smd4

So let me get this straight: waxing is great for lubrication, and running a clean chain, but does absolutely nothing for rust prevention?

Andrew R Stewart 

IME, not nothing but less than a wet oil does. Back in the day (which one?) some added 90 wt gear oil to their wax to try to add some self healing action to the lube layer. Andy

2_i 

I mix LPS3 with Corrosion-X for my chains and anything that can corrode on a bike. LPS3 provides heavy waxy hydrocarbon components, and Corrosion-X provides light that can penetrate anywhere + chemical protection.

FBinNY 

The problem with way is two fold. First of all it doesn't flow and lacks wetting action. So, where it gets worn away it doesn't "heal". The other issue is that it often lacks a strong affinity for steel. It can begin to pull away allowing water to wick in behind it (depends on the wax and it's hardness). So, if you're diligent about maintaining a re-apply schedule wax can work fine. If not, it won't protect the chain as well as a heavy oil.

elcruxio

What a fun little "absolutely no ill intentions to begin a flame war" way of starting a thread

But it depends. If we're talking just water then wet lube might protect the chain better. However all manner of gunk sticks to wet lube so in the end your chain might not be rusty but it'll be black with an abrasive lapping paste. With wax, the gunk doesn't adhere so no lapping paste to worry about.

Also if we're talking slightly more difficult conditions, like salted roads, the salt sticks inside the chain with wet lube or wax.

So if you want to get rid of gunk or salt the chain needs to be flushed regularly. With wax since there's no gunk to speak of, boiling water or just hot wax will do the trick (but with hot wax the gunk is then in the wax, so I prefer water). With oil you pretty much need a solvent of some sort as the gunk sticks really tightly especially inside the chain. I had one chain that had been used for a few hundred kilometeres with the factory grease before flushing it. It was completely black when I stuck it in naphta and after a week of soaking and agitating it still wasn't clean. It actually still isn't as some of caked black stuff just won't move no matter how many times I wax it.

So if you're not riding in perfect conditions all the time, it comes down to how you want to flush the chain. With solvents or water. I can see the preference for both but I've found wax to be overall a much cleaner and easier way.

Duragrouch

Yep, wax does zero to prevent rust, although back in the day, clueless, I was using candle wax, too brittle, fell off the outside of the chain quick, just left wax in the pivots.

I use 90 weight for chain lube. When I was a child, dad used motor oil. After I bought my first really good road bike, I got snobby and started using thin "bike" chain lubes, then wax, all though the 1990s. But I was an engineer and learned more about lubes, and, in recent years, read a test of bike chain lubes, and the ones with "anti-wear additives" performed much better. Ya know what has anti-wear additives (what my dad called high pressure additives)? Motor oil. Then I thought, 90 weight gear lube has even more of that, and it still flows fine, in fact, clings to the chain better and not get flung onto the rear rim as much. And a fraction of the cost of dedicated "bike" chain lube. Only issue is, the stuff smells bad for a day or two. Like all lubes (except wax), gets kinda pasty after about perhaps 600 miles, I'm pretty sure that's not the lube, but extremely fine metal particles in (colloidal?) suspension, hence the dark gray or black color. I use an on-bike chain cleaner, and afterward, dip a magnet into the cleaning solution, a thick black sludge will cling to it, that's chain wear.

smd4

What a way to cast aspersions on a legitimate question.

I recently waxed my chain and was sort of dismayed that there seemed to be no "coating" on the side plates. Indeed, the entire chain seems a bit dry. After reading thousands of posts and threads about the wonderful benefits of wax, I decided to give it a go. But, taken as a whole, the main benefit of waxing seemed to be only that it resulted in a "clean" chain, and no "tattooing" of legs. Hardly the benefit I'm interested in, because that was never a problem for me to begin with.

