How do you prepare a previously waxed chain when it needs re-waxing?
Not the first time waxing of a brand new chain as I know how to, and have done this.
It’s the re-waxing preparation. All I have been doing is brushing the chain when it’s dry and then dipping it into the hot wax. Do I need to be doing more and if so what?
Thanks
I don't!
Chain gets cleaned at the end of the ride when I hose the bike off. I dry it by running it through a dry cloth after cleaning.
When I want to wax it I just sit it in the slow cooker and leave it to do it's thing, no additional steps or prep.
Pretty much what 13thfloormonk said.
Thank you. So you don’t need to remove all the old wax off the chain before putting in the wax pot?
Should you put the chain in boiling water to remove residual wax and then dry before putting the melting pot?
Should you put the chain in boiling water to remove residual wax and then dry before putting the melting pot?
I'd heard of people doing this but I prefer to believe that repeated applications improves the accumulation of wax within the chain, I found in the past that first applications on a bare chain weren't always to be trusted...
On that basis I would rather not boil any remaining wax out of the chain only to then try and reapply it!
Should you put the chain in boiling water to remove residual wax and then dry before putting the melting pot?
You don't put it IN boiling water, just rinse it off with boiling water. The theory is that it takes off the very fractional outer layer of wax along with any dirt that's stuck to it but it's not in contact with boiling water for long enough to melt it all.
Although
Pretty much what 13thfloormonk said.
works fine too!
You don't put it IN boiling water, just rinse it off with boiling water. The theory is that it takes off the very fractional outer layer of wax along with any dirt that's stuck to it but it's not in contact with boiling water for long enough to melt it all.
Ahhhh... That's entirely different! Plus minimal additional faff, assuming I can just boil the kettle and pour it over whilst backpedaling?
All depends on just how mucky it got.
I have used boiling water in a goose neck kettle and pour that on the front top of the chainring while pedalling forward. This melts off the top surface and hopefully the embedded crap and drains straight off before resetting in the chain.
I run a two pot set up myself. Dirty chains go in a pot of 100°C wax to melt off as much of the dirty wax as possible. This chain is not shaken, stirred it agitated in any way and there's a mesh in the bottom of the pot to keep the chain out of any silt.
The second pot runs at 75°C to apply new wax to the chain. It's just about trying to dilute the contamination in the chain as much as possible.
I'm dusty conditions, it's just a squirt of isopropyl alcohol on a microfibre towel and a rub down.
I have also used Silca chain stripper as the detergents in that don't break down the wax.
If you want easy, just wipe off the surface and put it back in the pot.
I'm just a bit of a nerd with it.
I clean it in a jar with some boiling water. Then wax. Seems to work nicely
How do you prepare a previously waxed chain when it needs re-waxing?
Not the first time waxing of a brand new chain as I know how to, and have done this.
It’s the re-waxing preparation. All I have been doing is brushing the chain when it’s dry and then dipping it into the hot wax. Do I need to be doing more and if so what?
Thanks
not with putoline. just chuck the chain in the pot. it cleans it
Most of the time the chain just goes in the wax. If it's a bit dirty it gets a good wipe down with a cloth. A couple of times I've given the chain a swish with some boiling water to give it a good ol' clean but if I'm being honest I'm not sure if I needed to.
The cleaning is mainly to prevent the wax getting contaminated. I have a feeling that putoline is a lot more resistant to contamination than the other waxes as it relies a lot on the graphite content to do its job rather than the wax consistency.
Putoline isn't magical. Some people are more tolerance of allowing contamination into the wax pot than others. In that respect, the Putoline advantage is that it comes in a 1kg pot where was most other wax is sold in 500g bags and some use less than that.
In the same way that wet lube doesn't clean a chain because you're using maybe 5ml across 100+ links so how much of that 0.05ml do you think is cleaner Vs how much is lube?
A waxed chain picks up less contamination in the first place and then gets dissolved into a larger volume.
