My adventures in chain waxing: goals, reviews, suggestions...

[OtterSpace]

Huuuge waste of wax though... Better to run non-hollow pins.

Curious how the new Red E1 hollow chain looks like after immersive waxing.

Whatever wax adhears to the hollow pins doesn't contact the drive train directly so doesn't flake off much from use. This is unlike wax in and on the rollers and wax on plates which does flake off from use. Whenever the chain is immersive waxed again the wax in the hollow pins is added back to the pot. Even if 0.5g was lost over each of 60 chain waxings a 250g puck of molten speed wax would lose only loose 8.3% of its wax.

Here is an E1 chain after waxing. However this is n=1 and results will likely vary to some degree depending on wax used, chain wax temp, chain to wax temp delta, and drying temp.

[FishNo6]

I run 4 chains in rotation, briefly brushing and wiping down after each ride

for what little it's worth, I remember the zero friction guy was saying it's better to just leave it as is post ride because brushing/wiping pushes and embeds contaminants into the wax in the chain increasing wear/friction or whatever

He might be right. I'd read the same as you and therefore didn't initially bother with the post-ride 'allow to dry, then brush and then microfibre wipe chain' routine'.

However, I wax with unadulterated parafin wax so it's been very easy to see the gradual discolouration of the crock-pot wax from one re-waxing to the next. The re-solidified wax puck shows a light to darker grey gradient from top to bottom as the contaminants slowly settle to the base during cooling. My perception is that the discolouration and hence, likely, the contamination reduced once I tightened up my routine. That's hardly scientific, since there are a lot of variables - maybe I've cycled on cleaner, drier roads in the last year and a half. ( I haven't ). Certainly, I'm pretty happy with the results and the added 2 minutes to the post/pre ride maintenance routine feels like a very good trade.

[TobinHatesYou]

He might be right. I'd read the same as you and therefore didn't initially bother with the post-ride 'allow to dry, then brush and then microfibre wipe chain' routine'.

However, I wax with unadulterated parafin wax so it's been very easy to see the gradual discolouration of the crock-pot wax from one re-waxing to the next. The re-solidified wax puck shows a light to darker grey gradient from top to bottom as the contaminants slowly settle to the base during cooling. My perception is that the discolouration and hence, likely, the contamination reduced once I tightened up my routine. That's hardly scientific, since there are a lot of variables - maybe I've cycled on cleaner, drier roads in the last year and a half. ( I haven't ). Certainly, I'm pretty happy with the results and the added 2 minutes to the post/pre ride maintenance routine feels like a very good trade.

I honestly don't think it matters what you do as long as you are hot waxing 4 chains. The chains will each last >25000 dry km. The cassette and chainrings will wear out long before the chains, and if you swap in new chainrings/cassettes, you're probably going to want to go with new chains as well.

This is why I've gone from a 4 chain rotation down to 3.

[KalleWirsch]

Hello.

I´ve waxed my chain today for the first timer ever. I have a question.

It´s a Shimano Ultegra chain and I used the Silca hot wax. I ordered a wax pot to melt the wax at Amazon. It´s normally designed for hair removal wax. It has a digital temperature knob.

So, I heated the pot to 75 degree Celsius, waited until the wax was melted and inserted the (cleaned) chain for about 10 minutes.
After I removed the chain from the pot to let it dry, I switched off the pot. Just out of curiousity, I switched the pot on again without the chain and it showed 100 degree!

I´m confused. What does this mean? Was the wax at 75 or at 100 degree?
Is it normal that the temperature is lower at the pot with the chain inside than without chain?
Or is the wax pot simply crap? It´s this one: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B09QPQX37Y/ref ... _item?th=1

Thanks!

[Jaisen]

Hello.

I´ve waxed my chain today for the first timer ever. I have a question.

It´s a Shimano Ultegra chain and I used the Silca hot wax. I ordered a wax pot to melt the wax at Amazon. It´s normally designed for hair removal wax. It has a digital temperature knob.

So, I heated the pot to 75 degree Celsius, waited until the wax was melted and inserted the (cleaned) chain for about 10 minutes.
After I removed the chain from the pot to let it dry, I switched off the pot. Just out of curiousity, I switched the pot on again without the chain and it showed 100 degree!

I´m confused. What does this mean?

