Chain waxing on a tight budget

you are being a skinflint. it lasts AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEESSSSSSS

Joshvegas thank you.

Putoline ordered.

Stealth ad note, I have a chain wax company so take what I say in that light!!

You could make it yourself yeah, the wax needs to be highly refined paraffin wax which unfortunately isn’t that cheap and your additives are expensive. You’ll get some on the likes of Aliexpress but it won’t be the material you think it is.

Putoline is fine but I found it a bit oily for bicycle use. A harder drier wax doesn’t hold dirt and can be cleaned with hot water in the odd occasion it needs more than just a straight rewax. £18 will do 30-40 waxes

I bought a load of high end wax (about 40€) in up to about 90 waxed chains over nearly 3 years and might buy some more wax next year...

who are the good alternatives to putoline then?  Was thinking of giving it a try although I still have 2litres of finish line to get through...

A good few options on the market and some to avoid, avoid wend wax at all costs. Molten speed wax and silca are the main players. I think ours is better but I would say that 😉. Have test data and more ongoing with a rather enthusiastic professor who might possibly be mad!

Putoline is fine but I found it a bit oily for bicycle use. A harder drier wax doesn’t hold dirt and can be cleaned with hot water in the odd occasion it needs more than just a straight rewax. £18 will do 30-40 waxes

I'm finding this, latest application of Putoline on my new gravel bike has been a bit of an oily mess, not sure if it actually needs riding in the mud and the wet to remove the excess from the surface of the chain! I cleaned off and went back to Fenwick's Stealth drip-on but I think I can already tell it doesn't perform as well.

So please advertise your wares! What's a harder, drier (cleaner) equivalent to Putoline? Is that basically what Molten Speed Wax is?

I suppose MSW and my own aren’t significantly different, nor is silca for that matter. All three have similar waxes and additives. The harder wax is dry on the chain, you basically have to break the links free once the chain cools. A hard wax resists abrasion and also prevents contamination from clinging to it.

The additives give an extra layer of protection and lubrication as they burnish onto the inner surfaces of the chain in the high pressure areas

The big benefit for off road though is ease of cleaning. After a wet ride or say 8-15 hours dry, just take your chain off and stick it in the slow cooker, come back in an hour, hang it to cool a while and refit. You never need to clean cassettes, jockey wheel etc again and chain wear is massively reduced.

I’d not realised that Putoline was a bit oily and sticky. I was looking at waxing to avoid dirt sticking to the chain and forming grinding paste.
When it arrives I will return it and buy a hard dry wax instead.
Cheers for the advice Daz.

Having looked at all of the research available so far additives offer like a .5% benefit at the very most. If you buy food grade paraffin wax (not expensive, not hard to find contrary to above posts - can even just go to bulk catering supplies) and melt it in a slow cooker you're golden.

Obv I bought MSW because I'm a tart. I won't next time.

I’d not realised that Putoline was a bit oily and sticky. I was looking at waxing to avoid dirt sticking to the chain and forming grinding paste.

It's weird, in general Putoline DOES prevent a grinding paste forming, but the sticky black Putoline can accumulate around jockey wheels/sprockets etc. where it's generally harmless if you don't touch it or accidentally dislodge a lump then accidentally track it into the house on the sole of your shoe etc. etc. (ask me how I know 🙄 ).

In principle Putoline is great but I'm hoping something like Daz's will set cleaner or flake off more cleanly or something to avoid the sticky black accumulations! I've never perfected the art of getting a chain perfectly impregnated with Putoline without also leaving lots of excess on side plates etc

Food grade paraffin wax works ok without a doubt but it’s a bit soft and sticky, comparatively of course. I use a blend of 3 waxes to get a harder version than standard paraffin wax. The term food grade is a bit misleading too I found, some are rated for packaging and some for consumption. The best simple wax I found was gulf wax but it’s still pricey.

I know I’m certainly not making a fortune from it and I buy the wax by pallet load. No plans to retire any time soon.

Any wax will be far superior to oils and drip on though so worth a try, you can always make candles with any reject stuff!!!

I really don’t want to go full advert, so referring to any wax. Putoline and a couple of others have a comparatively high oil content, that’s what causes the black blobs. Harder waxes flake off mostly. It still works well but I think misses one of the main benefits in ease of cleaning.

Worth a read at all the test data on zero friction cycling as Adam can talk wax even more than I can, which I’m led to believe is quite an achievement 😬

@daz what's your product called?

