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Paraffin waxing your chain

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Decided to start doing this on the "proper" bike after being constantly annoyed at how fiddly it is to clean modern chainrings and sprockets to a spotless degree. Cleaning my other bike is so easy but I'd been holding off on doing it on the proper bike mainly because I'd been worried about the power of 11s quick links.
I've ordered a Wippermann Connex 11s link as they seem to hold up to multiple cycles of connecting and releasing.
Amazon JP Connex link
Going to nerd out and use my cheapo ultrasonic cleaner to prep everything.
 
I have a couple of bottles of squirt. I find the muc off c3 ceramic dry lube to be quieter but it washes off in the slightest rain. Squirt does tend to get a little noisy towards the end of a longer ride (over 150-160km) and does flake off a little if you apply liberally. I've just got my hands on a bottle of Smoove which is similar to squirt but from what I've read in reviews from consumers, the smoove lasts longer. I've only done one ride on the Smoove so I can't comment from personal experience. I did used to do the wax in a pot but it was a pain in the arse and it flakes everywhere, making the bike look a mess.
 
Aye it can indeed be a mess but if you wipe off the excess on the outer plates while the chain is cooling, you generally don't end up with much. I only ever see flakes on the jockey wheels and (in the first 100km) a handful of flakes on the chainstay. Not sure how it'll be on a predominantly black bike, but if it annoys me, I'll sling in some MoS2 and just make it blend in.
 
WD-40 or Kure 55-6 spary on and wipe off crud repeat until chain is running 90% clean.
Once a week, more often if it's rainy. Once a month I remove the chain and soak in degreaser, brush the links and water rinse and dry before another spray and wipe.
 
My recent squeeze is air tool oil. It's a light/wet oil, and keeps the chain relatively clean with regular wipes and reapplication, without the need to use degreaser at all. Light enough not to be sticky oil, wet enough not to dry out and leave sticky dirt on metal surfaces. Also 500 yen for 500 mL from monotaro. Not for everyone though (i.e. anyone who likes things actually clean).
Will try paraffin next though. When I can get a good deal on 6 chains to do them all at once then rotate between.
 
Just ordered a bag of PTFE from Aliexpress for 500 yen. 50g, so that's 10 pots worth, ie a year's supply. I might try and blag a free sample of MoS2 from a supplier, just because I only need 1g per 500g of wax. May as well go all in.
 
My chain was starting to squeak a little recently (Haven't touched it since I got it new except to wipe it down now and again), so was wondering what to do. Carry on with finish line or try something else. Decided to try Squirt. Cleaned the chain which took quite a while and then once it was sparkling, applied squirt. Let it dry and then applied another layer as the bottle suggested. Left the bike over night. Had it on the trainer today and it was really quiet. Impressed so far. Will see how it ends up but right now my impression is that it is much better than finish line dry lube. YKMMV.

My chain is a sram chain and the reason, I didn't really touch it until now is that if I read the blurb online correctly, it seems that sram claims that its original gook that ships on the chain is way better than any lube I could put on. It was pretty sticky feeling stuff though. If this squirt stuff goes well, I may just degrease the next chain from the start.
 
I'm tempted to give this a try. I'm spending tons more time indoors, so resistance against water and grime is much lower on the list of priorities. However, I'd like to get a second chain first so that I always have at least one fresh chain.
 
looking how quickly my chain gets filthy I would believe 10 watts over four hours of Grand Tour racing...

might need to go buy a sonic cleaner...
 
Finally got round to doing this at the weekend. Bit of a stretch to say "the weekend" but anyway...
Used 450g of paraffin wax, 5g of PTFE powder and 1g of 0.3 micron MoS2 powder.

The hardest part was stripping out the oil in the new chain. I started on Friday night - sprayed half a can of brake cleaner into a sturdy plastic container with a screw cap, then dumped in the chain and shook it like crazy. Left it for a few hours and checked whether it had gotten the oil off - not perfectly. Wish I'd been able to get some kerosene at the nearby petrol station, but I don't have a gerry can and didn't really want to get one. Anyway, I repeated the process, then switched to mineral spirits. Left it overnight, then checked again - almost completely clean, but that's not good enough. I then went back and forth between the two containers, agitating them every few hours until I could wipe a piece of kitchen roll along the chain and not see any trace of oil. Gave it a quick wash with some alcohol, then got the wax ready.

Once the wax had melted, I added in the two powders. That MoS2 powder was the finest grade available - 0.3micron - so was an absolute nightmare to handle. It's basically a static magnet at that size. Anyway, got them in, used a 100-yen store battery-powered milk frother to mix them together, then dumped in the chain for 30 mins. I did it using the same double boiler system that I did in my last waxing thread on here, so the temperature never went over 95 degress. The flash point is 200, so there was no worry of that happening.

Once done, I just did the same process as last time, hanging the chain up to cool, then installing it with a quick link. By the way, the Wipperman Connex 11s link is niiiiiiice. Super easy, tool-free installation. The Shimano ones are proper bastards to put on unless you're carrying that specific link tool, while this one is just a case of pushing the two ends of the chain together. Spendy (about 2500 yen) but worth it.

I'll let you know how it rides when I get a chance to actually go out on the bike.
 
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