[Closed] Home Made Wax

Yes. Get a cheap deep fat fryer. Bit of faff every now and again but lasts well and everything stays nice and clean.

I bought paraffin wax pellets from eBay. Mixed some other stuff in there and it works nicely for me. Need a split link in the chain to make it easier though.

Save yourself a ton of hassle and just buy a tin of putoline.
£25 or so, for enough to last ten years plus.
Best used with a deep fat fryer.
No need to degrease a chain before waxing ime, although I’ve only used putoline.
I’ve worked in 5 bike shops, and I’ve tried many different lubes over the decades, hot wax is really in a different league, you can’t really compare it to anything applied from a bottle or spray can.
If that seems too good to be true, you can buy silca hot wax for 4 times the price.

Thanks guys. So I am basically going to try what is explained here Homemade Wax

He compares it to Molten Speed Wax which he says it supposed to be the best/most expensive off the shelf product. I won't have much to compare it to as I haven't got 40 years of bicycle maintenance experience to draw on but I figure it's worth a shot.

I've bought a small slow cooker to put in the workshop as per the video and I've got wax and PTFE to put in it.....

One question though - can I reuse the quick links on the chain? Shimano says not reusable but I've seen plenty of references where people just reuse the same link...

instructions for Putolin...
Simples!!!

Application
Instructions for use:
Open the tin
Place on a gas cooker or hot plate and heat the Chain Wax
Place the chain in the tin
Leave to act for a few minutes
Remove the chain whilst the Chain Wax is still hot
Hang the chain to let the excess wax drain off

putoline is so cheap and works so well why try to reinvent the wheel?

I have just bought my first MTB, well sort of MTB, it hasn’t got rear suspension

Hardtails are absolutely respectable MTBs, there is nothing wrong with them at all.

Re the wax - don't bother doing your own, just use Putoline. Get a cheap deep fat fryer (£15, the really small single person ones work best), get the tin, never worry about any of it again. Grinding chains away with mud has always driven me nuts, I've been through all the farting about, I've made my own, I've tried dozens of lubes, but it's Putoline all the way now for me. It's the solution.

Thanks. I hadn't heard of Putoline before - seems like a very neat solution. Since I've just bought all the stuff to make a batch of my own I'll give that a go. If it works then as I've got 3 other bikes to do (Mrs and 2 sproglets) perhaps Putoline is the answer with none of the faff. Cheers chaps.

Degrease a new chain first? Does it help the wax to "stick" like he says in the video?

How often do you need to redeo it? 50 miles/500miles/1000 miles/never??? I guess it depends on where you ride to a degree (I actually plan to commute on mine but that's only a plan!).

Also - quicklinks... Can they be reused?

TIA

OS

quick links can be reused. If your chain is really filthy a degrease might be helpful but the beauty of putoline is it cleans the chain at the same time.

I get a couple of hundred filthy mtb miles at least out of it and thousands of road miles

Tons of info here link

Basically.... homebrew wax good for dry summer rides & nice clean looking chain. Putoline better & longer lasting for the rest of the year.... I use both.

I have to agree with what the Oz Cycles chap says and you should fully degrease your chain (even if its brand new) the first time before waxing as he quite rightly says, wax won't stick very well to something that has an oily film all over it. I did, petrol, degreaser, white spirit (twice). After that the Putoline does do a remarkably good job of cleaning your chain when re-waxing or should that be stopping dirt from sticking to it in the first place.

I used home brew wax for about a year for all weather commuting. The base was a candle wax pellet blend 90:10 paraffin wax to beeswax, with ultrafine MoS2 (bullet lube!) and some gear oil and some odds and ends of various bike lubes! It was quite hard. As others say, homebrew wax is great in the dry but not very resilient in wet weather. One or two wet rides would leave the chain squeaking. I used a slow cooker to do the waxing.

Two weeks ago I bought a deep fat fryer (DFF) and a tin of putoline and waxed my chains with it.

Initial thoughts.

1. There is no contest between the DFF and slow cooker. Take the slow cooker back now or use it for something else and get a mini DFF asap The slow cooker is too cool and too bloody slow and the fryer basket makes draining the excess wax so convenient. I was always dropping chains into the slow cooker as I tried to retrieve them and then trying to suspend them from various hooks to drain. A total pain.

2. Putoline is much stickier and horribler overall than I anticipated. I can happily handle my homebrew waxed chains, the wax is waxy. Putoline is nasty greasy stuff in comparison. OTOH, a quick wipe off with kitchen roll takes the excess putoline off quite easily.

