SoSmellyAir

I am pretty sure it is both. Before rewaxing (about every 250 miles), I agitate the chain in a jar of OMS. Quite a bit of "g*****ss" comes out of the chain and eventually settles at the bottom of the jar. A giant magnet removes roughly 3/4 of the g*****ss from the bottom of the jar.

Kontact 

Agitating the pot will cause the molten wax to wash the particulate out as well. It settles to the bottom.

Steel Charlie

Not for me. I've been using TriFlo since it was called TriFlon and have never seen any reason to change - on road or off.

OTOH I've been around motorcycles since about 1960 and have never, as in Never, heard of anyone advocating wax on MC chains. Even the earliest ones just leaked motor oil onto the chain. The fancy ones metered the leak.

SoSmellyAir

That is true, but it is easier (at least for me) to remove the particulates from the pre-wax OMS than the wax itself. And cheaper too if I ever switch to the Silca wax I had bought.

Kontact 

Considering that the particulate sinks, why bother removing it at all?

But one way to do it is melt the wax with water in the pan. The particulate sinks through the wax and water. The wax floats on top of the water.

SoSmellyAir

Because the chain also sinks in molten wax. So dipping the chain in the molten wax would pick up some of the particulates.

My wax is in a dedicated 2 qt. Crock Pot in the garage. If I do the above, the water would stay trapped (as a layer) beneath the wax at the bottom of the Crock Pot, right? How would I get rid of the water and the particulates?

Kontact 

Since it only takes about a half cup of wax to do a chain, I dont waste time and energy melting 20 times that. I use a small sauce pan, and the wax pops out when cold because it shrinks away from the pan sides. Dump water and done.

In your case, put a steamer rack in the pot so the chain isnt on the bottom.

But really, a thin layer of grit isn't going to touch anything but the pins

Large wax pots are very hard to agitate safely.

cyccommute 

Oh, you are so close to understanding. Wet weather longevity with wax is degraded because the wax is moved out of the plate/pin pressure point and that point becomes a metal-on-metal contact point very quickly. It has almost no water protection and rust quickly. Oil mixes with water and floats off the contact point but it flows back in to quiet down the squeaks. It doesn’t do any better but it makes things quieter. It’s a bit like turning up the radio.

Again, so close. If you don’t see build up of heat because the heat radiates away into the rings and cogs and because of air cooling, there isn’t enough heat to do any wax melting. I’m not saying that the heat has nowhere to go only that if you had enough heat to melt wax, the heat would linger long enough to be noticeable. You can’t have enough heat to melt the wax and lose all the heat to the surroundings. One or the other.

As for this not bing a science fair, why isn’t it? Science is nothing more than observing the world and figuring out how it works. The quickest way to do the figuring out is to systematically change parameters and test. Then observe, check your tests, and do some more changes. You also have to be able to change your ideas when the data points in another direction.

cyccommute 

No problem. I often serve as a metric to ‘Merican translator. I had to explain to a bunch of US tourist in Belgium that when the que sheet said 0.1 (with not units), it didn’t mean a tenth of a mile.

Almost certainly metal. It’s likely a mixture of iron and aluminum since there is some wear of the chainrings. The grit is most likely quartz as it is harder than the steel of the chain. It could also be feldspar although that is about as hard as the steel of the chain. Quartz is colorless for the most part and is white when finely divided. Feldspar is peach colored and would be a lighter peach color when finely divided. Metals like iron and aluminum tend to turn black when ground to a powder.


I suspect that the limitation would be when the wax that fills the void in the rollers gets squeezed out between the plates. That’s why I think a softer wax that has more elasticity might last a little longer. And since this is a science fair, I wonder what would happen if you took a heat gun to a waxed chain when the chain starts to rattle? Heating it would make the wax that is in the rollers flow back into the gap. You might get a bit more mileage out of the chain. The only problem with that approach would be variability in the heating. Putting it in an oven would be better.

