I use hot wax or Silca. I alternate chains, one in a bag that has been cleaned and prepped. When the other needs to be cleaned, I mount the clean chain and then clean and prep the dirty chain. That then goes into the bag for the next use.
yes I get this too indoor with any kind of wax. Clean chain or not.
1 Like
I was more concerned about the color being an indicator of a non-sterile chain
Dave - Iāve found waxing great for long events on the XC bike (eg Leadville), but for day to day riding and training on the XC bike I found it wasnāt worth the hassle. For my weekend XC rides, I just apply RocknRoll Gold. A quick wipedown of the chain after riding and then another application keeps things running well. I think you mentioned you liked the Synergetic, which may be another good option for day to day riding.
I have used wax on new Eagle XX1 chains on a number of occasions and never had any sort of creaking noise. Could it be something else you are hearing on the bike now that the chain is quieter? Iāve had so many creaky bottom brackets over the years Iāve lost count. Last year my brand new Super Caliber had a creak all season long that slowly got worse. Luckily replacing the bottom bracket during the off season fixed it.
1 Like
yes I meant that I also get the darker color no matter (seemingly) how clean the chain is
2 Likes
Good to know! Thank you for clarifying
I was more concerned about the color being an indicator of a non-sterile chain
Silcaās friction modifier is tungsten disulfide, which is black dust in its pure form. Iām pretty sure the WS2 makes the wax flakes black. In any case, I definitely get the same flakes on my trainer. On the road, they naturally just flake off into the environment.
2 Likes
I guess Iāve been using this for a month now. Did an initial dip treatment but seemed kind of wasteful because wax packed into all the hollow pins, and other spots where it wasnāt needed. I then did the dripper tipoff about once a week after. Seems like with each treatment the next one lasted longer/stayed quieter. The wax flakes are black but as someone mentioned thatās the friction modifier
Just double boiled the chain to get the old stuff off, be careful because the tungsten disulfide floats to the top when boiling and then as bubbles pop in the water it shoots black drops around the pot. Also, best to have a dedicated pot, this stuff was tough to scrub off the sides of the pot and caked the scrubber
To try and waste less and experiment I boiled and shook the chain up in denatured alcohol, air dried, and this time just did the dripper method on a blank chain, so will be interesting to see how it compares over the next month to the immersion
2 Likes
I use straight paraffin, and get dark flakes from my indoor only bike. This happens even with cleaning the chain with boiling water between waxes. Iām pretty confident the chain is quite clean, as the wax in the crockpot stays very clean even after multiple waxings. When I previously wasnāt cleaning the chain before re-waxing, it would get quite dirty.
I suspect that some of this discoloration in the wax is the metal wearing - I get good chain life, but there is some wear still, and I donāt know how much there would need to be to discolor the wax.
1 Like
The ZFC review on Silca Hot Melt is up. All 50 pages of it 
Best lube tested to date.
āBack to Hot Melt ā to reach the end of the ZFC 6000km torture test with only 27.4% total wear, again I can only state that this is an absolutely astounding result.ā
6 Likes
I wish the graphs compared it to plain paraffin wax, Iāll have to see if other reports have that.
1 Like
Worth reading through the articles on the website. Adam is not a fan of homemade wax treatments as he believes the commercially available blends are better.
Somewhere in the pages and pages of reviews I think he mentions a comparison of how paraffin wax performsā¦ but itās a lot of reading to find it.
āAnd please, please ā do not use / follow the advice of the many you tube channels re DIY waxing. Again the cheap waxes / candles are slow, gunky, and help give immersive waxing a bad name.ā
2 Likes
Interesting, I will need to read more there. What I find interesting is that these commercial waxes are still paraffin + additives, and if I recall correctly plain paraffin did fairly well on the friction facts tests.
In practice for me, plain paraffin seems to work pretty well. If you are melting down random candles (ie some random wax-like substance) I can imagine that results will be all over the place.
Iām not willing to pay $80 for 500g of paraffin with a few additives, but I am willing/interested to see if adding a few additives to paraffin is worthwhile. I donāt doubt that the right mix of additives likely can provide significant improvements, Iām just not willing to pay those prices. Maybe if I was racing time trials and a few watts would likely make a difference in my placings, but thatās not where Iām at.
The use of additives seems to not only improve friction loss but also longevity, which isnāt insignificant in todayās world of bike parts shortages
2 Likes
Well, if it was easy to figure out, there would be a lot of lubes like Silca Hot Melt already on the market.
My view is that Josh and team have done a bunch of R&D and testing to develop a really great product. So Iām happy to pay $40 for 500g of wax that will probably last me at least a year.
3 Likes
Two freshly waxed chains this evening. I use the sous vide bag method for the Silca Hot Melt. This is my second time doing this, and it went a lot easier this time around as I knew what to expect.
- heat the wax to 180F
- put in the chains
- pull them out when the wax reaches 150F
With a thermometer to measure the water and wax temperatures, it makes it very easy to judge the timing of everything.
I was a skeptic of waxing due to the amount of time involved, but itās not bad at all.
1 Like
Itās pretty easy. Hard to mess up really. A few things to call out as follows:
- use a wire coat hanger to thread the chains like in my pic. It makes managing the chains very easy
- worth getting a thermometer to monitor temps like I describe above
- as I pull the chains out slowly, I blow on them to cool them so as much wax stays on the chain as possible vs. drips back into the bag
- let the chains cool fully before manipulating the links. Every link will be āfrozenā and each one needs to be articulated individually.
And one other thing - watch Joshās video on the Silca website
2 Likes
Have you used the SSCL? Iām wondering how they compare and if itās worth the extra work. Being able to drip wax on is amazingly convenient
The hard work is the initial chain prep - and thatās the same for the Hot Melt vs the Silca drip wax. I have the drip wax also, and use in between waxings.
Rewaxing the chains is a reasonably long elapsed time (boil water, melt wax, put chains in, let wax cool, pull chains out), but the amount of time of actual work is reasonably low - it involves a lot of waiting around - when you can do other things like drink a beer and watch cycling videos on YouTube.
The big difference between the two is how long an application lasts. I have a few long events coming up this year, and Iād like to be able to ride with a waxed chain and not have to relube mid race if I can avoid it.
Also, the Hot Melt just penetrates better - and so does itās job as a lube better.
This chart from ZFC is pretty compelling:
2 Likes
How often are you hot melting and dripping? Iām currently doing a drip once a week 150ish miles and taking off every month to boil out the old. Just using SSCL drip and find it convenient and not messy but the hot melt is cheap and easy enough to try. Only thing ZFC said is itās kinda hard to agitate the chain with the wax in the bag but I could always just melt the pellets in a slow cooker anyway. Still got lots of SSCL left and wondering if it might also be good on my MTB Eagle chain