3. The trade off for the nastiness seems to be longevity especially in wet weather. Only one wet weather ride so far but no hint of squeaking. If I ever went back to homebrew I'd be aiming for a mix that is much softer and stickier than I originally had. Not sure what that would do in a friction test, presumably stickier might suck up a watt or two? That's not my focus though.
I have dumped about half of my homebrew into the putoline, mainly because I didn't want to waste the MoS2. I'll probably chuck the rest in, it made no appreciable difference to the consistency of the putoline.

4. Get a deep fat fryer, don't use a slow cooker.

This idea that wax won't stick to an oiled chain (with at most a teaspoonful of oil on it?) is easily resolved by dumping one in 1000ml or more of simmering wax blend.

Not sure what that would do in a friction test, presumably stickier might suck up a watt or two?

I am fairly sure that you lose a watt or two (with putoline) compared to a clean oiled chain but gain a watt or two compared to a filthy dry chain!

But I don't care. I like hub gears adn things like that that just work and it matters not one jot that I might be averaging 10 mph not 11.

Putoline or any kind of wax isn't a degreaser so if your chain is covered in oil, I don't know how its going to strip it from the chain? Sure the wax goes on, the issue being its not going to stay on as well or as long.

What happens to oil at 160+? It goes thin as water. No "degreasing" necessary. It either mixes with or is just displaced by the liquid wax. It stands no chance. Unless it's magnatec 😀

It is easily demonstrated by test.

I do prefer to rinse chains off in hot water before waxing and rewaxing to displace any grit but that's another issue.

Ok, I'll reply in typical stw fashion.lol

Op,as a new mtber and as it's Summer.... I wouldn't over think it. Get some decent lube/normal wax on the chain (Smoove etc) and just go ride.👍

It's only us old guys on here (including me!) that get all hung up on chain lubes/wheel sizes etc.😁

Welcome to the hobby/sport/obsession btw.... and STW of course!

I use homebrew (parrafin wax, beeswax, PTFE, molybdenum disulfide) and a slow cooker. Awesome in the dry... Ok in the wet. Very little faff. Rewaxing road chains after 400 dry miles or 150 wet miles, which is fine but.
MTB chains after 200 dry miles or 40 wet and muddy miles (so not great).

Did a super deep clean of the chains before I first waxed and do all bikes at once (6) so it's easier as you get a system going. Maybe 15 min work total.

However, given all of that it wasn't for the sunk cost I'd get a deep fat fryer and Plutoline so I didn't have to do it so often.

Putoline or any kind of wax isn’t a degreaser

Yes it is. Hot wax is oil, hot grease is oil, and oil will dissolve oil.

Thankyou all for your helpful and informative posts - flippin' heck I never would have thought lubrication would be such a hotly debated topic. I thought it was only few obsessive people like me who got hung up on minute details in the pursuit of a project goal - in this case near silent running and slick as you like shifting. Clearly I was mistaken! I'm a sailor and we get hung up on boat speed vs waterline length and what is the best material to make rope out of in the same way.... It most definitely is a can of worms; that thread someone pointed me to goes on for pages and pages! ( I did do a search of the forum before I posted but I'd never heard of Putoline then so I ignored it!). Interesting reading though.

What initially led me down this route was the fact that when I got the bike new it was literally smothered in grease, great big globs of it, catching on the frame as the chain went past and I thought that can't be right, so I began to look for the best way to lubricate a chain. Before today I had just used a chain cleaning device from Park Tool with degreaser in it and then applied Muc Off dry lube and it was OK but the shifting didn't seem smooth enough to me on a £3700 bike so I investigated further and discovered the Oz Cycle wax method which in turn led me here (not sure how but hey!) So....

Today I took the chain off and bathed it in petrol, degreaser, rinse and then meths x2. I cleaned the cassette and chainring with a rag dampened with degreaser and washed it off. I also ordered a DFF and a tin of Putoline but as I had already bought the slow cooker, wax and PTFE I thought I may as well give it a bash......

All I can say (after a quick 10 min ride round the block) is WOW! What a difference. I am converted! Chain is whisper quiet and shifts are barely audible. 🙂

Thankyou all so much for your guidance particularly given that you must have given the same guidance to a 1000 other people many many times before....

Next stop Putoline....

PS - Although this is my first "decent" bike I am a bit of a late starter and probably (no definitely!) in the "old guys" category!

PPS - the slow cooker took over an hour to heat up the wax and adding the PTFE was a nightmare - it went all static charged in eth bag it was in and then went everywhere when I tried to tip it in!!! Still the batch is made up now. DFF is deffo the way to go.

OS

Firstly, Merry Christmas all.

