxidize easily in foods even when in contact with salt and acid.

The chloride ion in some salts can oxidize steel but they have no effect on the nonpolar oils.

The kinds of temperature temperatures a bicycle chain experiences are tiny even if highly localized. Compared to the kind of heat experienced in internal combustion engines, it is essentially nonexistent. It will have zero effect on the oil.

one of the reasons gear oil is flowing in car's transmission for example is to transfer heat away from where it gets produced and that is friction. so i explained the main reason the hBN additive shines when it comes to solid lubricants.
And completely not applicable to bicycles.

in a solid lubricant environment you will have friction that is not dissipated by the metal which does NOT contact metal. what you might call a small bit of temperature increase is a detrimental factor that is not to be taken separately but contributes to the likeliness and speed of lubricant degradation in time. it can also make the wax move away due to having a not so negligible thermal expansion.
The kinds of friction you are talking about won’t matter. The magnitude is too small to matter. Any lubrication on a chain is also not going to be on there for all that long anyway. The amount of time needed to oxidize oil at ambient temperatures is so long that the lubricant is going to be contaminated or replaced long before it has a chance to oxidize.

what people that are interested in using wax should take from what i wrote is that wax is a crappy lubricant if the needed additives are not there. i explained why, you seem to not have had the patience of reading that part which helps people get convinced to get a homebrew and not just some candle wax etc. and remember the whole bits when it comes to practice. maybe i should not explain too much, let marketing do it's thing, let people stick to brand lubes and never try some homebrew...
Additives are just not necessary. Not for this application and certainly not enough of a issue to address what you seem to think is at hand.

another erroneous thing on YOUR part... quote:
“Petroleum”, “candle”, and “paraffin” are all synonyms for the same thing.

they are not the same thing. ever heard of
Microcrystalline wax
Candle wax is generally microcrystalline wax. Yes, there are probably slight differences but they aren’t as great as you seem to think they are.

forget about imputing the lack of capitals on my part, it's the content that really matters, not the lack of capitals. i never insert capitals at the start of the sentence for that reason. and i hate putting effort in some post on the interwebs and then having someone else accusing me of "misinformation" (which is a false accusation) and on top of that... the lack of capitals. next thing will be the occasional grammatical mistakes, right?

rly?
][/QUOTE]

The lack of capitals makes reading your posts difficult. You effectively have a run on sentence where we don’t know the beginning and end of your thoughts. Presentation helps clarify what you are trying to say.
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