I've been really happy with putoline on my MTB, my Brompton, and my winter road bike (which is the same as my gravel / CX) but inevitably because of their use it is necessary to clean them far more often than I clean my good summer road bike, and the blackness of the putoline isn't such an issue in that case.

I started but now don't use putoline on the good road bike where it is a bit black and messy, i'm content with frequent redosing of a dry drip lube for that.

Are the hard wax lubes as good in the crap as putoline?

I contend that the harder waxes are better and the test data on zero friction cycling does prove that. One of the tests worth reading Is the one for absolute black, I think their product has a similar approach to putoline.

I’ll get an add for my wax stuck up somewhere when I raise a few dollars. It’s all going on testing to get good hard data at the minute.

latest application of Putoline on my new gravel bike has been a bit of an oily mess,

After the first ride give the chaim a good wipe with a rag with WD40. This wipes off the excess that gets squished out of the rollers. After that you're fine for months, no mess.

Hi have some unused speed wax you can have for postage

If anyone manages to develop a wax chain lube without the faff-on, There'd lots of interest I reckon.

I suppose it’s all down to how you see faff. I developed mine because I couldn’t be bothered with the faff of cleaning cassettes etc and prefer just to whack a chain in a slow cooker while I dunk myself in a bath.

I’m working on improving the wax drip on I have but despite some clever marketing it can never be as good as an immersive wax. I had thought of doing a wax emulsion tin to dunk chains in but even that isn’t as effective because a large amount of the wax is actually just solvent.

Smoove is the best drip on but drip ons never get properly inside the rollers, and the carriage solvent always ends up picking shit up.

Is there a way to do it without resorting to fryers, slow cookers or such? Like one of those catering gel burners under an old pot or baking tin?

Thanks for the info @daz. That's super helpful

How are people handling breaking the links so often? I thought most of the 11/12 speed chains were single use links

Is there a way to do it without resorting to fryers, slow cookers or such? Like one of those catering gel burners under an old pot or baking tin?

Just chuck the tin on that coleman double burner you have. no need to decant it into anythign else.

@squirrelking

Honestly, for the £9 I paid on eBay for an unused old 1.5l slow cooker I think you're pushing into false economy there.

My usual advice it putoline for winter & candle wax for Summer. Puto more durable to winter filth. Was using home brew wax - pulled the cake from the pan & quite some dirt at the base. So now trying Engima Black wax.

@continuity yeah, probably. I dunno, it just bothers me, probably completely irrationally since the slow cooker will be safer.

Putoline just works for me. The tour i am on now i have not touched the chain for well over a thousand mainly road miles incuding a couple of hundred wet miles. It is getting close to needing redoing now but a hundred miles to molgrips where he will dunk it again. Chan is clean no mess .

No experience with other waxes but wax is so much better than anything else i have used

The slow cooker thing is something I thought about a lot, I had tested waxes with a higher melt point and they were probably marginally better but I’d never sell them because someone would set their house on fire heating it on a stove and I’d end up in court. The slow cooker is so cheap and safe to use that I wouldn’t bother with anything else, no point reinventing the wheel. Throw your chain on the wax with the cooker on low and lid off and it would be safe for weeks if you forgot about it. I think that’s worth £13

I recently started waxing my chains, after reading about it here and listening to a couple of the ZeroFriction guy's interviews.
For me, the faff is not the waxing part, but the initial cleaning of chains: it's messy, takes time and there are a lot of residual chemicals that need to be disposed of sensibly.
The waxing itself is easy; a 1.5l slow cooker is less than half the price of a new XT chain. As for the wax, I'd go with one of the newer, specialised products, either Daz' GLF wax or the Enigma Ultimate.

Also my first 30 quid tin lasted a decade of almost daily riding

Chain life i guestimate is 4 times longer

You dont need to clean the chsin. Any grit comes out in the wax. Just dunk it in.

I’m selling prepped chains too, agree it is a bit of work to get them clean and I’m buying chains retail so not making a big deal on them. I’m like a durg dealer though, trying to get you all hooked 😂

You dont need to clean the chain.

You do before first waxing.

I’m selling prepped chains too

You are not the only OCD person here 🙂 I like to do my own prepping. I started with two used chains and two new ones. The used ones were easier, I use ProGold ProLink as lube and it cleaned up pretty well. The factory grease on the other hand... I'm seriously thinking of buying pre-waxed chains from now on.