My 2 cents, the temperature gauge is inaccurate by a significant margin.

Was the wax at 75 or at 100 degree?

Your guess is as good as anyone else's. There is no way to tell. The good news is the Silca wax can easily tolerate that temperature, when one pairs it with the Strip Chip the required temperature is to bring the wax to 125, so you didn't damage the wax and it should still work fine. In the future though it might be worth letting the wax cool down a bit before pulling the chain so not too much drips off. Silca says it is best to pull at 75 degrees but if your pot runs a little hot give it a minute or two after turning it off to pull the chain next time.

Is it normal that the temperature is lower at the pot with the chain inside than without chain?

When you first put the chain in sure it can lower the temperature since the chain will be cooler but after 10 minutes in the wax the chain should have reached the same temperature as the wax. Pulling the chain shouldn't suddenly cause the wax to spike in temperature, suggesting an unreliable temperature gauge.

Or is the wax pot simply crap? It´s this one: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B09QPQX37Y/ref ... _item?th=1

Thanks!

Might not be the best but it should still serve the purpose well enough.

[Maddie]

Was the wax at 75 or at 100 degree?

You can get a BBQ temperature gauge to measure how hot the wax is.

[macwatt]

Hello.

I´ve waxed my chain today for the first timer ever. I have a question.

It´s a Shimano Ultegra chain and I used the Silca hot wax. I ordered a wax pot to melt the wax at Amazon. It´s normally designed for hair removal wax. It has a digital temperature knob.

So, I heated the pot to 75 degree Celsius, waited until the wax was melted and inserted the (cleaned) chain for about 10 minutes.
After I removed the chain from the pot to let it dry, I switched off the pot. Just out of curiousity, I switched the pot on again without the chain and it showed 100 degree!

I´m confused. What does this mean? Was the wax at 75 or at 100 degree?
Is it normal that the temperature is lower at the pot with the chain inside than without chain?
Or is the wax pot simply crap? It´s this one: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B09QPQX37Y/ref ... _item?th=1

Thanks!

The waxing pot is very similar to the one I use, the pot initially heats to 100 degrees to melt the wax once melted the temperature then defaults to the set point you have chosen (75) when it reaches that temperature the green light will show. These pots are ideal I would say for chain waxing as they have a digital gauge to control the temperature and are a sufficient size to wax one chain. The only thing I have found is once inserting the chain the temperatures drops a few degrees causing some wax on the surface to harden takes a min or two for all the wax to melt again.

[KalleWirsch]

Thank you all very much for the answers! This makes sense!

Please allow me two more begginer questions:

1. Should I run the waxed chain thurough a clean towel with low pressure on the bike after I have ridden the new chain for 2minutes or so to remove the "flakes" falling off but sticking to teh chain? Or just put the newly waxed chain in the bike and never touch it?

2. Let´s assume I´ve ridden the waxed chain for a while and it´s time for waxing it again in the hot pot. How to do that? Just out the used chain untouched in the melting pot again or remove the old wax before, e.g. with hot water in another pot?


Thank you very much!

[Jaisen]

Thank you all very much for the answers! This makes sense!

Please allow me two more begginer questions:

1. Should I run the waxed chain thurough a clean towel with low pressure on the bike after I have ridden the new chain for 2minutes or so to remove the "flakes" falling off but sticking to teh chain? Or just put the newly waxed chain in the bike and never touch it?

2. Let´s assume I´ve ridden the waxed chain for a while and it´s time for waxing it again in the hot pot. How to do that? Just out the used chain untouched in the melting pot again or remove the old wax before, e.g. with hot water in another pot?


Thank you very much!

1) Just install the chain after waxing on the bike and ride. Don't bother trying to remove the flakes or extra wax. They will come off on their own.
2) For maximum performance pouring boiling water over the chain removes old wax and resets it before you rewax it. For my part, I just drop in the chains untouched that are ready to be waxed in without prepping them. Works great. Before a race event I might fuss about the boiling water prep but not for regular training rides.

[SunsetRider]

If you wipe the chains down with an old rag immediately after removing them from the pot while the wax is still hot it will drastically reduce the amount of flaking you get with new chains. This has been part of my routine for years now and I have almost no flakes. A pair of cheep rubber faced gloves helps in handling the hot chain.