Water will still bring more contamination into a chain than dry weather but the same applies to wet lube. Wax will get noisy when the coating between the side plates has worn but there's still plenty in the rollers. Wet lube will remain quieter, even when it's a grinding paste.
I've used Silca chain stripper on chains I thought needed relaxing, dried them with a hair dryer and found there's enough wax inside the links to stiffen the whole chain again link it's just been waxed. I will admit, I didn't ride the chain, after the prep work was done, I waxed it anyway, along with the others.
I take the chain off (you need to do this if re-immersion waxing anyway), hook it through the Silca chain waxing cable thing and pour a kettle full of boiling water over it (fairly slowly), be warned the steam if effing hot so wear a glove or hook the chain cable thing through a coat hanger or something.
You want to be immersion waxing very soon after (to avoid the chain rusting) so pre-heat it and as long as it's 100c+ all the water will just boil off (although I do give it a bit of a blow dry with a high power air duster thing first).
If you're immersion waxing properly the wax will get deep inside the links in one go, it doesn't need multiple layers to accumulate over multiple immersions.
Remember the bearing fella who arrived on the forum every time we mentioned bearings? I am starting to feel like him!!
So rewaxing, so many conflicting views on this and being a chain wax nerd I have tested and researched most of them. I used to boil my chains if they were very dirty to melt and remove all dirt, it worked well but has more negative consequences than positive I feel. In a hard water area I’d definitely say no, you will leave calcium deposits on the inside of the chain and thats worse than any contamination you’ve picked up. Give your chain a wipe down or a brush through one of those chain cleaning tools, heat the wax and whack it into it, leave it submerged for at least 15 mins, give it a gentle swirl and remove it, simple as that.
With mountain bikes you will contaminate your wax a bit quicker than road bikes but it makes little difference, if you are using a product like GLF you have built up a coating of additives on your inner chain anyway, and the voids are full of wax, so contamination isnt something you need to worry much about.
If you are racing and want maximum efficiency that is completely different, you’ll want two wax pots and race only chains, but that’s a thread on its own.
Someone mentioned putoline having a larger pot so less susceptible to contamination, I use 1kg wax in my MTB pot for this reason. You’ll want a temperature controlled wax melter for this though as a slow cooker is way too slow
Should you put the chain in boiling water to remove residual wax and then dry before putting the melting pot?
You don't put it IN boiling water, just rinse it off with boiling water. The theory is that it takes off the very fractional outer layer of wax along with any dirt that's stuck to it but it's not in contact with boiling water for long enough to melt it all.
Although
Pretty much what 13thfloormonk said.
works fine too!
That's interesting. Must try it - I'd either just wiped well and then put in wax or boiled in a pan. Which means I now have a pan with loads of wax residue round the sides.
how do you hold the chain when pouring boiling water over it? what do you catch the run off with (or do you just let all the wax accumulate on your patio?
how do you hold the chain when pouring boiling water over it? what do you catch the run off with (or do you just let all the wax accumulate on your patio?
If you aren't using the Silca system then anything that will hook through the chain would do (e.g. zip tie and then loop that over a coat hanger, so your hand isn't directly above where you're pouring the water). I just do mine over a gravelly bit of path outside my garage.
Just received the following response direct from Silca;
Thank you for reaching out, and thank you for choosing our Hot Wax! I hope that you are loving the results so far. I am sorry to hear that there is some conflicting information floating around when it comes to prepping your chain for rewaxing. We recommend that you always wipe down your chain with a Gear Wipe or Microfiber towel prior to rewaxing. This should remove the majority of the dirt/debris from your chain. If your chain is exceptionally dirty, you may take some additional cleaning steps. You could run an aircompressor over the chain to remove any fine dust/sand, or you could use the boiling water method (chain placed in a bowl of boiling water or pour direct from kettle) to start completely fresh! These additional steps are not necessary, but can be used if needed.
I've tried most methods, most seem to work.