Is there a way to do it without resorting to fryers, slow cookers or such? Like one of those catering gel burners under an old pot or baking tin?

I wouldn't. You've got no temperature control, you risk overheating the liquid part and smoking it whilst other parts are still solid. And it's far more risky since you have a pot of hot oil on the floor ready to kick over or spill. And a naked flame in your garage which, if it's anything like mine is a very very bad place to have a naked flame. And you'll have to find a way of fishing your chain out of the tin.

Fat fryers on the other hand are specifically designed for the job of safely heating oil, controlling the temperature and providing a means to dunk stuff in it and retrieve it. It really is the way to go.

I got one for free from my local FB page.

How are people handling breaking the links so often? I thought most of the 11/12 speed chains were single use links

Meh, I don't see how they can not be multi-use. I re-used them for ages back when they first came out, I had no idea they were meant to be single use. Have never had a quick link failure* before or since Putoline.

If anyone manages to develop a wax chain lube without the faff-on, There’d lots of interest I reckon.

I use it specifically because it's less faff. When I want to go for a ride, I just grab the bike, ride, come back in and if it's been muddy it's just 3 mins with a hose - that's it. No lubing of anything. Then once every couple of months when I have a spare moment for bike fettling I dunk the chain.

The other benefits are on top of that - like in winter, I was re-applying wet lube every ride, but it wasn't lasting one ride, it was lasting about 30 minutes and I just had to keep going with a chain full of mud anyway. I haven't done the maths but I'm sure I've already paid for a fryer and the tin of lube by buying fewer chains.

* except for that one time I had a KMC chain back when they had this weird design where you had to flex one side of the link to pop it open, rather than the usual sliding thing they have now. My chain got tangled up in some bizarre way that flexed the link and popped off half of it and I lost it.

Just bought some daz-wax to see how it goes. Putoline working pretty well for me but is a bit dirty so I’m curious to see if the harder wax keeps things clean.

Can you do half a chain in Putoline and half in Daz and compare? 🙂

Daz wax, you crack me up!! It is white sock compatible for the roadies amongst us. You could run two chains alternatively, one with mine and one putoline. I’ve done that comparison but I’m selling it so you won’t take my word for it!!

I hate salesmen and please god do not let me become one

Should be a doorstep challenge.

Had no idea slow cookers and such were so cheap. Must admit a fryer makes more sense but will look at it when I get 5 minutes.

Fryer seems sensible but the problem is it heats the wax too quickly and can damage the wax. If you can get one that has a temperature limit of about 100 at the surface then that’s perfect. But it will be more expensive than a slow cooker. 1.5l to 1.8 size is ideal by the way

I just got a Tower one litre fryer from Amazon, I think it was £23. It's better than the old no-namer I had from the Range, which ended up breaking, cos it has a clip to rest the basket when it's out of the oil. That said, it's not quite all the way out of the oil, so you might be better off only putting 80% of the wax in.

You definitely want a one litre fryer though or maybe 1.5. If you have a bigger one then the thing's too wide and the wax might not be deep enough.

Fryer seems sensible but the problem is it heats the wax too quickly and can damage the wax.

Really? The thermostat is next to the pan, I think it heats up the first bit of oil to 100 or whatever you choose, then waits. That's why it takes 10 mins to melt all the wax isn't it?

If it’s limited then yeah it will be fine, I suppose it depends if the stat is at the top of the oil and the element at the base? Don’t really know but I always thought a fryer was quite a bit more than 100 degrees?

Must do a bit of experimentation and see, I’ve tried all sorts with the slow cookers to see how safe they were if someone left it on high with the lid on or something. Didn’t set the thing on fire after a full day but the wax wouldn’t stick to chains very well afterwards.

My fryer was £15 and I spooned about 1/3 of a tin of Putoline into it which is mid way between the minimum and maximum markers. It’s classed as a personal fryer so is really small and a chain fits perfectly in the basket. If I switch it on to 120 on the thermostat it takes about 10 mins to melt the wax and there is no smoking, which according to Putoline is bad because if it’s too hot  it evaporates some of the additives. A slow cooker takes way too long to get hot for me. The basket is clear of the wax when hooked on the side so I can easily fish the chain out using thick rubber gloves when it’s done. I then hang it up and wipe down with a rag, being careful not to pull as I wipe and squeeze all the wax out of the rollers, a gentle surface wipe just to get the excess off the outside of the plates. I run two chains so I’ve always got one ready to go. There is always some build up on the jockey wheels initially which is a bit of a pain but I generally just remove it with a pick after a few rides. Chains definitely last loads longer and an XTR chain has easily outlasted three lower spec chains so well worth the initial outlay.