Again, I’d like to see more error analysis before I would say unequivocally that his findings are valid or that the differences are enough to worry about. There’s a whole lot of electron murdering going on to make incredibly small gains. The roughly 1.2W range (throwing out some outliers) between various lubricants takes that Johns Hopkins study’s 98.5% efficiency to maybe 98.9%. Not really worth all the folderol that it gets. Personally, I’m not going to spend 2 hours doing the zero friction clean to that absolutely clean room clean chain. It’s just not worth the time and effort. Shake a chain in a cup (250mL) of mineral spirits until your arm is tired and that’s enough cleaning.

I’m also not that worried about having an “eternal chain”. Dropping the cost of 0.6¢ (US) per mile ($20 chain with 3000 miles of wear) to 0.2¢ per mile ($20 chain with 10,000 miles) just isn’t worth the effort. With all the bikes I have, it can take upwards of 5 years to wear out a chain. It’s not going to break the bank to replace a chain every 5 years or so.

Finally, like you (and most others), the cleanliness of the drivetrain is worth a little work upfront. But taking the chain off every 100 to 200 kilometers (or even miles) to rewax is just too much bother. Solvent wax is quick and easy to do. I get the same cleanliness without over complicating anything. Keep it simple is a good principle to follow.

​​​​​​​

cyccommute 

Well, on that we can agree. I’m a bit dubious about water under the wax because of the possibility of steam explosions if you don’t control the temperature closely but grit on a waxed chain is on the outside and is just going to slough off into the pan.

Kontact 

Because you aren't doing science. You are using scientific concepts to support your belief about the underlying mechanics. In so doing, you have essentially argued that chain lubrication doesn't actually do anything and that dry chains would be acceptable if it wasn't for rust. But rust resistant chains and dry climates exist, and no one is riding a dry chain.


If you want to play Mr. Science, consider how hard it is to get steam that starts at 212 degrees to build up under wax that melts at 150.

Also consider that you're talking to someone who rides immersion waxed chains in all weather and has boiled wax in water. This conversation is a lot like the one where the guy claimed that 3 grams of wheel imbalance will make a bike uncontrollable over 25mph. Science is about observing reality, not shifting reality to suit our (mis)understandings.

You have no idea how heat moves through a chain. You haven't seen a computer model, taken IR measures at specific points or anything else. You're simply insisting that something you think sounds weird can't be possible. This is exactly the same as when I tried to explain to you why pro wheelbuilders don't use heavy elbowed spokes. You don't have every experience under your belt to analyze everything. I don't know that I'm right about everything on this subject, but after all this time it is really clear that chains need lubrication and that immersion wax behaves much like oil in the way it behaves over long distances and the way it rinses away in rain. It's an oil - just one that stores as a solid. And you have presented nothing that shows differently. You just persist in believing you have.

SoSmellyAir

I guess I am wasting some energy.

That is why I put the chain on a hanger to swish it through the wax in the Crock Pot. Trying to agitate the Crock Pot itself would likely burn my fingers.

Kontact 

No, it doesn't. It takes the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of a certain mass of material. If the mass is small, so is the energy. Brownian motion is enough to make a certain percentage of water boil at room temperature. Sharpening a knife on a dry stone can raise the extreme edge above tempering temperatures. Rapidly bending a wire will make the kink warm to the touch. Pulling a nail out of wood will make it hot.

I don't think many people are very in tune with all the weird ways heat comes and goes because they never observe it happening.

The formulation is regular old white candle/food wax. Won't even stick well to a scoured stainless pot. Melt some on the back of a warm knife, let it cool and see how hard it is to rub off on another piece of metal. That's the same amount of surface area as a chain pin on the inner link. You'll find wax is not a miracle material.

elcruxio

However if we're dealing with professional level power levels the excess energy we're leaving into the chain is around 2 watts. For a regular amateur it'll be a fraction of that. And that's for the whole chain, not just the areas responsible for melting wax.

All of your examples are situations where almost all of the energy involved is put into the action described. Pulling out a nail is going to be a lot of watts, lots of friction and metal deformation. The knife example is straight out false unless you're using a grinding machine, which would be idiotic. You won't get any portion of a knife to 200 degrees celsius on a sharpening stone. And even if you did, so what? Annealing is a function of temperature and time.

On top of that if a significant portion of the chain drag was put into melting wax so the wax could work as oil, wax would always be less efficient than oil. There would be an extra energy loss step in the melting. That'd probably mean wax would be less efficient than a dry chain, but it isn't.

