jadmt

Going full on wax…..amazon has Silca stripper $5 off $31 and free prime shipping and jenson usa has the secret wax 20% off so $32 currently ultegra chains are $42 so if i can double or triple the life of them i can buy more beer

Andrew_G

In 2021, I installed a new Wipperman 908 chain as part of my annual rebuild. The chain was pre-waxed from the factory, and I only oiled the chain where I installed the connector link. In less than 5 miles, the new chain started to squeak. I immediately turned around, went home and thorougthly cleaned the chain and then re-lubed it.


So, I now pre-clean a new chain and lube it before use.


I use the Park "Bio" chain cleaner CB-4. It's not noxious, and is thus very easy to work with: you don't get gassed with toxic fumes. Since the cleaner is biodegradeable, I simply pour the dirty fluid into the trash can. And the CB-4 fluid does not require a water rinse, which reduces the risk of rusting the chain.


For an off-bike cleaning, I put the chain in a round motor oil drain pan. Add a bit of CB-4, and thoroughly brush the chain clean using a 2" paint "chip" brush. Wipe down the chain afterwards with paper towels to soak up the fluid. Then hang the chain up to air dry. Then (re-) install and relube.


However, for most chain cleanings, I do it on-bike. I use a Finish Line chain scrubber box with the Park CB-4 fluid. I find that the scrubber box does a faster and more thorough cleaning job than using a brush in a pan. The green plastic Finish Line scrubber box uses much less fluid than the blue Park one. After two scrubs (with fluid change), I wipe down the chain with paper towels, let dry, then relube. I also remove the derailleur pulleys, and clean and regrease them whenever I clean the chain. Also, the 2" chip brush does a good job of washing chainrings.


Amazon has the Finish Line chain cleaner box: https://www.amazon.com/Finish-Line-Q...02&sr=8-7&th=1


and the Park CB-4 degreaser: https://www.amazon.com/Park-Chain-Br...s%2C208&sr=8-3



Andrew G.

davidad

Why remove the best lube your chain will have?

Camilo

I put the chain in a jar of mineral spirits, let it soak for while, shake it a bunch and then hang it to dry on a nail. I might use a two stage process of cleaning it in one jar and then cleaning it some more in a second jar with clean mineral spirits. The mineral spirits can be used almost indefinitely if you decant the clean stuff off the contaminants that settle to the bottom of the jar.

Trakhak

I've never cleaned a new chain, in almost 60 years of buying a couple of dozen new racing bikes. In fact, I never clean chains, period. I wipe the outside of the chain with a cloth with some light oil on it after the first couple of rides and then again a few times, periodically, until the chain just begins squeaking, which usually happens after 1,000 miles or so.

Then I drip as little as possible of a good lubricant on the chain (currently Muc-Off Hydro-Dynamic), spin the cranks for 20 or 30 revolutions, wipe off the excess, and repeat as described above. Chains stay clean enough and last long enough. Works for me.

79pmooney

+1. New chains get ridden. Maybe wiped with a clean rag initially, often not. Wiped, then lubed at each interface so two drops per pin with Tri-Flo or Finish Line wet (MTB) lube . (Good bikes and winter/city/rain bikes respectfully.) Wiped and ridden. I find all the attention I can muster barely gets me any gains beyond maybe one extra glance every couple of lubes. Just plain not worth it. And my bikes are welcome anytime at the TiCycles booth at trade shows despite it being no secret they are riders. Even because they are riders.

Kontact 

What I don't understand is why anyone would go to all the trouble of completely degreasing a chain, and then put Squirt on it. If you are serious about the benefits of wax and are okay monkeying around, why aren't you hot waxing? It's easier than degreasing.

Squirt is more or less designed as a compromise for people that don't want to screw around a lot. The additives that make it easy to apply mean that it is never going to be as clean and dry as hot wax.

cyccommute 

And your degree in chemistry comes from where? Let’s begin with “dry wax”. There is no such thing. Wax is hard, not “dry”. Wax is applied as a liquid and it hardens. It does not “dry”. To dry something implies that the substance evaporates off the surface. You “dry” dishes to remove the water but ice is hardened water.