I developed mine because I couldn’t be bothered with the faff of cleaning cassettes etc and prefer just to whack a chain in a slow cooker while I dunk myself in a bath.

sure, but my cassette doesn’t need cleaning (using Juice Lubes Viking). It’s application is 20 secs at the end of cleaning your bike, I’m done and dusted by the time you’ve taken off your chain, fired up your pan, let it swoosh about and reversed the process when you’re done.

I don’t doubt wax is the best for bike chains but you need to get the process of application under a minute without taking off the chain before I’m interested, and I’ll sacrifice performance for convenience every time

edit: and given my last chain lasted 6.5k miles I don’t think I’m sacrificing all that much either

You’ll never get a lubricant that can clean and fully lubricate your chain on the bike. The contamination that matters is the stuff deep inside the chain, that’s where wear occurs. It is fair enough that you don’t want to remove chains though and I’ll have a drip on for sale soon that will be fine for that purpose.

At 6.5k miles though your chain will have been long past the 0.5 wear mark and you will need a full new drivetrain. Chains are so cheap that I’d rather be strict with that wear limit and save the need for new cassette, jockey wheels and chainrings. Plus everything is nice and clean looking and I can throw it in the car or van without worrying about the black mess everywhere. Downsides for every upside isn’t there though.

Definitely have a read at the lifecycle cost tests on ZFC, it’s not an insignificant difference.

At 6.5k miles though your chain will have been long past the 0.5 wear mark

Weirdly not though, SRAM mix of GX, XO1, wasn't even close the .5 wear, 12 speed seems indestructible. I only changed it because (during the COVID supply issues) I didn't want to end up with a worn out chain and cassette, and no way to get replacements,  had things been regular, I probs. wouldn't have bothered.

Downsides for every upside isn’t there though.

Oh without a doubt, I even get that some folks love the whole "doings" of the waxing process, I still think the best lube is the one that you'll use, once you've found a system that you like, than that's the key.

I suppose it depends if the stat is at the top of the oil and the element at the base? Don’t really know

On the one I dismantled to try and fix, it was at the bottom.

using Juice Lubes Viking). It’s application is 20 secs at the end of cleaning your bike, I’m done and dusted by the time you’ve taken off your chain, fired up your pan,

But I don't do that every ride. I just wheel my bike in and walk away. And how are you getting the grit out of your chain? Are you just adding lube to grit?

Your wet lube probably isn't doing anything after the first muddy section - mine never was. That's the difference.

I still think the best lube is the one that you’ll use, once you’ve found a system that you like, than that’s the key.

The one that you like but also the one your chain likes!

Had no idea slow cookers and such were so cheap. Must admit a fryer makes more sense but will look at it when I get 5 minutes.

A fryer doesn't really make more sense. It's capable of heating the wax to the point where it ignites, which is potentially dangerpus, but also completely unnecessary. A 20-quid slow cooker sits there quietly for an hour, never reaches that point and is cheap and easy and safe to use. Sure, it's slower to heat up, but you can go and get on with your life while that happens while the chain gradually slips into the melting wax.

Anyway, as a recent convert using MSW, I'm a total convert. The only real hassle is the initial chain prep, which takes about ten minutes, after that it's dead simple and gloriously clean.

I'm sold, or at least happy to give it a try, why not.  Am I right in thinking I need about 1kg of wax for a 1-1.5l slow cooker?

But I don’t do that every ride. I just wheel my bike in and walk away. And how are you getting the grit out of your chain? Are you just adding lube to grit?

Yeah, neither do I (lube after every ride) currently haven't added an extra lube in a couple of weeks The grit is coming out when I point the hose at it (which I haven't done in weeks now), and the Juice lube is pretty watery on application, lots of grit washed/wiped away then. I know all the tests show wax is hugely better, but I'm just not going to get involved with DFF and taking the chain off every few months, I just can't be bothered. Like I said, some-one invents a wax lube in a dropper, I'd be all over it.