Your hypothesis also doesn't take into account why wax works best in sub freezing. Or how it would possibly work for someone who puts out less watts than the required energy to melt wax inside the chain. Or the fact that if I squish paraffin between my fingers so there's more deformation than there could ever be inside a chain, I don't get a coating of wax between my fingers.

Nor does it explain how water can wash off still liquid wax when it should solidify immediately when coming into contact with said water.

It's beginning to seem like a magic theory that only works inside the unobservable internals of the chain but nowhere else.

For you it's candle wax that can contain anything. For others it might be refined paraffin with additives. For me it's a combination of refined waxes that leaves a hard film behind after flaking off the larger piece that needs significant force with a metal utensil to scrape off.

Also cleaning off regular refined paraffin from a pot is really difficult. Even if you boil water in said pot, the paraffin doesn't want to come off the sides. Maybe candle wax is easier?

Kontact 

Tempering is not annealing, and you're wrong about knife edges. You're failing to appreciate that I'm comparing things where low mass and high surface area causes heat to accumulate quickly is a small spot. The chain links pivot under load in only two spots. The rest of the chain is essentially static or unloaded.


The heat is produced either way, so it can't be a loss. It's just a question of where it goes.

What are the watts to melt wax inside the chain? Show your math.

You can't squish wax between anything and get it to stick. Wax is used as a mold release. It sticks even worse to the oils in our skin.

I don't understand what is mysterious about water rinsing away another liquid. If the wax solidifies after being removed from metal, it's still off the metal. It doesn't suddenly become water soluble. Water will wash off all sorts of solids and liquids.

​​​​​​​It doesn't seem to work anywhere else. We don't wax bearings, high temperature motor parts or much else. Chains on bikes are in a mechanical/power/temperature sweet spot that can take advantage of the working temps of the wax.

​​​​​​​It is very easy. Because the melting point of most wax is below the boiling point of water.

GhostRider62

I use Silca's wax in wet conditions, nothing beats it. Here is some real data, not words. The results match my experience. The squrty wax stuff is barely a bandaid getting you to the next hot dip.

https://silca.cc/pages/choose-your-lube

elcruxio

Not much surface area inside a chain.

You're right. Annealing isn't tempering. But they happen inside the same temperature range. And you won't get to that range with a dry whetstone. Nor will you maintain that heat long enough for it to make a difference. That's not why knife edges get roller. They get rolled because they're thin.


I see. this is the level we're at. Right...

Ok, so the heat is not produced either way. The heat value is not static. It depends on multiple factors. A chain at 250 watts pedal power can have a loss of anything from 1-2 watts to over 10 watts.

If one chain has liquid oil that can lubricate the chain immediately the chain starts moving, and the other has solid wax that has to first melt, before it can work as lubricating oil, which chain is going to have a higher loss of energy? You can imagine the jeopardy theme while you ponder.

Now since you make the claim that wax melts inside the chain, it's actually up to you to come up with the math.

Doesn't that just prove that it can't melt inside the chain? Molten candle wax sticks to fingers just fine.

The wax cannot be removed by water before it solidifies. How could it? It's going to solidify the instant any water is introduced. Also molten paraffin sticks to metal even in boiling water. I have a pot I can't get clean because the wax under boiling water just sticks. Won't come off completely even by wiping. A dishwasher with a 75C program was no match.

Then again you also can't boil oil off pots. You need detergent. Pretty much the same with wax.
​​​​​​​
I wonder why...

​​​​​​​
See above.

Kontact 

I was talking about the ratio of surface area to volume, which is low in things like knife blade edges and stamped chain rollers. This is the reason knife blades aren't heat treated with the edge ground.
I would respectfully suggest you are way out of your lane. I've been making knives for decades. This is a known effect on the very last portion of the edge.


Energy loss is a total number based on friction forces produced by the chain itself and the resistance offered by the viscosity of the lubricant. The energy loss at the actual pivot point probably doesn't change radically with even a dry chain until you introduce grit. The loss due to the viscosity of the lube is one of the things the chain efficiency lube testers are measuring - how well it lubes the pivot vs. how much energy it takes to move that lubricant around. High viscosity chain oils don't lubricate poorly, but they are less efficient because of their thickness. Grease would be worse. Dry wax offers very little resistance, but is still able to melt under enough load. If the load is truly light, wax may not melt - but at those loads it might not matter. Light, low wattage cyclists wear out chains slower.