Because I knew how to properly oil my chain, "dirty chains" was never a problem (although I admit that when cleaning my chain in mineral spirits prior to waxing, the solution became much dirtier than I anticipated). So now I am left to ponder what the actual benefits of waxing chains may be. I haven't ridden the waxed chain yet--I hope to do that tomorrow. But all things considered--I'm not sure it provides me any benefit--aside from possibly being able to say, at least, "I tried it--and there's no real benefit." I guess we'll see.

bboy314

I’ve never heard of this “chain waxing”. Are there any threads on the subject? I assume the BF community has reached a definitive consensus on it’s usefulness…

smd4

They haven't. See the post above yours.

elcruxio

You got the Silca super secret blend? That has tungsten disulfide in it, which will make the wax seem a bit dirty since the additives are black in colour.

pdlamb

Wax is the optimum chain lube, of course (see previous discussions). The one teeny-tiny imperfection is the chain rust issue. So someone needs to develop a way to redistribute the wax to continue to provide perfect lubrication while enhancing waterproofness. Sounds like a job for Rube Goldberg.

It's obvious that a small propane torch could be used to reheat the wax while pedaling. However, it would need a heat shield to protect the frame paint, and it must be carbon. It's well known that solid rocket nozzles are carbon-carbon matrix, chosen for their light weight and heat resistance. So let's start with a propane torch on the top of the front derailer, with a carbon-carbon shield attached to the inside. (Note a chain keeper can be substituted for the derailer if the bike uses a 1X shifting system.) The propane tank can sit inside the seat tube. On a steel bike, you would need to remove the seatpost to recharge the propane, but on a non-round seat tube, just build some additional fiber matrix around an access port. Next, you don't want the flame going all the time, so you'll need to build a new, improved, custom dyno bottom bracket to sense when the user is actually pedalling. This is wired to an igniter upstream of the torch's nozzle. The faster you're pedaling, the higher the temperature needs to be, so the valve passes more gas for a bigger flame the faster you pedal. An upgrade will be available in a few years using a wireless system with more batteries for the valve and new custom BB.

It sounds fantastic, doesn't it? But way back when you could light your way home with primitive dyno lights and still shift gears with a twist actuator and cables, who would have believed you could charge or replace six batteries on a headlight, tail light, front and rear shifters and derailers to do the same thing? And with the New and Improved Wax Warmer (trademark pending), you can do the same thing to your chain as a wet oil with Clean Chain Wax!

smd4

Yep, that's what I went with. Chain seems clean...but un-coated. As a lifetime Triflow fan, it just seems unnerving. I don't ride in the wet, so maybe I'm overreacting--although it can be humid here.

elcruxio

If it's any help, our bikes get ridden in salt water roads for several months of the year and we get some rust. Not a whole lot mind you.

Riding in dry or fairly dry with a waxed chain should result in zero visible rust

smd4

Sounds good. I'm giving it a try!

cyccommute 

I don’t think it is a 2 fold problem but only the result of the inability of the wax to flow. Wax gets pushed out of the places where it needs to lubricate and has no mechanism for flowing back…as you said id doesn’t “heal”. The pressure points where the wax is needed gets starved for lubrication and wear metal-on-metal. Any water that penetrates into the chain sets up residence in those pressure points and causes the metal to oxidize. I don’t agree with the current magical thinking that wax can make a chain last 3 to 5 times what oil does because of this starving of the lubrication points. In my experience, chains last about 3500 miles with wax or about the same as an oiled chain does.

My hypothesis for why neither lubricant results in vastly superior chain wear is that wax starves the lubrication points resulting in the metal-on-metal wear but oil, being a fluid, flows grit that it picks up and pumps that grit into the wear points where it does a different kind of damage. The only difference between the lubricants really is the cleanliness of wax over oil.

That’s really the only place that the wax needs to be. It’s also the only place that oil needs to be. Any wax short of the soft wax that comes from the factory is going to flake off the outside of the chain. The wax on the outside doesn’t do anything for the chain and really isn’t needed. It could be removed after hot waxing the chain but that is often too time consuming to do, although Silca $40/lb wax might be worth taking the time to flake the excess off and put it back in the pot.