Your wet lube probably isn’t doing anything after the first muddy section

And yet; 6500 miles and not even .5 wear, so what am I missing here? I've tried wax, and TBH I'm happy on Juice lubes Viking, it's clean, I don't get grinding, It's lasting through the winter, and I get enough life from my chains and cassette. Happy days

And yet; 6500 miles and not even .5 wear, so what am I missing here?

You're lucky with the local mud you have, I guess. I can't speak for your local rides but for me the difference in durability is night and day.

When it's muddy down here, if I use wet lube the first half a mile of muddy trail has the chain making a horrendous grinding noise which remains the rest of the ride, unless I cover a long section of road to work the grit out. Probably takes 5-7 miles. If I use Putoline this doesn't happen. The gritty water doesn't get into the chain in the first place.

You don't think I just make all this stuff up, do you? I've been searching for lubes that actually stay on the chain in muddy rides ever since I started riding in the early 90s. This is the first time I've found what I was looking for. I'm happy to come up with a fairly easy system to support this. I really don't find it any faff at all just to pop the chain off. It's really no bother at all.

I'm glad your system works for you but it doesn't for me.

Here's the chain on my XC bike that has done probably half a dozen dusty rides. I think I did this back in the spring. As you can see, it's not messy. It's still riding smoothly so no need to re-fry.

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A fryer doesn’t really make more sense. It’s capable of heating the wax to the point where it ignites, which is potentially dangerpus, but also completely unnecessary. A 20-quid slow cooker sits there quietly for an hour, never reaches that point and is cheap and easy and safe to use.

Capable yes (maybe) but they have fail-safes that stop that happening. If you're happy to use one in your kitchen then you should be ok using one in your garage I reckon. And a slow cooker may not ignite your oil but you can still knock it over and it's still full of hot wax. That said, our slow cooker has a thermostat which could also fail and possibly at 250W overheat the wax. But since it's not designed to be full of oil it might not have secondary and tertiary fail-safes that I would expect to see in a fryer because fryers are designed to be full of flammable liquid. I'm not an appliance engineer but I've taken enough apart, and I don't think it's necessarily as straightforward as you think.

You’re lucky with the local mud you have

Calderdale grit and Peaks...probs not that lucky.

You don’t think I just make all this stuff up, do you?

No of course not, all I've said is that I can't be bothered with melting wax in a stove, tried it once and moved it on, probably user error! if it works for you, crack on!

I’m glad your system works for you but it doesn’t for me.

I'm really not interested in saying one is better than the other, all I'm interested in is comparing them; more knowledge, it's all grist to the mill isn't it? I'm a firm believer in getting to understand how to get the best from your chosen system, looks like we've both got to that point with completely different lubes, which is interesting, no? I've no other agenda. There's always more ways to skin a cat.

edit: seen your pics; my chain isn't as clean as yours, but it's not black with oil either.

I definitely agree that a slow cooker is a much safer option though and anyone who uses a DFF should never leave it unattended. I’m not entirely sure that the instructions on the Putoline website are 100% safe either!

Interesting to hear someone else agree the putoline instructions aren’t particularly safe, I certainly wouldn’t be happy selling my wax that way. If wax ever gets to the stage of smoking it’s just a step away from ignition. The smoke isn’t actually smoke but rather vapour that will ignite with a naked flame, try blowing out a candle and holding a match in the vapour/smoke coming off it and you’ll see what I mean.

Just be careful because I’d hate to hear a story of a house burnt or someone hurt, that’s why I prefer a slow cooker, it might take more time overall but I just let it do it’s thing while I wash my bike and myself.

Somebody asked how much wax for a small slow cooker, one pack of about 500g is all you need and lasts ages. I reckon about 40 waxes but that is so variable depending on conditions and contamination.

I use three different pots for different procedures but then I’m testing and querying every detail of this.

What's the optimum goal temperature wise for the chain wax?

About 85-100. It’s not terribly critical but you do need to make sure you leave the chain in the wax until it is hot. The cold surfaces of the chain make any wax that touches it and solidify, this stops the wax from fully penetrating.

I emailed Putoline and asked and For Putoline it’s 70 to 80 Celsius. It’s not particularly runny at this temp though.

Flash point is >200C so easily achieved in a DFF or indeed a gas hob which is a method suggested on the Putoline website instructions.

No smoke from my DFF at any point. I did previously have one that had a naked element immersed in the wax, that smoked like mad because the initial melted liquid got super heated before the heat got anywhere near the thermostat. That was the free one. Subsequent ones have been smoke free through the entire process.