Nine times out of ten though I'll just wash the bike with the chain on, (which will naturally involve some amount of muck-off sprayed on a cloth and the chain run through it before rinsing. Then throw the chain in the COLD* wax pot, switch it on and set a timer so I don't forget it.
I used to put absolutely filthy chains into putoline and apart form it forming layer of grit in the DFF** never had any problems.
As others have said, I find the wax works better 2nd/3rd time round, might be accumulation, I suspect it's more likley residual grease or cleaning chemicals.
*wet chains and hot wax don't mix.
**since moved onto a slow cooker, I do think the DFF was degrading the wax. Although it now takes over an hour to get to ~100C this time of year.
**since moved onto a slow cooker, I do think the DFF was degrading the wax. Although it now takes over an hour to get to ~100C this time of year.
DFF? The advantage of the Silca pot is it won't overheat the wax as it's PID controlled (so it's not overheating some of it before the rest melts). that does mean it takes a while to warm up though
Another reason to avoid putting a wet chain in is that it takes a long time to boil off the water. Much longer than I expected. Easier just to dry the chain (hair dryer or a hot air gun on low does it pretty quickly),
DFF? The advantage of the Silca pot is it won't overheat the wax as it's PID controlled (so it's not overheating some of it before the rest melts). that does mean it takes a while to warm up though
Deep Fat Fryer, I found that mine even when set to ~100C, the surface temperature on the base was enough to cause smoking as the thermocouple isn't on the base, it's somewhere else insulated from the heat by the solid wax.
I like the idea of the silca pot, but it's a very expensive way of doing the same job as a mini slow cooker and having a cup of tea while it melts. I could (and might as I've used them for beer brewing) add an inkbird controller and mimic the same thing to take some of the guesswork out of it.
Kettle method here also, hopefully removes the majority of contaminants. It doesn't flush all of the wax out, since when I give it a shake and hang it to dry for a few minutes it stiffens up again as the remaining wax solidifies.
Then just drop it top of the wax in the slow cooker, go off doing other things then return an hour so later to fish it out.
Used this method for a couple of years now, works well enough for me.
I don't!
Chain gets cleaned at the end of the ride when I hose the bike off. I dry it by running it through a dry cloth after cleaning.
When I want to wax it I just sit it in the slow cooker and leave it to do it's thing, no additional steps or prep.
Ditto, the point is to keep things simple (for me). Quick rinse, with boiling water if you like, then chuck it in the pot.
Actually reading that back it looks like I specifically 'clean' the chain, so for the avoidance of doubt it should read 'rinse'.
At risk of just turning this into another general waxing thread, I've been experimenting with the Silca tip to add 1/3rd bottle of Synergetic, alongside an Endurance chip, to my Silca wax. So far so good! Not noticeably any dirtier or stickier but general durability per application seems a lot better, I think my max is something like 7hr/80km in very mix tarmac/gravel/muddy conditions, and that's not to say it had worn off, I just rewaxed anyway.
I've just started using chains with 1/3 bottle of synerg-e in the wax (and 2 x endurance chips), I was previously getting about 75 miles (with just wax + 1 x endurance chip). I does seem a bit better (although I've only done about 70 miles on one chain so far and half of that was a dry ride) so a bit too early to tell. It was noticeably stiffer after waxing but seems OK now it's broken in.
I did think it might be a pain to reset the chain later if I need to (possibly boil and Silca chain stripper might do it, unless the melted wax from the boiling water takes the oil with it...). I'm also not sure how effective drip-wax top ups will be. Unless the immersion wax lasts a lot longer I might regret doing it...
Boiling water (I boil it a bit in an old pan, 3 changes of water) - this removes pretty much all the wax and with it the contamination, the only way to practically (no solvents needed as its waxed) properly reset a used chain, according to the guru at Zero Friction Cycling.
Boiling water (I boil it a bit in an old pan, 3 changes of water) - this removes pretty much all the wax and with it the contamination, the only way to practically (no solvents needed as its waxed) properly reset a used chain, according to the guru at Zero Friction Cycling.