On the other hand, oil on the outside of the chain may protect against (mostly cosmetic) surface rust but it also serves as a mechanism for collecting chain damaging grit and pumping into the chain. Wax won’t do that because, as FBinNY points out, wax doesn’t flow.

kcjc

My SRAM 1130 & KMC X11.93 chains were rusting with normal lubricants, Rock N Gold and Tri-Flow, and after I switched to wax. I don't ride out in the rain much, but the chains were taking a beating from the trainer and my sweat. It went way once I switched over to fully chrome-plated chains, e.g., SRAM 1170, Maybe try using a different chain.

smd4

I'm not experiencing any rust on my DA 9-sp. chain. Just don't want to start.

Duragrouch

Are you sure you don't mean molybdenum disulfide? (IIRC, the main ingredient in "moly-kote", used during race engine builds on cam surfaces to provide extra lube as they are wearing in.)

Duragrouch

I agree on both. The reason I quit wax was, a) living in a communal environment, common kitchen, inappropriate to do tech stuff on the stove, plus it's lot of effort and time, though when taking chain off to soak in solvent, that also took a ton of time, and I've of late discovered on-bike chain cleaners, wow is that a dream for time savings. And b) no protection against rust, and my region in recent years is more prone to rain.

Somewhere, might have been on here or saw elsewhere, I saw a vintage picture of a tin of chain wax (from like 1920s or 1930s I think), and it contained wax (might have been beeswax, or parafin), lanolin, and other stuff, I think it may not have been hard and brittle like the candle wax I used. I might have seen that on an old thread, which also mentioned, to get the impurities like metal out of the wax melt, melt it over a layer of water, the wax will float on top (and solidify that way), and the impurities will be down in the water and stay separate. Brilliant! I haven't used wax since, but was wondering how to scrape the bottom of the large puck to get rid of that.

elcruxio

molten speedwax uses moly but silca uses tungsten

Duragrouch

Interesting. I'll have to look up the material. Thanks. EDIT: REALLY interesting.

grumpus

I have an electric wok that is useful for melting stuff - the thermostat seems pretty accurate, I place insulation (an old pillow, blanket etc.) on top to achieve more consistent heating.

Duragrouch

Uhh, that's right, I did snag a one-serving electric slow cooker that someone was tossing (still works) that I was planning for that. But the on-bike chain cleaner and lube has been SO much faster and easier. I only remove the chain if I am replacing it.

I wouldn't put anything that is remotely flammable, in contact or close to a heat source, especially inside. Once the wax is liquid, there's pretty good convection circulation to keep it all liquid, unless with your wok shape, higher up in the wok gets a lot cooler.

For my camp stove, they make really cumbersome and bulky "heat exchangers" that clamp around the outside of the pot, to increase efficiency. I use instead, this kinda cylindrical "tent" made from woven fiberglass possibly, it's designed for an "outback oven", it fits over the pot side and lid with a small opening on top for the thermometer.

rekmeyata

I use Dumonde Tech Lite, that stuff is not a wax or a wet lube, but rather some sort of polymer like liquid plastic, and I'm very much sold on it. It lasts a long time once the initial 4 to 5 applications are done, I don't have to lube it for about 400 to 500 miles. And on my touring bike it will be left outside at a campground and get rained on at night sometimes, or while riding during the day, and the lube still holds up, plus it won't rust. That lube also doesn't attract dirt and insects like a wet lube, but like any lube it is highly recommended you wipe it down after every ride. Even after riding in the rain all day it still did not wash off, again all I do is listen for chain noise before relubing.

All you do is apply one drop per roller, run the chain about 12 times, I get on the bike and ride it through all the gears, then wipe the chain with a rag. The first application won't last too long, about 50 to 75 miles, but as soon as you hear the slightest chain noise you repeat the application, that second application will last a bit longer, then a third, and then about the fourth or fifth time you should be able to go for at least 400 miles between reapply the relubing.

Duragrouch

I looked online at the stuff, read this:
Hmm, polymer chemistry is not my forte. Maybe. There's no heat involved, but perhaps via friction and oxidation? Often, polymerization of an oil at room temp results in stickiness. But my guess would be, it consists of a light carrier liquid which has affinity for metal for anti-rust, but the lube part is microparticles of plastic like PTFE ("Teflon"), that builds up in the joints with subsequent applications.