Home made wax lube for chains

[dasilvarsa]

If It's Squeaking it's too late.

[bleedToWin]

Rumour has it the damage you do by stretching the miles between rewaxing a bit far outweighs the reduced wear and tear benefit of wax. Once it's gone the pins and rollers are bare metal on bare metal. I'm often lazy with my clean and relube routine as is, and doing 500km a week I'm not sure this waxing is for me (unless I get 4 or 5 chains)...

Edited August 20, 2023 by bleedToWin

[love2fly]

I looked at wax lube but having to keep removing my chain to apply etc and not being able to re-apply during a race turned me off. I love Squirt and am on about 7000km on an XX1 chain on my MTB that never sees a tar road.

[Jbr]

2 hours ago, love2fly said:

I looked at wax lube but having to keep removing my chain to apply etc and not being able to re-apply during a race turned me off. I love Squirt and am on about 7000km on an XX1 chain on my MTB that never sees a tar road.

Not worth it imo, Squirt is fine for the MTB

[Jbr]

5 hours ago, bleedToWin said:

Rumour has it the damage you do by stretching the miles between rewaxing a bit far outweighs the reduced wear and tear benefit of wax. Once it's gone the pins and rollers are bear metal on bare metal. I'm often lazy with my clean and relube routine as is, and doing 500km a week I'm not sure this waxing is for me (unless I get 4 or 5 chains)...

If you only ride one bike and do 500k per week it’s too much of hasle, you can still run squirt most of the time and do a nice clean / fresh wax two days before each race

Edited August 20, 2023 by Jbr

[bleedToWin]

5 minutes ago, Jbr said:

If you only ride one bike and do 500k per week it’s too much of hasle, you can still run squirt most of the time and do a nice clean / fresh wax two says before each race

Thanks. Mind made up!

[Kingofthemountains]

is there someone who sells ptfe locally, ordered mine on Aliexpress took over two months to arrive

[Kingofthemountains]

6 hours ago, bleedToWin said:

Rumour has it the damage you do by stretching the miles between rewaxing a bit far outweighs the reduced wear and tear benefit of wax. Once it's gone the pins and rollers are bare metal on bare metal. I'm often lazy with my clean and relube routine as is, and doing 500km a week I'm not sure this waxing is for me (unless I get 4 or 5 chains)...

500km/week how many hours per week is that ?

[Jono]

7 hours ago, Kingofthemountains said:

is there someone who sells ptfe locally, ordered mine on Aliexpress took over two months to arrive

There’s someone on the hub that has quite a bit, not sure what his username is, pm your number, I’ll send it to him.

[bleedToWin]

9 hours ago, Kingofthemountains said:

500km/week how many hours per week is that ?

16h. Since it's all on one bike (the road bike) my average speed is normally fairly high. As @Jbr said with 3 bikes and 2 chains for your most used bike you could do the wax routine less frequently and wax all 4 chains at the same time. For me I think I'll stick to Smoove.

[Jbr]

21 minutes ago, bleedToWin said:

16h. Since it's all on one bike (the road bike) my average speed is normally fairly high. As @Jbr said with 3 bikes and 2 chains for your most used bike you could do the wax routine less frequently and wax all 4 chains at the same time. For me I think I'll stick to Smoove.

I'm not familiar with Smoove, you should still be doing the deep degreasing procedure and then stick to a wax based lube like Squirt, so that when you do decide to dip your chains in hotwax all you have to do prior is clean the chain with boiling water and give it a thorough wipe with a cloth as it's already stripped from any lubricants.

And yeah for my estimates in mileage, most of my miles I do on the gravel bike at a little bit lower speed and some on dirt roads, so on this specific bike it might be more 180-200k when on the road bike it's probably more 250-300k. But it also depends on the quality of my wax, some weeks I feel I need to redo it sooner than other weeks,  I do my mix by rule of thumb 😅.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Jbr

[lechatnoir]

14 minutes ago, Jbr said:

I'm not familiar with Smoove, you should still be doing the deep degreasing procedure and then stick to a wax based lube like Squirt, so that when you do decide to dip your chains in hotwax all you have to do prior is clean the chain with boiling water and give it a thorough wipe with a cloth as it's already stripped from any lubricants.

And yeah for my estimates in mileage, most of my miles I do on the gravel bike at a little bit lower speed and some on dirt roads, so on this specific bike it might be more 180-200k when on the road bike it's probably more 250-300k. But it also depends on the quality of my wax, some weeks I feel I need to redo it sooner than other weeks,  I do my mix by rule of thumb 😅.

Smoove ~ Squirt - very similar. some swear by Smoove, but I think the cleaning intervals/methods are more important.

 

[NotSoBigBen]

IMHO besides for the 'anorak' types that notice these things (friction, longevity etc.) for the average Joe it's more important to lubricate your chain OFTEN than even what lube it is. Just an observation

[DieselnDust]

45 minutes ago, NotSoBigBen said:

IMHO besides for the 'anorak' types that notice these things (friction, longevity etc.) for the average Joe it's more important to lubricate your chain OFTEN than even what lube it is. Just an observation

I think the claimed science on Youtube is often overblown. Much of the differences are so tiny to be of almost no consequence. For a bicycle chain application the forces are relatively small

YEs hot waxing is the best because it creates a more effective seal but it comes with several inconvenience factors

[dasilvarsa]

Squirt or Smoove and Lube Every Ride 1 Drop per Link Method.

Never Degrease Just Wipe with Cloth.

Every Ride means 30 Km or More.

Squirt Runs Cleaner Than Smoove but Both are Slack Wax Water Emulsions.

Edited August 21, 2023 by dasilvarsa

[DieselnDust]

Are you sure it’s slack wax?

it would make sense as it’s cheaper and less refined than paraffin wax