Chains are not bearings. Bike chains are open, don't move very far and are expected to be reasonably clean. Timing chains in cars run through a sump. That is not a practical or necessary solution for a bicycle. Bicycle hub bearings are enclosed and follow a circular path that works well with grease acting as a solid.


You're switching between talking about whether hard wax sticks and then switching to melted wax. Melted wax sticks to fingers because it dissolves skin oils and conforms to your fingerprints. But it doesn't stick to my stainless pot. The puck falls right out if you let it cool undisturbed.

Nothing happens instantaneously. Especially phase changes.

I think part of the difficulty here is that you don't seem to be using the "wax" that people have been using on their chains for decades and decades. It melts well under 212. It has a range of known properties and is the easiest and cheapest product to find. I don't know what you're using and why you would choose to put it on a chain, but it isn't what the technique is based on. Just like the oil for deep frying isn't baby oil, you've got to use the right stuff if you want to duplicate the results that created the reputation.

cyccommute 

Since Kontact won’t (or can’t) do the math, I guess someone else has to. Here we go. The calculation for heat is Q = m•C•ΔT, where Q is the heat transferred to or from the object, m is the mass of the object, C is the specific heat of the object, and ΔT is the temperature change. Let’s remember that we only have 0.7 J to work with at 90 rpm using the definition of a watt as 1J/sec and 98.5% efficiency. And that 0.7J is distributed between the chainring and the cog so cut that in half or we only have 0.35J to work with at each pressure point. I’m going to assume that there is only one spot on the chain where the pressure is highest. If we used more points, the energy would have to be further divided. There’s a heat calculator here which makes life a little easier. Let’s assume 10mg of wax is being melted. To heat the wax from 70°F (20°C) to 150°F (50°C), takes 0.75J. That’s a bit more than double what is available. But it gets even worse. Once you’ve heated the wax, you have to melt it. The heat of fusion for wax is 220J/g, so for the 10 mg of wax, that 2.2J needed. There’s not enough heat to do the job.

But it gets worse. The heat will flow into the metal bits as well. That where it really hurts. The metal has to be heated before the wax will melt. Assuming 1.5g for the roller/pin/plates just at the point of contact, that 21J needed. The tooth of the chainring also is in contact with the chain. Heating just the tooth requires 40J (different heat capacity of aluminum). Everything has to be added up so the total needed is almost 65J. That’s a 65W loss.

You do know that i how science is used don’t you? I’m not the only one who said that chain lubrication is perhaps superfluous. The Johns Hopkins study pointed in that direction. I’ll admit that I’m not brave enough to actually try going without lubricant but I certainly use lubricant sparingly. I’ve gotten 700 miles out of solvent wax lubrication and frequently get over 500 miles per application. `

Now I try to keep the science I use approachable with broad concepts rather than details. I can do details but I find most people’s eye glaze over if I go too far.


It all depends on the temperature control. Even a crock pot is capable of getting up past the boiling point of water. Open flame heating has even less control.

Yea. Go ahead and tell me about your crackpot ideas that simply can’t work.

I may not know exactly how heat moves through a chain but I have some idea of how heat works and moves and how much heat is needed to do things. As I’ve shown above, your ideas just won’t work. They “sound weird” because they are. I’m not the only one here who has been telling you your idea won’t work.

I may not know everything but that doesn’t mean I don’t know anything. And I know a lot about chemicals. 40 years of experiment work will do that.

Wax does not behave like oil. That’s the whole point. No, it does not rinse away in rain. It cannot it’s not even remotely water soluble.

Finally, you have presented nothing to suggest that wax liquifies inside the chain. One could even say that “you just persist in believing you have.” Got a computer model? An IR measurement? I at least have presented calculations showing how your idea won’t work.

Kontact 

You have presented no calculations that demonstrate that heat generated at a specific point on the chain path is below the threshold to melt a tiny amount of wax. Nor are you going to.