Not needed with putoline. The wax thins so much when hot it acts as a solvent and all the grit comes out of the chain. You end up with a load of grit in the bottom of the tin and a clean rewaxed chain
source: well over a decade of using it
Not needed with putoline. The wax thins so much when hot it acts as a solvent and all the grit comes out of the chain. You end up with a load of grit in the bottom of the tin and a clean rewaxed chain
source: well over a decade of using it
It's not needed with a waxed chain either, I think mudfish was talking about stripping a waxed chain back to bare metal (hence 'resetting').
Trying to strip a Putolined chain back to bare metal required multiple baths in white spirit as I recall 😂
Trying to strip a Putolined chain back to bare metal required multiple baths in white spirit as I recall
Plus incantations to various gods and fire
TBH I’m surprised at such low mileage out the chains above. ^^^^^
I’ve only done my MTB once this year, over 1000 miles. The gravel bike has done 1500 miles and has been done twice. Both just looked a bit dirty, no obvious decline in performance and are still refusing to accept the chain checker.
EDIT: I’m using GLF Wax, so a massive thumbs ups!
TBH I’m surprised at such low mileage out the chains above. ^^^^^
My 75 miles was wet riding, over summer I was getting around 400 miles (Silca + 1 endurance chip) and then extending that to around 600-700 miles with a couple of drip wax top ups before re-immersion waxing.
I’ve only done my MTB once this year, over 1000 miles. The gravel bike has done 1500 miles and has been done twice.
Impressive mileages! So that's basically 500miles per application?
I forget what my summer mileages were but even in summer I had a tendency to drag the bike through mud, bogs or river crossings so doubt I ever achieved 500 miles out of an application, biggest single ride was 200km and chain was sounding very sorry for itself after 170km, but there had been river crossings and a prolonged spell in the rain.
In winter I'm happy if I can get a full day's wet muddy riding out of an application, which in fairness the Silca/ Endurance chip/ Synergetic mix seems to achieve.
source: well over a decade of using it
Quick question, how do you know when your Plutoline is dead? I'm using it myself and it seems to look much the same as when I started using it and I'm not noticing any degradation with heating cycles.
Or will my Plutoline filled slow cooker be something I pass on to my children as it simply doesn't degrade?
I have never noticed degradation of the putoline tho others have. I did finally finish a tin after a decade or so and added the little that remained to a new tin
I get hundreds to thousands of miles out of each application
I get hundreds to thousands of miles out of each application
I remember we've made these comparisons before, I found Putoline lasted no longer in off-road conditions than other waxes (to be fair, it performed beautifully while it lasted, possibly even better than the 'hard' waxes, I just couldn't hack the dirty drivetrain).
I do think I was one of your earlier disciples and was probably overheating it though, I was using a cheap deep fat fryer. I also think the chain I was using at the time (gold coated YBN) was anecdotally one of the ones that 'shed' waxes quicker due to lower adhesion. I've never seen this confirmed though. I now stick with Shimano chains although even these have the Siltec coating which apparently hinders adhesion.
On my winter road bike I was a lot closer to getting these fabled mileages though, it got wet but never 'dirty'. I've started using my Silca blend on that now so only time will tell if it fares any better under those conditions.
I still find it very interesting that people can enjoy such different results, I wonder how much pedalling style/chain articulation comes in to it if this is 'squeezing' the wax out from between the rollers and the pins more or less rapidly...
At risk of just turning this into another general waxing thread, I've been experimenting with the Silca tip to add 1/3rd bottle of Synergetic
F*** me, the resulting liquid is going end up more expensive than pedigree bull seamen with all those extra chips and potions.
My DIY recipe is currently:
1kg 58-60C Paraffin wax
1L Oil (specifically for a Citroen Berlingo gearbox, but that's just what I had lying around, any heavy weight engine oil should do, like 20W50, EP90, 85W gearbox oil etc).
