PTFE Powder For homemade wax lube

So It seems quite a few people are doing the wax homebrew with paraffin wax and PTFE powder. I have most of the stuff already but finding it hard to get ptfe powder, anybody have any success buying some? Cheap stuff on ebay but i am not prepared to pay a chinese company to send me white powder in a plastic bag, reeks of danger. I found one supplier but at £30 for 50g my wallet said no.

Don’t heat it up above 300 deg c. Releases toxic fumes.

Don’t heat it up above 300 deg c. Releases toxic fumes.

You’d also have set fire to the wax which might prove the more dangerous in the short term!

I think tungsten disulphide would work better as the friction modifier, it binds to the surface under pressure rather than just staying in the wax.

Or just let someone else do the product development and buy putoline (I have no idea what’s in putoline, but there’s something sulphur based in there!()

https://www.putoline.com/en/catalogue/product/582/drytec-race-chainlube/2039/

paton
Member
https://www.putoline.com/en/catalogue/product/582/drytec-race-chainlube/2039/

No the good stuff

https://www.putoline.com/en/catalogue/product/140/chain-wax/1675/

Never tried the spray on stuff, suppose it can’t be any worse than the similar stuff overpriced and sold in 125ml bottles in cycle shops.

Wikipedia give the initial decomposition as 200 Centigrade:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene
although they say that depolymerization doesn’t happen until 650 Centigrade.
When I worked in the electronics industry, we aimed to keep the temperature below 400 Centigrade.

If you are going to make something yourself with paraffin wax and PTFE powder, be really careful that any spills of PTFE or the mixture can’t get heated above 400 C. That also applies to containers that you might use for the next batch, or for heating something else.

When it breaks down, PTFE releases hydrogen fluoride:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_fluoride

The safe time weighted average exposure is 3 ppm. Based on tests on monkeys, 1774 ppm has a 50/50 chance of killing you to death. That really isn’t much.

Hydrogen fluoride forms hydrofluoric acid when it meets water (like the moisture in air):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrofluoric_acid
It is very corrosive, used for etching stainless steel, titanium, or glass. You probably don’t want that anywhere near your chain either.

Stay safe, don’t add to the workload on the NHS.

Plenty of tins to choose from

https://www.putoline.com/en/catalogue/maintenance_chain-lubricants/

When I was looking at modding fork lube I read that piano maintaners use it for keeping things non-sticky, maybe look in that area.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8D5N5opOe0

When I worked in the electronics industry, we aimed to keep the temperature below 400 Centigrade.

Only about double what a deep fat fryer will manage then.

The smoke point for paraffin wax is in the low 200’s, so if you were getting it >>200C you would (in order of importance):

1) Be on fire
2) Be breathing in a whole cocktail of of nasty combustion byproducts
3) PTFE breakdown products.

I suspect the teflon frying pan got hotter making a bacon sandwich this morning than putoline/chain wax gets.

Plenty of tins to choose from

There can only be one

There can only be one

Nonsense, there’s at least 6

I wouldn’t bother wasting your money on PTFE powder – it’ll get squished out with the rest of the wax.

Also, paraffin wax on its own is pretty useless – it’s too brittle and doesn’t stick very well. Add some beeswax and/or gear oil to soften it up. I put molybdenum disulphide in mine (because I had some) but don’t think it does very much in this application. Tungsten disulphide is way sexier.

I did consider adding graphite powder to my “homebrewed chainwax” but it’s mostly old scented candles and a splash of motor oil…

I add molybdenum disulfide to mine and would happily add ultrafine graphite powder too. I rejected PTFE on ecological grounds.

This is like a list of people yo avoid in the pub.

I rejected PTFE on ecological grounds.

I’m glad it’s not just me that thinks dumping PTFE into the environment, even in small quantities, as a byproduct of a recreational sport hobby, is a bit selfish.

Take it we are discussing the ‘Oz Cycle’ method?

One of the amusing consequences of the lockdown is my ability to indulge myself with the kind of time consuming stuff that I wouldn’t usually entertain – one of which is the whole chain waxing fetish! I did the full method of soaking the chain in petrol for 8 hours, then degreaser. I bought the cheapest slow cooker I could off Amazon and paraffin wax. I also invested in a spare chain per bike to rotate out. I don’t fancy doing this every 250 miles as the method recommends!

I bit the bullet and went for the expensive UK sourced PTFE. I didn’t trust the Chinese stuff, or the delivery right now and over the course of thousands of miles and hundreds of dunks into the gloop, it is not such bad value vs lube. Sorry, I wasn’t aware of the environmental cost – I think that might have made me think twice.

And the result? Amazing! Clean, quiet, no mess. No idea if the PTFE makes a jot of difference. Doing the whole deep clean before means that the paraffin wax does stick well. Plus the satisfaction of having achieved something in my garage with cheap materials that Ceramic Speed would charge £50 per chain for!

Highly recommended.

I added some molybdenum disulphide powder, some ptfe powder (from China), paraffin and used quite a bit of bees wax but found it was too brittle so to soften it up I added vaseline and that for me gives it the perfect softness and tackiness when dry without attracting dirt. I do find the outside if the chain still needs spraying with a light lubricant just as frequently but the big benefit is that the wax seeps into the internals of the chain and the release of bubbles as the chain is agitated in the chip fryer attest to that.

