Originally Posted by cyccommute

Hot wax will act the same as mineral spirits. It will dissolve the old lubricant (wax, oil, bacon grease, etc.). The only difference is that the mineral spirits will evaporate after use. The wax will remain on the chain. The wax being used here seems to be canning wax which is a hard wax. Gleitmo is composed of something like petroleum jelly, which is actually a soft wax.

A major flaw with this technique is that it has no water resistance. Water will get under the wax and has a stronger affinity for the metal then the wax does. You could make the hard canning wax more effective at resisting water by mixing in a soft wax and/or some oil. The wax would be more flexible and less likely to just break and flake off the chain. You could also add solvents to bring down the melting point and put it in bottles so that you could lubricant the chain when needed and/or avoid all the issues of dealing with molten wax. But, of course, someone has already done that.