How do you know if it is burnt?
Check the Zen master document. From memory, he said it cools to a grey colour no longer black.
First time waxer. Bike is on my Kickr Core. What’s the best way of cleaning off the wax from the bike frame? I’ve vacuumed up the floor fine with a shop vac. I’m guessing I should have took it for a spin outside for the first ride?
Can you buy new chains already waxed?
Installed this last week. Cheapest chain I could find in the US. (Dura Ace chain). I didn’t want to deal with all the mineral spirits etc. I purchased MSW to rewax. Still need to find a cheap crock pot at the local Goodwill. Quick shipping.
That price seems almost too good to be true for a degreased and waxed Dura Ace chain… assume you are happy with what showed up?
Yes, purchased 2 maybe will get a 3rd. Arrived with race dust! He’s local cyclist who runs a small company. I didn’t even realize he was local but had remembered seeing him on strava. He’s also a cycling coach.
Has anyone ever used witch hazel instead of mineral spirits or isopropyl alcohol in the final stage of cleaning a chain? At the moment, isopropyl is impossible to find at my local pharmacy.
In the final stage you usually use denatured alcohol to remove the mineral spirits, I buy it at my local hardware store
Thanks for the thread everyone. I’ve read it a couple of times and started waxing my chains. Ain’t going back! I’ve read the zen master guide and am waxing in a parafin wax without additives in a slow cooker.
Now, I do have some questions that were perhaps answered already but I didn’t find them. My two chains have between them around 15 thousand kms from this one wax batch. And it is starting to show, probably time to use new wax. The reason being, even freshly waxed chain doesn’t last very long (6 hours). When do you replace your wax? How do you get the wax out of the slow cooker? It is stuck in mine and only solution I can see would be to heat it slightly that the walls melt and then turn it upside down.
Any recommendations concerning additives? I’ve seen the Oz Cycles video where the PTFE seems to be the right choice. I do have my reservations though, I don’t even have a teflon pan. Is it safe when melted in wax? Any other/better options?
And while I’m at it, what is your preferred 11sp chain? I was using KMC EL so far which isn’t too bad (10k kms when using oil, another 7.5k+ waxed - not ruined yet).
@Dostring, I am using the PTFE mix as per Oz Cycle and it works fine. I use a croc pot and once mixed, it dries as one mass. I change the wax every six months or so, generally as I ride CX it gets a bit gritty towards the end of the season. So I changed to the PTFE mix straight after, once the PTFE arrived -took a month off Ebay!
Your method of changing is the same as me, but I only put enough wax to cover a couple of chains, takes less time to melt tnat way.
As regards choice, I buy Connex , to get the replacement links, and they work well enough for me.
I change the wax also about every six months, or when it gets grungy. I also find that I can do the following to reduce the dirt that builds up in the wax in my crockpot.
- With wax cold, place crockpot upside down on some newspaper, turn on
- In about 30 minutes or so, the wax on the sides will have melted, and most of the wax will be soft.
At this point, I can get essentially all the wax out in a block, and the bottom few millimeters of this wax will have most of the dirt in in. I then scrape this off and throw it away, and put the wax back in the crockpot for next time.
I am surprised how dirty my wax gets from re-waxing chains from mostly in-door riding.
Roy
Some things i have done and learned over the past year of waxing. I bought 6 chains to start with (highly recommend doing this unless you have enough time to do this process at a more frequent cadence). Stripping them the first time is the worst but once done the re-waxing process is easy. I also bought a pack of quick links so I am rotating 12 sets of quick links across 6 chains and have never had a quick link fail (11 speed).
For cleaning i went to Wal Mart and got some mason jars. I have 3 jars of mineral spirits. i use those 3 (dirty, clean, cleanest). I then have a 4th container i pour the clean mineral spirits in once the dirt has settled and continue to use that rotation strategy. I then hang the chain and let it dry. Once dry i will then put it in a mason jar of rubbing alcohol for the final cleaning. This has worked great for me.
This process can be done over time since i have 6 chains rotating across my road and TT bike. I will then wax all the chains at the same time and start over. I do this about once every 2-3 months and tend to rotate chains every 200 miles. I change them less frequently in the winter when I am 95%on the trainer.
I use just a bit more wax than needed to cover the chain. The wax does get grungy after just a few re-waxings, and I like to replace it a few times per year. To discard, I heat it up and pour into paper paper cups. My slow cooker has a ceramic bowl, so I lift that out and pour. I add a wi ck to the wax in the cups and I use these to light my 
for halloween!
If you add ptfe, maybe don’t burn the wax 
I am running my chain through an heated ultrasonic machine. Seems to be working well.
Regarding burning the wax - I left my crock pot on overnight (or maybe more like 24 hours) by accident, and the wax was yellow and smelled different after that. From what I understand this is caused by overheating the wax, so I replaced it after that. Now I try to make sure I unplug it as soon as I am done.
Also, regarding rust - I live in a fairly warm/dry climate (northern California near Sacramento), and one time I left some new chains that I had just stripped of factory lube to try overnight - I had noticeable surface rust after just 12-18 hours. Next time I will go straight from stripping to waxing to avoid this.
Thanks everyone! I’m dumping my old wax tomorrow. It’s already 9 months old (although more wax) and from what I read the fresh wax is long overdue. I already figured that the whole 1 kg was too much wax. I’ll do just enough to cover the chain. At least, I won’t have to wait that long for the wax to melt. I might try the PTFE in the future but it wouldn’t arrive soon enough for this batch.
This forum is great, thanks again!
Just to make everyone’s head spin… I am a wax addict too.
To remove old wax, I do something different.
- Bring a tea kettle to a boil.
- Toss the chain into a mason jar
- Pour boiling water into mason jar until it covers the chain. (If the jar breaks and you bleed to death, that’s your issue… not mine. Wear gloves and be sure the jar is safe for boiling water)
- Swish the chain around a little. Wax will melt and float to the top.
- Dump the hot water + chain through a colander (do this outside so your spouse/S.O. doesn’t kill you)
- Repeat the process two more times before your kettle of boiling water cools down.
Voila. All the wax is gone. Dry the chain and apply your new wax. And yeah, I’ve gone through all the 'expensive stuff and settled on good old Gulf Wax. It’s like $0.20/application, quiet, lasts as long as MSW and perhaps ‘costs’ me .00005 watt versus MSW. I’ll just pedal harder, thanks.
p.s. if things are really gunky, I will toss the ‘wax free’ chain into my ultrasonic jiggler with some Simple Green for a while. Between the boiling water treatment and ultrasonic Simple Green, it’s clean as a whistle.