Any ideas on what the sulphurous stuff that putoline as to theirs is?

EP Gear oil at a guess

No idea why people mess about with making their own when Putoline is readily available.

Unless someone wants to do a side by side test of their chain vs the homebrew? How about dunking half a chain in one and half in the other? 🙂

@molgrips

I have offered before, if you would like to wax a chain with putoline for me I would happily reciprocate.

Homebrew is approx a third of the cost of putoline.

Homebrew is approx a third of the cost of putoline.

Honestly, £8 (Putoline’s generally about £25), with all the ingredients bought and delivered, enough to basically do all your chains for life? Blimey.

Homebrew is approx a third of the cost of putoline.

Yes but it’s a third the cost of virtually nothing, given how long the tin lasts.

I have offered before, if you would like to wax a chain with putoline for me I would happily reciprocate.

I’ll do it. PM me. I can only give subjective response though, there will be no science.

The ecological impact of PTFE has been mentioned; it’s not great and it doesn’t degrade. As lots of our lube ends up in streams and rivers it’s a good plan to avoid using it.

Green Oil’s wet lube and dry wax are properly biodegradable and work great Link

I believed at the time that putoline was just paraffin wax with graphite. If you believe that then it seems pretty expensive and also quite easy to replicate with a homebrew. If that premise is faulty and there are more additives in the putoline that prevent corrosion etc and it has a longer lifespan than homebrew then the saving is not worth it.

I believed at the time that putoline was just paraffin wax with graphite. If you believe that then it seems pretty expensive and also quite easy to replicate with a homebrew. If that premise is faulty and there are more additives in the putoline that prevent corrosion etc and it has a longer lifespan than homebrew then the saving is not worth it.

There’s definitely more than just graphite in there. My guess would be organosulphur compounds based on the smell (it smells like EP90). Additives like MoS2 and WS2 have been around a while so could be those as well, or could just be graphite.

IMO most of the benefit is in it not washing off, so wax (and enough oil to make it sticky) alone is going to give most of that.

Compounds like esters will help it stick to the metal better.

Organosuplhur compounds lubricate well under high pressures.

Additives like graphite, MoS2, PTFE, WS2, might have some benefit.

Really though, unless you have some sort of dynometer setup it’s just guesswork and marketing.

If I was going to DIY it, it would be to do something fundamentally different, like make a biodegradable eco friendly version from vegetable fat and graphite. Trying to just copy it seems futile (it lasts 10-20 years, we’re talking pence per year!).

White Lightning Clean Ride anyone? I can be as pedantic as a Putoline follower if the need arises! Clean your chain with a cloth, apply well before a ride and repeat. No heating, no breathing in dodgy fumes….

alexnharvey
Member

Homebrew is approx a third of the cost of putoline.

Which changes the cost per use from a couple of pence to slightly fewer pence.

Please do some research about PTFE, it’s production and environmental impact. Sourcing ‘cheap’ PTFE from China where there is likely to be little requirement for pollution abatement and worker protection so you can save a few quid ? Really ?

White Lightning Clean Ride anyone?…. Clean your chain with a cloth, apply well before a ride and repeat….

… after 30 minutes of riding. I’ve been looking for clean lubes for years, I’ve tried loads of things many times over, I’ve de-greased with just about everything I can think of. I’m not some Johnny come lately jumping on the bandwagon, I’ve been looking for the holy grail of minimum maintenance whilst keeping the chain lubed since I started biking 28 years ago. That White Lightening stuff just falls off my chain after half an our of dry riding, and starts to squeak like mad. In the wet – forget it.

Putoline on the other hand, stays on for many rides and you can plough through all the wet and mud you can find and the chain stays lubed and quiet. It’s really utterly different to those kind of crappy dry lubes.

Re PTFE, thinking about it – that would increase lubricity, but that’s not the main challenge is it? Sticky wax is lubricating enough, what you need is the ideal blend to keep it on the chain surely?

Wax nerd alert….Puto vs Homebrew/ozcycle wax. I’ve got cheapo fat fryers set up with both. Puto best for winter gloop. Will survive very wet Peaslake grit for 3 or 4 rides. Slightly messy.

Homebrew was – super clean, but lasts only one ride in the worst conditions as above, chain still far less gritty feel than normal lubes. Recent freaky dry spell has all my bikes on the homebrew & nice clean chains. MTB is usually run on Puto, roadue & Pub (remember them?) bike on homebrew.

Good post thanks ^^^

I’ve been tempted to try homebrew, been using putoline but find it gets quite sticky when wet creating a sludgy mess everywhere (might not have wiped it down thoroughly enough). Almost as though it’s not setting.

Wasn’t the formula for the original ceramicspeed UltraFast lube – 450g of paraffin wax, 5g PTFE powder, and 1g molybdenum disulfide, melted and mixed together at 85°C?

Having recently watched the Dark Waters film about DuPont / Teflon in the USA I don’t think that I’d be touching powdered PTFE with a barge pole.

Isn’t somebody now punting a formula that uses graphene rather than PTFE at a rather high price point?
Graphite powder (used for locks etc) is cheap and easy to get hold of, perhaps a suitable substitute for PTFE?

From the Putoline Product Information Sheet: Chain Wax is a traditional chain lubricant with graphite.

From Safety Data Sheet:
Melting point : > 68 °C
Flash point : > 200 °C