So for us it makes a bit more sense maybe, since we only commute twice a week (about 3.5 hours round trip), but if it were anything more than that, I’d probably switch to Silca Synergetic or the likes due to the lack of protection the wax gives during winter.
I’d just hate to do all the cleaning when going from oil to wax, so try to stick to wax all the time.
Fair enough!
I guess the cleaning of the bike parts from the grease isn’t too bad 
Sharing my own experience. I just started waxing last method using the zero friction cycling pdf as my guide.
Used 2x empty 32oz plastic containers (costco nuts) to degrease 3 new chains
1 overnight bath in mineral spirits
poured the spirits through a coffee filter into a spare container (im a cheapskate)
1 quick shake bath in mineral spirits (poured used spirits through another filter)
1x ‘rinse’ in denatured alchohol to remove the film from the spirits (per zero friction rec).
Melted and swished into Silca Secret blend.
So far I’ve got ~150mi on the first chain and I haven’t needed to swap chains/rewax yet, including a ride on wet surface (half dry, post rain, but not actively raining). I live in the pacific northwest so riding when it’s a least a little wet out is a fact of life here, and I put off waxing forever because I assumed that even a tiny bit of moisture would shed the wax and rust my chain, but so far so good. I still keep a lubed chain on my dedicated rain-bike.
This pdf from ZFC suggests 5L of solvents or more to clean a chain. That can’t be right, can it?
That would get uneconomical real quick.
In the past I’ve done a 100g coffee jar filled with just enough to cover the chain, and refreshed that a few times 
.
Got some Tru Tungsten arriving today. I’m going to strip my chain and cassette of the squirt lube and get that stuff on.
I’ll get some MSW from Amazon a bit later in the year. None available in NZ so no point stressing about that as it won’t arrive before race day.
I don’t use even close that much.
Last week I just put 4 brand new chains into the service. I put the 4 chains into a 4L wide mouth plastic jar I have just for cleaning chains. Poured mineral spirits (USA name - saved in canning jar from last round of chains) just enough to cover them. Let set over night with a few shakings when I thought about it. Removed and wiped chains down. Repeated process for few minutes with fresh mineral spirits. Finished off with an isopropyl alcohol bath in same jar and final wipe down.
In all I used about .75L of fresh mineral spirits and about .75L of fresh isopropyl alcohol for 4 chains. One chain would have been l quite a bit less. Saved all fluids in canning jars to use next time I need to degrease chains.
5L is insane, but I have used a whole 2.5L container to get a used chain clean enough to hit meths in the past.
Although, if you’re using squirt on a properly prepped chain and going to TTT I’d just clean the chain in boiling water, maybe with a little soap.
Just filter the spirits after use through a coffee filter. 2l should last you a year.
Hi All, Do we have a TLDR for chain wax choice for MTB in dry, dusty conditions? I live in Phoenix. Thanks all
in order
Hot melt (silca/msw)
Silca super secret drip
Squirt drip
everything else.
For dry/dusty (moon dust up at Tahoe comes to mind) you want to avoid anything that’s wet and will attract dust, hence the hot melts the top of the list.
Perfect. Thank you. Just ordered 2 lbs of molten speed wax.
Perfect, thank you. Just ordered 2 lbs of Molten speed wax
Have you ever tried this on your waxed chain as well, by chance? I’m currently looking for a solution to refresh a WEND waxed chain (my LBS recommended WEND) as i’m not overly happy with the buildup and “pasty” look that the WEND leaves behind on everything and am looking to switch to immersive waxing, but would prefer to use this current chain as part of my rotation as it’s fairly new.
Any thoughts from the masses?
Zero Friction gave Wend a big thumbs down. I tried it before I moved on to immersion and haven’t looked back.
Thing is Wend has you apply the wax and then use solvent to get it into the rollers. It’s so soft that it doesn’t even really stay in the rollers…
Just buy a cheap crockpot, temp control unit and some silca or msw and be done with it. The hardest part of the whole thing is the initial transition from wet lube to wax. Once you’ve switched you will wonder why you waited so long.
No I haven’t. Once I clean and wax my chains they stay in the rotation until they wear out which is a very long time. Not really familiar with WEND but it if is some type of wax I’d be tempted to just immersive wax it like any other chain that had been cleaned from oil and grease when new.
Mineral spirits aren’t a very good solvent for wax. If you want to go that route Naphtha is much better. I keep quart around to clean my cassettes and chainrings when they start to get a little wax build up on them although is more of a vanity thing for me than being necessary. Some people immerse their chains in boiling water before rewaxing to clean them although I’ve never done this.
Thank you for the info gentlemen. I’ve thought about simply hot waxing with MSW over top of the WEND on my one chain. My concern with it and why I asked the question was after reading the FAQ’s from ZFC. In BIG RED LETTERS at the end of that particular question it says to NOT put a WEND waxed chain into a pot of MSW, but didn’t really say WHY. Made me a little paranoid, but at the end of the day, WEND is wax, so I do wonder if there’s really all THAT much harm in it. The amount of WEND vs MSW in the pot moving forward SHOULD be minimal. My only thought why ZFC might have said this was because maybe the MSW won’t adhere to the chain properly if the WEND isn’t removed first.
That said, I definitely am switching over to immersive with MSW, just waiting for my wax order to arrive. I’m not at all a fan of the white pasty, tacky mess that the WEND is leaving on my chain and drive train (I did NOT go for one of the colored options). One of the reasons I was looking to move to wax, other than the longer component lifespan is the CLEAN LOOK of the drivetrain, which WEND does not provide in my current experience with it…
My guess is that putting the wend mix into MSW/silca would contaminate the pot with an incompatible wax. Wend has a lower melting point, different additives, etc. Best to just do a boiling water clean on it, before putting the good stuff on.
How dare someone use a different wax then their wax.
Correct. this has got to be a case of one making the other less effective.
Since Wend wax got such a terrible review, I’d try and get as much of it off the chain as possible before using something good!
For anyone using WEND and thinking about switching, cleaning the chain IS possible, but takes some effort. Here is what I did to get mine fresh and sparkly…
YMMV and you may choose to NOT go through the hassle. I chose to as the chain was like NEW (< 300 WEND miles on it) and simply didn’t want to toss it in the trash along with the WEND.