Alright … I’m “waxing curious” but 1500 posts is a lot to read. A couple of quick questions, if I may:
What are the best / easiest ways to de-grease a new chain that comes with factory / packaging grease?
What are the best / easiest ways to de-grease chain rings and cassettes that have been used with wet lubes? There is a bit of dark lube / grit on the teeth.
My wife will definitely NOT let me use her crock pot for melting chain wax. What are some good but affordable mini crock pots or other melting pots? (I recall Alex from GCN mentioning one for 10 BP on one of their videos but I can’t seem to find a link.)
Take them apart and just clean with rags and degreaser (clean teeth, but don’t get degreaser on bearings). Silca wipes can be helpful here too. Everything here is exposed so it’s not tricky. The chain is tougher as you need to remove the grease ‘in’ the chain.
I found a used Instapot locally in classifieds. Instapot with sous-vide setting is the perfect set-up, but mine doesn’t have that setting.
For me, no. Some do, but it makes it harder to re-install and provides very little benefit. You will need to replace quick links periodically, of course.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that… you want the SMALLEST pot you can find. I think I have a 3 qt instant pot. A smaller pot will make a deeper pool of wax for the same amount.
I use a mineral spirit soak overnight (with several agitations), second mineral spirit bath, and a final isopropyl alcohol bath. Everybody seems to like the UFO but since I have everything here already I just keep doing the process I’ve always done. I do save all the fluids in mason jars and reuse them on new chains.
Since I’m waxing the chains anyway I just add the quick links too but I don’t really think it is necessary.
My 1.5 qt. crockpot cost $11 a few years ago new but they seem to be common item at thrift stores. Agree with the smaller size recommendations like 1.5-2 qt.
Put chain in container with white spirit/mineral spirits. Give it a really good shake for a few minutes. Put chain in new container with fresh white spirit/mineral spirits and repeat. Do this a couple of times. You can reuse the white spirits/mineral spirits with another chain. When finished with the white spirits/mineral spirits wash with degreaser and rinse thoroughly with water. Perform a final rinse with isopropyl alcohol. Leave the chain to dry.
I took mine off the bike and gave them a good clean with a brush in white spirits/mineral spirits. Then a round of degreaser and a final rinse with isopropyl alcohol.
Look for the cheapest crockpot available from wherever you buy them from. That is what I did. You don’t need a fancy one. Leave the wax in the pot after use. Top up if necessary when waxing.
I picked up an additional inner pot for my instant pot with a silicon lid so I can just leave the wax in it. For my first cleaning I used simple green, mineral spirits and then denatured alcohol. I then cleaned the cassettes from both wheelsets the same way with some brushing thrown in for good measure.
I went for close to 1000 miles, adding the super secret drip every 200 or so after simply hosing the bike down at the end of a ride. When I waxed again I only used boiling water to clean the chain and it looked brand new again. The cassettes are so clean that I didn’t even bother to do them.
On how dirty your chains are when you put them in, which in turn depends on what kind of riding you do. Fair weather riding on dry roads requires minimal cleaning before waxing. Wet mountain biking requires a lot of cleaning before hand, unless you want to drag generous amounts of forest into your wax. Over time, the wax get dirtier and dirtier and in the end, it won’t stick to the chain very well. How many times and how much dirt is too much? Hard to quantify. I err on the side of cleaning well before waxing (hot water rinse in my case). In general, but also because I do ride in the forest in the wet.
A simple test: Clean the chain throughly (e.g. in several agitated baths of hot water until water is clear). All “stuff” rinsed out of chain, would otherwise go into the wax.
A lot. Seriously, I don’t know. I am still on original bag from last year. I bought a second bag on sale for when I need it, but I don’t know when that will be.
Saw that as well, good thing I bought on sale so it was only 1GBP per litre extra that I paid for the 1L bottles. 5L is probably perfect for long term
Hmm, so I ride around 4-5 hours per wax application. And then around 15-20 hours before I deep clean the bike, and with that, I spray the chain with UFO, let sit, brush it, then rinse, then spray again, brush, rinse etc.
And thats maybe every second week?
I only remove the chain to clean when I change chain…
But thats for our road bikes, then we have 2 gravel bikes which runs wax also, and that we commute with.
So keeping 4 bikes in good conditioning have us run through some UFO Clean But the chains and other stuff lasts FOREVER with a good waxing and cleaning properly every 2 weeks.
We also exclusively run the new Effetto Mariposa FlowerPower wax now, super happy with it, both performance and ease of application.
But the chains and other stuff lasts FOREVER with a good waxing and cleaning properly every 2 weeks.