That's why this conversation is so pointless. We are arguing about what goes on at an unobservable scale and speed by even conventional laboratory means. Which is why I keep returning to the very simple real world observations that soft, pliable wax acts as a lubricant for far more miles than any soft solid ever could. However, you live on a planet where wax is tougher than delrin.

So why don't we wrap this up? I'm sure anyone who thinks you posting equations that don't reference the actual mechanics is suitably impressed with your efforts.

All I've been trying to do is get across to people interesting in hot waxing is that it is 1) clean,2) neat and easy to do in a few minutes with no special equipment or prep, 3) cheap and 4) lubricates the chain like a good oil - for some strange reason.

cyccommute 

I have presented you with ample information and examples of why what you say can’t happen. So has elcruxio. All we get from you is “unuh”. Why don’t you provide some citations and calculations for what you say is going on. You are standing on far less firm ground than I am.

Kontact 

There is no data. I have used examples to demonstrate other similar real world effects, which you to dismissed as fiction. Your general calculations show average heat, not what is or isn't happening in situ. You won't even admit that's the case. And your partner is talking about some substance that isn't the wax preferred for chain waxing.

And to revisit your science - if you warm a pan of water and hard wax, the water will not boil until the contents of the pot have all gone above the melting point of wax. You can't boil water with ice cubes in it, either. And your confusion about how the water could heat so fast that the wax wouldn't be melted first is illustrative of how someone can have knowledge but have a problem applying it.

So I'm done. You can keep pretending to have knowledge of something that no one does, because most cycling "science" is not.

cyccommute 

What “examples” have you provided? I’ve seen lots and lots of speculation on your part but how about something more concrete? Show me a paper where someone has measured or modeled what you say happens. I gave you a link to a study where someone had actually measured the fiction loses and found them to be vanishingly small.

As for my calculations, those are standard for phase changes and are extremely valid. You obviously have never done heat equations. It’s a common technic to calculate heat needed to do that kind of phase change. I tried to even give your idea more benefit of the doubt by using small values for the amount of wax and metal involved. I can’t “admit” to your scenario because it simply doesn’t…and, more importantly, can’t…happen. Based on the losses given in the Johns Hopkins study, the amount of heat just isn’t there. You might get to the point of raising the temperature…that doesn’t require much heat…but the heat of fusion of wax has a large value. 1mg of wax, which is a very small amount of wax, would need 2.2J of energy to be made liquid. There is simply not enough energy available to do what you want to do.

elcruxio isn’t “my partner”. We have had plenty of disagreements in the past. He is using wax. He may be experimenting with additives but that doesn’t make what he is working with “not wax”.

You are misrepresenting what I said. I never said the wax wouldn’t be melted first. If there is poor temperature control, once the wax has melted it lays over the top of the water and can lead to a steam explosion if the temperature is allow to get above the boiling point of water. Most people don’t monitor the temperature in any way so they have no idea if the water may boil. It’s especially likely if direct heat is used on the melt pan as that provides no control whatsoever.

Says the poster who has presented a whole lot of speculation and zero evidence to back up his claims.

elcruxio

Not a lot of volume or surface area inside a chain.

Also not the reason why knife edges aren't heat treated with edges ground.

Which is why it's strange that you'd use the incorrect terminology. You'd know that honing is only ever done dry. Grinding or sharpening on the other hand often times is not. Though it's not uncommon to sharpen dry when dealing with the need for constant refreshing of the edge.

But knifemaking does have a lot of pseudoscience. Kinda like cycling.


you're so close, but you insist on that silly melting hypothesis.



Nope. Why doesn't the wax I squish between my fingers melt? That was the original question. Don't mix it up.


Except apparently the non observable melting of wax inside the chain...

Even if the solidifying of the wax isn't instantaneous, how does the water get between the wax and the metal surface?

I actually haven't tried cleaning a pot that has had my recent formulations in it. The pot I'm referring to has had only plain old candlemaking paraffin wax in it. The stuff I used before I began experimenting.

So yes, I have been using the exact stuff you're referring to and which has been used for decades.

Crankycrank

So after 149+ replies did you get your answer yet?