As for temperature - about 100C is enough to melt, it gets runnier the hotter you get, but don't go much above 140 or so we're told. Less runny means more gets on the chain, so may be better for mud slogging, but less runny is cleaner so may be better for summer. But both need wiping after a short spin if you want it to stay as clean as my pics.

I’m really not interested in saying one is better than the other, all I’m interested in is comparing them; more knowledge, it’s all grist to the mill isn’t it?

Indeed, I'm curious as to why people report different results. It may be that some are less sensitive to the grinding noise, it may be that the noise is just related to outer plates and not the rollers so is a red herring.

Flash point is >200C so easily achieved in a DFF

I think mine goes up to 190 but it could go higher if the stat fails.

I wipe down the outer plates when the chain is fresh out of the pot, otherwise no cleaning. The wax doesn’t accumulate on rollers or cassette. I haven’t tested putoline and i don’t know of anyone who has, the closest test I can think of is the one zero friction cycling did on absolute blacks hot melt version. Both appear to have softer base waxes.

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Here’s the chain on my XC bike that has done probably half a dozen dusty rides. I think I did this back in the spring. As you can see, it’s not messy. It’s still riding smoothly so no need to re-fry.

@Molgrips - that's impressive! The only time I've had a chain look that clean with Putoline is after multiple muddy CX rides/hosings-down/wipes with GT85. By which point it's ready for re-application anyway 🙄

Wonder what I'm doing differently... I try to take the chain out at the last possible moment (e.g. when the wax is as cool as it will go before a skin starts forming). In the past I felt I had been taking chain out too hot and losing molten wax which dropped back out of the rollers. Either way I never get TJ's heroic mileages out of one application!

MSW in a 1.5l slow cooker for me (although I'm going to need new wax soon so will probably give Daz's a go)

Sits on the workbench out in the garage, chain in cold on a hanger and leave it for an hour, have a nail stuck into a rafter to hang the waxed chain on with a sacrificial bit on cardboard underneath to catch the drips.

I always thought that one of the key elements with hot waxing was the heating of the chain with the wax allowing the chain to expand slightly and allow the wax to get inside the rollers

I try to take the chain out at the last possible moment (e.g. when the wax is as cool as it will go before a skin starts forming). In the past I felt I had been taking chain out too hot and losing molten wax which dropped back out of the rollers

I take it out hot, after about 5 mins in the wax and wipe as much off as I can. I don't see any benefit in leaving it for ages. The excess is what causes the gunk although the gunk is nowhere near as bad as repeated applications of normal lube if it's not being washed e.g. a commuter bike.

But the way to get it that clean, IME, is to wipe down thoroughly again after the first ride.

Either way I never get TJ’s heroic mileages out of one application!

Me neither, usually, but I think it depends on what you consider a noisy chain. I think that because the initial waxing is near silent, you tend to think of any noise as meaning it needs re-doing. But when my fryer was broken I got a new road chain and used a good wet lube applied generously and it was really noisy straight away. So I think that I get used to a silent chain, but I could probably go much further between lubings than I think.

Also TJ runs a hub gear with a straight chainline, that probably makes far less noise to begin with.

I wonder if some of you have too hot so it drips out of the rollers? Just a thought

It also depends on conditions.

TJ that’s s good point about being too hot. Must do a bit of testing around that possibility though it won’t happen in a slow cooker on low with lid off. I’ve had similar poor performance with an overheated batch of wax. It worked ok ish but just didn’t seem to stick to the chain so well. After the dip in wax for 15 mins I shake my chain well under the wax then hang it over the pot gently. A track pump is a good tool for this purpose by the way, turn the handle 90 degrees and you have a post to hang the chain on.

I do think the wax lasts a lot longer inside the chain than we think, I did an accidental test on a chain that had covered 500 road miles, rinsed it in hot water and then cooled it under hot water again quickly, it set firm just like a newly waxed chain would so I guess there was plenty of wax left in there. That’s one of the things I’m going to get data and images of from my testing but I’m waiting to get access to big toys I’m not allowed to use unsupervised 😬

Thank you all for the information and advice. I’ve managed to find a small slow cooker on Gumtree for £5 that I will collect this evening.
I’m cleaning a new SRAM chain in a bottle of ipa and it’s very surprising just how much debris has also been removed- looks like tiny slivers of metal from production.