Let’s move on to the substance that coats the chain from the factory. It could considered to be a heavy oil but wax is just a heavier oil. Wax is part of a class of compounds called hydrocarbons that start with methane and proceed through the addition of a H-C-H group up through waxes. Mineral oils that are used in chain lubricants are related to methane but have many more carbons and hydrogens. Waxes are related to mineral oils and methane but have even more carbon and hydrogen groups. The soft wax…yes, it is a wax…that comes from the factory is intermediate between oil and hard wax (note the proper use of the term “hard” rather than the improper “dry”). The hard wax would stick to the chain if you dropped the whole chain into a melted wax pot because the soft wax liquifies at a lower temperature than hard wax. Once liquified, the waxes will mix and become indistinguishable from one another without sophisticated means to do a chemical separation.

“Coating” and bonding are very different things. “Bond” means “joined securely to something else, especially by means of an adhesive substance, heat, or pressure.” Wax doesn’t do anything like that. Wax is like icing on a cake. It is coats the chain but the slightest pressure will cause it to flake off. No one every would say that oil is “bonded” to a chain. Oil, as part of that hydrocarbon series, is also only coating the chain and will flow off under gravity.

Finally, my post only seems stupid to you because you don’t understand anything about chemistry. And, just like a flat earther, you’ll argue your ignorance with experts. See the Dunning-Kruger effect.

cyccommute 

I doubt that it would work all that well. Dishwasher drying agents have surfactants to reduce the surface tension of the water but they work on surfaces that are far more polished than you’ll find on a bicycle chain in addition to being used on a much larger surface. Acetone or alcohol works faster but avoiding water based degreasers negates the need for a water rinse followed by something to remove the water. Mineral spirits is a one step process.

mpetry912 

I very much doubt that any chain lube can get you "double the chain life"

20% more miles I might believe. I am getting 2-3K miles on the Shimano 11 speed chains on the ebike, they are really good.

Currently using the Silca drip lube and have had good luck with it.

/markp

soyabean

I soak it in gasoline overnight. Or at least from morning until afternoon.

Coffee cans are great because they are wide, unlike much narrower glass jars. You can spiral the chain flat and use very little gas to cover it.

Next time I may try ultrasonic, that might be faster, dunno.

After that I spray the chain with undiluted degreaser, rinse, and then bake it in the over for about 30 mins. to dry.

Kontact 

Are you on crack? Squirt is what all normal people call a "wax", in that it is a solid at room temperature. But Squirt dispenses in liquid form because the wax is suspended in a carrier that dries leaving a solid film behind.

And before you try to play your stupid "I'm a chemist" card, here's what Squirt says. So you can argue with them:
"Squirt is biodegradable and contains selected waxes performing different functions in a creamy emulsion. It runs at very low resistance (VeloNews, Hunting for Speed, pdf, Feb 2014): “Fastest drip lube we have ever tested” When applied to the chain it dries, leaving a microfilm of wax that is dry and water repelling."

But before you were claiming that bond was a word that only referred to chemical bonds. You aren't even consistent in your lunacy.

It is amazing that something that comes off with the "slightest pressure" provides lubrication for hundreds of miles.




Do you think anyone on this forum doesn't see your insults, broken spokes and long, tiresome pseudoscience posts as anything but the rantings of an attention seeker who has little practical information about fixing bikes?

Kontact 

The essential problem with chain lube is that its most important function happens deep inside, but we try to lubricate the chain from the outside. So the difference between a good lube and a so-so one might not by the lubricity itself, but delivery method and wicking action that gets it into the rollers. That difference in delivery could easily yield large differences in protection.

mpetry912 

yes, good point. What Silca recommends is to put the stuff on and then shift the chain into a cross - chain configuration to get the plates to flex and allow the goop to wick into the rollers and plates.

Which makes sense to me.