50g PTFE 1.6um powder
25g WS2 powder
If I did it again I'd omit the additives, and maybe try soy wax and veg oil to minimise the impact of the microplastics on the environment. Could probably add some graphite if you wanted to still feel clever but it's the wax that does almost all the lubricating, not the additives.
On my list of clever things to do, I want to try making a calcium based grease from soy wax. By my reckoning that really should stick to the chain and repel water.
I have never noticed degradation of the putoline tho others have. I did finally finish a tin after a decade or so and added the little that remained to a new tin
I had one tin go-off, and the next tin I was unconvinced the recipe was the same, it was a lot softer than the first. The original tin I had the chain The new tin never did that unless it was absolutely baltic.
F*** me, the resulting liquid is going end up more expensive than pedigree bull seamen with all those extra chips and potions.
Yeah that's one downside, I think my pot currently has about £80-90 worth of stuff in it (it goes a long way though, unless you drop it on your carpet like I did with the last one...)
I get hundreds to thousands of miles out of each application
I still find it very interesting that people can enjoy such different results, I wonder how much pedalling style/chain articulation comes in to it if this is 'squeezing' the wax out from between the rollers and the pins more or less rapidly...
I suspect some of it might be how sensitive you are to noise from the drive train and/or if you ride in rain. From trying Silca hot wax for a few months a few hundred km seemed reasonable in the dry but I'd want to redo it after 50km of wet riding due to the noise. It seems better with some of their lube added to the pot but I've not done enough yet to know how much better. This is all for road, it's not made me want to use it winter mtb at all so far.
I suspect some of it might be how sensitive you are to noise from the drive train and/or if you ride in rain.
Extremely sensitive to noise unfortunately 😆
I also imagine that I can 'feel' a dry chain, but it might be the same effect as a creaky bottom bracket, i.e. psychologically you just don't want to push as hard due to the noise or the perception of damaging something.
This is all for road, it's not made me want to use it winter mtb at all so far.
I've been using pedigree bull semen Silca + Endurance chip + Synergetic on the 'winter gravel bike' which is a CX bike basically and being ridden as such, i.e. through deep mud, watersplashes etc. I can get 6-7 hours in a single ride out of an application so wouldn't hesitate to use it for winter MTB.
This is all for road, it's not made me want to use it winter mtb at all so far.
I think of it more in terms of rides than distance.
I'll happily do ~400km on the road, that's two big rides or an average month at least.
I'd happily do a couple of long rides on the MTB, but that's only maybe 140km? Or maybe an average month of evening rides?
Thinking of it in terms of the number or rides works better because if it's crap weather/conditions you're not going to be out doing 200km off-road. Whereas if someone suggested the Ridgeway or SDW double in summer on a dry day, I'd not even think about taking spare lube.
Plus with n+1 bikes I end up doing two or three at a time anyway. So it's academic if the MTB has only done 100km, the road bike's done 600km so they both get waxed.
Haven't read all the posts above. Long term wax user on all my bikes, for simplicity, durability and cost reasons (cost of lube and cost of worn drivetrains)
I'm not bothered about achieving the absolute minimum of friction (which I think is what a lot of the really faffy approaches are aiming for)
I use a homebrew paraffin wax mix similar to the one listed above. Cheap as chips.
I do very very very little to ever clean any chains. About the most cleaning a chain will get is a hose off then run through a rag. I might spray/wipe a bit of water displacer (e.g gt85) on it to keep surface rust away.
When it needs re- doing I don't do any wax stripping off or special cleaning. I just wait until any water from washing my bike has evaporated then chuck it in the fryer. Give it a swirl about, pull it out, allow to cool briefly then wipe down with a rag to get the surface free if excess wax. I do a batch of chains at a time - I run 2x chains on each bike in rotation to make that easier.
Minimum faff. Dead easy. Dead cheap.
Chains run smooth and they last ages on the chain checker.