I wonder if some of you have too hot so it drips out of the rollers?

I dunno, when I do mine hot it's still stiff after it's cooled down.

rinsed it in hot water and then cooled it under hot water again quickly, it set firm just like a newly waxed chain would

Yeah I think you can re-flow Putoline with some other oil, but maybe I could do the same thing with a heat gun. Will try it.

I am certain that the wax stsys in the chain a long time this is mine 1200 road miles sonce it was done including 3couple of hundred wet miles.

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I ran my finger along the inner side of it. The two black lines are where wax is still coming out from between the inner and outer links and when you twist it it stll fes like there is wax there and its still silent. I susoect with the dry outer surface you might be getting more chainring wear

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I did wonder if you could have some sort of semi-automatic chain waxing machine setup; A chainring on a slow geared motor or a stepper that could move your chain through a wax bath a short section at a time so you immerse a bit and then index along, and then further along blast it with cold air to help set the wax, and then another bit that spins brushes and/or buffers over the outside to clear excess off the outside.

Sounds like an incredible waste of human time and effort, but also a fun project for someone obsessive enough...

Apologies in advance if I go full nerd, I can’t help myself!

From what my testing has shown so far, the wax definitely stays in the links of the chain, the rollers/shoulders/pins much longer than my recommended 8-15 hours off-road or 250 miles on the road. I think though what’s happening is that it gets repositioned to the rear side of the rollers under pressure through time and when you heat it that all flows back. I think doing that defeats one of the best things about the wax, it doesn’t hold debris and dirt plus the fact it moves out of the chain through time means it brings any dust with it. A dip in your wax pot melts any wax and a good shake under the molten wax hopefully removes most of it. As for wear on the high pressure areas, the additive I use, I call tungstenite, Is really interesting stuff, to simplify what’s happening it sticks to the surfaces of the chain under pressure and forms a hard layer. As it resists sticking to itself then the two faces of the chain rollers,shoulders slide over each other easily and enhance the performance. That’s a very oversimplified explanation but it’s hard to explain and you’d get bored reading my diatribe. I’m working on an even better version but the additives are horrendously expensive, I think overkill for mountain bikes but definitely worth it for road racing and TT. I need to save more than 5w though to make any difference to me 😬

I probably haven’t explained that well but yeah, interesting topic. I can’t wait to get the images of what’s really happening inside a chain, I’ll share them when I get them.

Geek away sir

I find it validating as i started the putoline thingy on here

Been using it more than a decade now

I was here when you started all that TJ, You are responsible for the rabbit hole I disappeared down 😬

What happens to all the dirt and grit that comes off the chain after multiple washes? Does it just sit at the bottom?

I tried a mix of paraffin wax (bike specific), molybendum grease and micro-teflon last winter. However, it didn't seem to co-agulate as a mixture and broke off the chain quite easily. Gone back to lubes but may try again soon or go for some putoline as I don't like chain maintenance.

Actually, just reading the previous posts (!). Seems like I had it too hot/took the chain out too early.

I think overkill for mountain bikes

I dunno, they have the hardest conditions to deal with. I'm not interested in saving watts, just saving chains. If yours is more durable than Putoline I'll switch. Or if you can come up with a more durable version...

@daz

we (NPL) have some experience of testing efficiency of chain and sprockets, and could run independent testing of your various waxes. Message me if you want and I can put you in contact with people.

https://cyclingtips.com/2021/04/exclusive-newmotionlabs-new-sprocket-creates-dual-engagement-on-a-standard-chain/

www.npl.co.uk

Can't you just all shave like the rest of us?

Oh the version I mean as overkill for mountain bike is the new one I’m working on, it’s a complex additive that none of the other waxes use and is incredibly expensive, not totally sure of cost but the additive alone will cost me more than I sell the current wax for. I set out with the aim of creating the most efficient wax possible regardless of cost so that’s what I’m working on with an eccentric professor, honestly I should do a video because he is class.

The current one I’m happy with, I wouldn’t sell it otherwise and certainly wouldn’t be talking about it on here. I’ll not say it’s perfect because I’m always looking ways to improve it, but it’s working well for myself and a lot of riders I have testing for me. I’ll have proper data soon but I’m not going to do any bullhit marketing. Plenty of other well known companies do that, if you read the ZFC test data you’ll see what I mean. They have a much bigger budget than I have though😬