/markp

SW84

Quite the debate, but in the end, it's just a bicycle chain. Riding bikes is a better way to get our heart rate and blood pressure up. Wax....not so much.

cyccommute 

You are tedious. I never said Squirt isn’t wax. Of course it is wax. But the wax part isn’t what “dries”, however. The carrier is the part that dries as it does in other solvent based wax. You seem to understand the difference between “solid” and dry.

We’ll get back to this is a sec.

And here I thought you had made so much progress. “…It dries” is referring to the carrier. And “…is dry…” is in contrast to an oil that is wet to the touch. It is still a “hard” wax.

On a side note, I doubt the “water repelling” bit. The carrier evaporates but the emulsifier is still there and any additional water is going to reactivate the emulsifier.

Adhesives form chemical bonds. Wax isn’t anything like a chemical bond. You obviously don’t know the difference. My point was to illustrate that the wax on the outside of the chain flakes off because it isn’t bonded to the chain. The wax on the inside flakes off as well but it has no where to go. The wax still isn’t bonded to the chain.


This is the second time in this thread you have called me stupid. I am a chemist. I studied long and hard to understand the principles of chemistry and then went on to do almost 40 years of chemical research. I am a damned good chemist and know a lot about the subject. I try to share my knowledge with people who don’t understand chemistry and/or know nothing about the subject. If you want to discuss something about chemicals, you ask a chemist. Do you know what “emulsion’ means? Do you have any idea of how you would emulsify a water insoluble material like wax? I can’t tell you the details of how to do it but I can tell you the broad strokes of how they do it. It’s not simple.

Now, how about you tell me what your profession is so that I can call it “stupid”? I know it isn’t bike mechanics because you said you had to leave that job because it didn’t pay.


Well about the only person I insult is the one who insults me. Calling me stupid is an insult. As to the pseudoscience, hows that measuring of wax melting due to friction that doesn’t exist in the chain going?

As to “attention seeking”, I don’t care if you read what I post or not…I thought I was on your ignore list…lots of people would disagree with you on how practical my information is.

Trakhak

On another forum, I always enjoy the exchanges between guys who lecture one particular frequent poster on, e.g., the superiority of one older class A/B bass amplifier to a newer, class D amp, citing the greater "grunt" and "heft" of the former (note the technical terms employed), even after someone points out that the person being lectured designed both of those amps.

Kontact 

You do seem stupid, because I was saying that the solid stuff that is suspended in Squirt is what people consider a 'wax'. And I referred to the carriers drying, not the wax. How is it you can't follow simple stuff like this?

I don't bring up anything about chemistry, and the explanation that I have heard and repeated about how a wax film lasts 400 miles is not my idea and it is not chemistry. So your training has nothing to do with affirming or denying that small amounts of wax melt or not inside a chain. Not your area of expertise. You can argue about it, but you have no professional input about it. It's a question of pressure and heat, and a mechanical engineer would be a person with professional credentials to weigh in.

I know what an emulsion is, and it doesn't have to involve water, so I wonder if you know what an emulsion is. You could make an emulsion from alcohol and gasoline. The term means that it is suspension of two liquids.

You also don't own the definitions of words like "bond" or "stick". These are old, common terms and being a chemist doesn't grant you special status to say that their informal use is right or wrong.


I'm a former military pilot and commercial ATP, and ran a maintenance department and a military airfield. I investigated aircraft mishaps - usually involving flight control failures. I had a patent on a helicopter power control system. I was the service manager at three high end bike shops and a fitter. Now I design HVAC control systems and sell saddles. I don't rely on any of that to make an argument aside from pointing out that if I say that bike stuff works a certain way, it is generally because I have seen it many times in a shop environment over 33 years and learned about it from experts.

Sy Reene

With wax lubes this is the case. If you use a wet/drip lube, leaving the factory grease doesn't seem definitively disadvantageous.

StanSeven

This is going nowhere except members calling “stupid.” Closed thread before we start issuing infractions.