My molten speed wax seems to have taken a brownish hue to it. Anything I need to worry about here?
Chains typically are at least wiped down before they go in so haven’t tossed a kid covered chain in there.
I think you got it to hot and it burned, it should return to it white/grey color.
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So dump it out and start again or still OK to keep using?
Unfortunately yes, I’d dump it out. What is the temperature like on your slow cooker? If there’s a low temp setting, use that one. I thought most slow cookers won’t get hot enough to do that.
Or is it contaminated? It could be scorched though. Either way, I’d toss it.
Ironic as I am going to pick up my slow cooker to start waxing in earnest. Hmm…
Did you see any fumes? You think it looks yellowish? Then yes, overheated.
IME contaminants tend to drop to the bottom of the pot / wax puck.
I did the same once, left it on medium overnight and it turned the same shade of yellow/brown. I dumped it. Lesson learned.
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And when I was looking for a slow cooker, someone in Oz said the Crock-pot with no controls was the best to get. It had no settings for temperature, and so many people said it was too low a temperature, more a ‘warmer’ than a ‘cooker’. So maybe it’d work better because it wouldn’t overheat the wax? How ‘hot’ does it have to be? The one I got has the traditional 3 settings, low, high, and warm. I guess warm it is?
I have the Silca wax too, maybe it’s more/less sensitive to heat? Feel like I’m walking out on a 2x4 in the dark, but will find my way…
He recommends waxing somewhere between 70c and 100c but usually says to shoot for 90c. He lists the flash point of Paraffin as 180c but I didn’t see if he says where it start to overheat.
But under 100c is probably a good limit.
EDIT: Celsius not Fahrenheit
Took your guys advice and dumped it. Lesson learned.
FWIW my crockpot has 3 settings; low, high, warm.
I typically will throw it on high to accelerate the melting process (all this does is reduce the heat cycle time), and then as wax is getting close to fully melted either throw it on warm or low to finish melting and then actually turn it off when i put the chain in and let it sit for 10min before removing and hanging.
I did forget once to dial it back and it “cooked” for about an hour which would have had it getting pretty hot.
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That was what I was worried about. You could set an alarm or just melt it on low.
Celsius not Fahrenheit
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One trick I learned with the warm / low / high croc pots is to set it to low and offset the cover so the heat can escape. I found that in an hour my pot can get the wax up to 200F when fully covered. By putting the cover in various positions you can get a 175-180F. Also, a cheap Harbor Freight temperature gun is really a necessity for temp control.
the thing is you can go well beyond 100 deg C or 212 F and it will not affect the wax… but for Molten speed wax it is a mixture and there may be something in there that did discolour. The only real thing to worry about with paraffin wax is the flash point. If the temp goes above 200-240 deg C it can spontaneously catch fire, that might not be so good but below that temp it should be fine. I use 110- 120 deg C (using an infrared thermometer to check). That makes sure there is no water left from the citrus degreaser. If you are certain you got all of the water with the alcohol or acetone then 80 deg C should be more than enough.
Be really careful with this method. When using IR you are only getting surface temp and there can be a decent disparity between that and what the actual liquid wax is temp wise. Best practice would be to use a stick thermometer - either a candy therm or something like a javelin instant read therm so that you can get the tip into the wax and get a true reading.
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fair point, but at that temp I doubt it is 100 deg C different and there is a fair amount of convection. For flash point I worry most about the air oil interface anyhow. So as long as it is well below 200 deg C then I am not too worried. The same issue can be said of the thermometer, since it is biased high if sitting on the bottom of the dish… the only way to know is stirring somewhere in the middle of the liquid.
ahh damn you’re right
I came across this thread as after waxing in clear/pure paraffin today the wax that has set in the bottom of the slow cooker definitely has some yellowish tinge to it.
Backstory: I have been using MSW and then topping up with wax drip lube for a few years now. I’ve been relying on the drip lube quite a lot as my longevity never seems great (on bikes with a shop-stripped chain and bikes with a chain stripped by my with Allpine). I thought the MSW over those years may have been contaminated so today replaced with pure paraffin. I also soak the chain in degreaser, then Allpine, then heated the chain to 100c in an air fryer to dry it and then put it in the slow cooker on low. The chain seemed clean but It did still have some small rust spots or some sort of marking which I couldn’t remove. It was taking ages so I put the lid on for a bit and came back later to remove it when 90% of the wax was removed. I left it for longer and when I came back an instant read thermometer was reading 96-98c which is certainly higher than I’d expect from ‘low’. It was also reading differently at different places in the wax. I’m wondering if my lack of longevity is because I’ve always been overheating the wax (which I’ve heard breaks down the long molecules that help it stick to the chain).
Any thoughts? Are my assumptions above correct? Is that the reason for the discolouring or is it more likely to be whatever the spots where on the chain?
Should I just buy the Silca wax pot and be done with worrying about temperature?
Look up “Gimli Glider”.
Early days of Canada’s conversion to metric, an Air Canada flight was fueled in litres rather than gallons. It basically ran out of fuel over Manitoba and had to glide land at Gimli AFB.
Yeah, I know. That’s a cool story actually. Hits all the idiocy at many levels, and ended up being a save by the pilots. Imagine being on the old runway and seeing that plane coming in to land. 