Chain Waxing Tutorial

Mine does that also after a wet ride. I did two rides in the rain last week and both bikes got new chains

Interesting. What are chemicals or cleaning agents were you using in the ultra sonic cleaner?

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I’ll have to ask the shop, its a http://www.renegadepartswashers.com/

I don’t think wax will prevent rust. My experience with wet cx is I always have to take the chain off when I get home, wipe it dry with a papertowel, and rest it somewhere warmish to dry. I’ve had chains rust a bit if I don’t. In the summer, I don’t tend to have rust issues – I think because I don’t generally ride in crappy weather, but in the off chance I get rained on anyway it dries while I’m riding on it (assuming the rain stopped). Popping the chain off is a cinch with the connex link.

I’ve pulled mine and dropped it in a jar of mineral spirits for the drive home from the occasional wet TT…that seemed to work though not exactly the most convenient thing in the world.

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Also in the UK If it happens to rain while I am out I will sparingly spray the chain over with a water dispersing spray and wipe the chain over with a cloth to remove the excess.

Managed to get some outdoor riding in during a rare dry spell in England, the chain has run smooth as silk and I am happy as can be with the MSW, I think I will likely try normal paraffin wax after the MSW needs throwing away.

Question: between applications of MSW shall I just wipe the chain with a clean rag and re wax in the slow cooker? or should I add chain to boiling water then dry before re waxing?

I am reading conflicting information about the reapplication process and just want to go with the best option.

You can do both. The one downside of just dumping the chain without boiling water is that your wax will probably go black faster, on the other hand your chain might rust a little bit if you went with boiling water.

I personally go boiling water.

I have been waxing for a few weeks now and so far so good. I have a few issues with the wax flakes on the trainer and still have no clue about when it’s time to rewax. But I’ll learn…

One thing puzzles me though: I had thought that the waxed chain makes a perfectly clean drivetrain. My road rides are 100% dry, but still do I get a dirty rag after wiping the chain post ride. It seems that it’s small metal flakes. The chain I noticed it the most on is a used KMC EL Silver that is close to 0.5 wear. I disregarded the advice to start waxing with a new chain. I have another used Shimano 105 chain that shows less wear still, but it also sheds some metal. Small blackish dust.

I wonder whether this is the normal wear of a chain that is mixing with road dust and making up the black gunk in an oiled chain. Not as clearly visible as on a waxed chain.

I’ll shortly put on a new chain as part of a rotation and I’ll see how it looks there. Maybe it’s time to retire the KMC chain at least.

Can anybody please share some experience? Are your chains shedding some metal dust as well?

KMC chains don’t take wax well according to Zero Friction Cycling, something about the coating they use. My own experience mirrored this. Are the chains fully stripped before waxing them? If not you maybe you are getting some of the residual grease left in the rollers mixing with dirt and that can get kind of gunky?

I read the same about KMC. I did clean the chains properly based on the MSW instructions and even more so for the used chains. So happy that I’m over this stage already. I used turpentine and methylated spirits. I also cleaned the chainrings, cassettes, jockey wheels, etc. with a degreaser and alcohol. So I am sure I cleaned everything as much as necessary.

I’ll be able to see shortly how the new Shimano chains will do. Hopefully, they won’t she’s any metal dust.

Ahh okay. Not sure where the metal might be coming from. When my chains get dirty the wax and dirt mostly falls off leaving more a dry chain. Sorry couldn’t be more help

My first waxing was done with just paraffin wax.

The chain I am using at the moment was previously lubed with chain oil, I cleaned it thoroughly before waxing it for the first time, The mineral spirits were spotless after about 5-6 cleans and refreshes.

I then waxed the chain but realised afterwards I had got a step wrong because I had placed the cold chain into the hot wax, after I realized my mistake I waxed again but this time I left the chain on top of the wax whilst it melted in the slow cooker.

When the wax was up to temperature I noticed a fair bit of black debris on the chain whilst it was sat in the hot wax (I did not notice this the previous time) this makes me think that the thorough cleaning I thought I gave the chain was not thorough enough to remove the oil/grease from between the links. I do not think you can fully clean a chain that has been oiled without giving it some heat to remove the final remains of oil/grease.

Maybe what you are seeing is remaining oil/grease being expelled by the wax.

Zero Friction Cycling recommends YBN if I remember correctly.

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I am also in the UK, and ride CX is wet and muddy conditions. The advice from Ozcycle was to add parafin oil to the wax/ptfe mix to provide a degree of resistance to water. the downside is the chains need to be rewaxed more frequently.
A little rust on the outer plates sometimes occurs after a wet road ride. I just clean the chain in parafin and then wax it. The chains on the CX bikes get waxed after each race after washing in soapy water and then hung to dry.
I’ve been waxing for 3 years now and wouldnt go back to oil based lubes.

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I’m curious about the supposed issues with KMC chains. I’ve been using KMC X11SL (silver version, not gold) for a few years and have had no issues. I did start with new chains, and cleaned per the MSW instructions. My only change is that I tend to let them soak in the first mineral spirits bath for about a week shaking occasionally, instead of doing all the cleaning in one go. I’ve done a total of 9-ish chains.

On average, I get about 250-300 miles before rewaxing. I don’t often ride in the wet, but when I do, a quick wipe down with a cloth to soak up the water does the trick. Sometimes some light surface rust shows up, but it’s gone after the next ride, and doesn’t cause any problems. If it gets really wet and I don’t dry the chain, it’ll get squeaky really fast on the next ride, but after a fresh wax, it’s back to normal.

I’ve never had a chain rust to the point I wanted to toss it.

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Seems like putting paraffin oil in the mix is defeating the purpose of waxing in the first place. Oil is going to attract and hold contaminants. Pure paraffin, MSW, Silca Wax none of those use oil. Sure putting some oil in will make it last longer but then why not just use a proper wet lube at that point?

The Oz Cycle guy seems like a lot of bro science with no legit testing done.

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I am using KMC’s EL 11sp chains on one bike and Shimano Ultegra chains on another. While on the Shimano’s I have together just about 5000 km, I rode about 45 thousand km on KMC. I usually get over 10000 km, the last two I swapped after 15 thousand km. With Shimano I’ve noticed they are slightly noisier and of course directional. Can’t say much about durability yet.

I ride in dry conditions mostly so there is that. And while I don’t have any experience I know other people use parafin oil. Mostly because wax doesn’t like cold conditions. But it might also offer some water resistance as @Raythebike says.

I cleaned my chains exactly how you did but noticed dirt coming out from between the links when the chain was in the heated up MSW. I think the heat expands the links slightly and allows the final bits of dirt/oil to escape.

In the future if I clean an oiled chain I will add a step after the white spirit clean and put the chain into boiling water to let it heat up before a final rinse in white spirits.

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