So a few months down the line I have applied Putoline in a DFF which was simple enough. My thoughts are that it is quite "sticky" and the shifting isn't quite as fast as it was with the homemade wax. I am not too bothered about that though.

One thing that does bother me is rust...

So I applied the Putoline to a brand new chain (that was degreased in petrol, degreaser and meths). I have been on a few muddy rides and I am rinsing the bike off each time, mostly I have been drying with compressed air however on the two occasions that I just rinsed the bike and dried it with a towel the chain went rusty and subsequently transferred the rust onto the chainring and cassette meaning I had to thoroughly clean both to get it off.

My question is therefore do I need to rub/spray it with GT85 or something after rinsing even though it has Putoline on or do I just ignore the rust and let it wear off (if it will do that even)? I had used Liquid Wax e-bike lube on another chain and this didn't have any rust issues (I was regularly reapplying though). General consensus is that Putoline is the best though so am I missing something?

Thanks.

Wipe with an oily rag after cleaning seems to be the concensus on that one.

Stick a rigid fork on your bike and take off all but one gear.

The you'll have a real mountain bike.

How does purchasing a deep fat fryer merely to lube a bike chain affect ones green credentials?.

Wipe with an oily rag after cleaning seems to be the concensus on that one.

Thanks, the orange was on the inside of the links too though...??

Do you get the rust on every link in the chain or just the links that are left in contact with the cogs? I get a bit of the latter and haven't yet investigated to see if the rust is forming on the chain itself or the cogs. Obviously, where the chain is in contact with the teeth it holds the moisture in for longer. I supose the easiest way to check would be to leave the chain on the big alloy cog and see if I still get rust.

Do you get the rust on every link in the chain or just the links that are left in contact with the cogs?

It seems to be just a few links but I'm not 100% sure if it was just the ones in contact with the cogs. I'll check. I've just rewaxed both my chains with Putoline and I wiped them straight afterwards with a clean (ish) rag - just the outsides of the links. I'll see what happens. I was hoping the Putoline was a sort of fire and forget for at least a few hundred miles in winter but thus far if I need to rewax after 50 or so then I might as well just use Squirt or similar as I can reapply it with the chain still on and it takes seconds...

How does purchasing a deep fat fryer merely to lube a bike chain affect ones green credentials?.

Are you asking out of interest or having a dig? In any case I suspect that it's about the same as eating stuff you haven't grown yourself or having to buy three chains instead of one because the one you have has disintegrated.... or taking two holidays a year that involve flying. Not that I'm that bothered TBH. I recycle stuff, waste as little as possible and don't fly anywhere so hey ho.

the rust is cosmetic - the key is "is there still wax in the rollers ?"

@oceanskipper I've just checked mine. Hosed the bike down a few days ago and put it away after running the chain through a dry rag to take off the excess water. Sure enough, where the chain has been sitting on cassette there are a few rusty cog teeth and rust on the rollers and inner plates of the chain but no where else on the chain. Here's the thing though. That rust rubs off easilly with a rag to reveal shiny waxy metal underneath. It apears as though the rust is only forming on the bearing edge of the teeth where the roller sits and has worn the wax off the tooth and is just travelling through the water to leave a coating on the waxy surface of the chain and sides of the teeth.

I guess that little bit of rust on the bearing edge of the teeth will hasten cassette wear so from now on I am going to make sure the chain is sitting on the ally cog when I put the bike away and see what happens then.

Still plenty of wax in the rollers as far as I can tell.

@jordan That's interesting. So do you think the rust is coming solely from the cassette/chainring? I hose mine down and use MucOff bike cleaner then dry with a towel. Maybe I'll try leaving it on the alloy ring...

That is what I am thinking at the moment. Easy enough to find out by leaving chain on the alloy ring.

Here is the chain freshly done with Putoline..

Two things to add:
Putoline is much less faff and much quicker than the alternative- chain cleaner, rinsing, drying, oiling or waxing from a bottle.
I have applied to one brand new chain, and it burnt the factory oil on, leaving a kind
Of bronze finish, I think I should have had in a lower heat to melt it off first.
A camping stove works fine.
That’s three things.

Putoline is much less faff and much quicker

Baws.

Rock n roll extreme here, used it for nigh on 10 years, lube chain and that's it, no cleaning, no deep fat fryer, no degreasing, that's it.

@tjagain - so assuming that the Putoline wax is still in the rollers can I add Squirt lube between re-waxing to keep the orange away? I'm sure I read in another thread that one shouldn't squirt GT85 onto the chain as it will wash the wax away.

To prevent any external rust spots I give mine a light spray of WD40 silicone lubricant after a wet ride.