A lot of people use the boiling water rinse method but I don't. Just put the chain straight into the crockpot using swisher tool (bent coat hanger). But my chains are pretty clean since I ride in very dry environment so there's not much crude ever gets on them.

[Kubackjeee]

1. Have anyone used effeto Mariposa alpine for stripping the chain? I found it to be extremely good and just getting grease off of anything I apply it on. Really good for stripping or decreasing chain and other bike parts. Never used the one from Silca or ceramic speed so wonder how would they compare. But this one is way cheaper and can be used few times. Really like it and one can clearly see how it separates grease.

I usually do one shake in petrol and then put it into alpine.

2. During my last 3 seasons I've switched to wax drip lubes and used few of them but find Bike7 pro wax the best one. Still yet to go full immersive, but since bike 7 is so good I'm not in a hurry. But was thinking about it lately just to try something new and narrowed the choice to MSW new formula vs Silca wax. What is your choice guys ?

[jajr1999]

1. Have anyone used effeto Mariposa alpine for stripping the chain? I found it to be extremely good and just getting grease off of anything I apply it on. Really good for stripping or decreasing chain and other bike parts. Never used the one from Silca or ceramic speed so wonder how would they compare. But this one is way cheaper and can be used few times. Really like it and one can clearly see how it separates grease.

I usually do one shake in petrol and then put it into alpine.

2. During my last 3 seasons I've switched to wax drip lubes and used few of them but find Bike7 pro wax the best one. Still yet to go full immersive, but since bike 7 is so good I'm not in a hurry. But was thinking about it lately just to try something new and narrowed the choice to MSW new formula vs Silca wax. What is your choice guys ?

I use Silca Secret Blend. The comments from ZeroFrictionCycling and other Spanish YouTubers put it in a very good place. Furthermore, looking at price/quantity of other brands, Silca was also one of the best. I haven't tried any other brand, but I'm honestly very happy with Silca and wouldn't switch to another.

[cheapvega]

For some reason a frequent and repeated criticism of wax is that somehow a hollow link chain will be as heavier, or as heavy, as a non hollow link chain after it is waxed because wax will fill the hollow pins.

I have no idea why people think this. It's thinking of the level of this popular Limmy's Show sketch.

Wax is significantly lighter (~8.5x) per volume than steel [7,850 kg/m^3 steel vs 900 kg/m^3 paraffin]

However these people ask for proof.... I don't know why I engage with this but I do.

I painstakingly removed the extra wax in the hollow pins from my Dura-Ace 12s chain and weighed it. I will never do this again as it is a complete waste of time.

extra wax.jpg

0.48g which is far less than the weight delta between Dura-Ace and Ultegra level chains of 10.3g as shown in a recent slayer of grams video whos comments triggered my rage.

Why is this less than 8.5x? Simple the wax doesnt fully plug all of the holes and there could be other minor weight savings in Dura-Ace chains beyond the pins.

I'm sorry if this has been beaten to death already in this thread but I want to have a post that I can link as needed when this comes up again elsewhere.

Waste of time? This post is the essence of WW

[wltz]

Does anyone have any intel on KMC GO wax and pre-waxed chains? Is it any good as the initial wax treatment, or should I strip the chain and re-wax with MSW as I do with all other chains?

I'm about to enter the world of 12-speed drivetrains, and having 3 hot-waxed 12sp chains in rotation doesn't seem tenable at the moment: KMC's 12sp missing links are non-reusable, and Wippermann's 12sp connectors seem unobtanium here in the UK, so the plan was to use Effetto's new drip wax after the initial hot melt treatment.

[Kubackjeee]

Does anyone have any intel on KMC GO wax and pre-waxed chains? Is it any good as the initial wax treatment, or should I strip the chain and re-wax with MSW as I do with all other chains?

I'm about to enter the world of 12-speed drivetrains, and having 3 hot-waxed 12sp chains in rotation doesn't seem tenable at the moment: KMC's 12sp missing links are non-reusable, and Wippermann's 12sp connectors seem unobtanium here in the UK, so the plan was to use Effetto's new drip wax after the initial hot melt treatment.

As far as I remember KMC chains don't go well with wax. You also cant use effetto mariposa with chain that is waxed, because flower power is not paraffin based. You need a proper drip wax. I use Bike 7 wax.