Originally Posted by
cyccommute
It is cumbersome compared to squeezing small drops from a bottle. Your method may take only 5 minutes to immerse the chain but you have a spend a whole lot longer for set up time. Melting a large quantity of wax...your picture looks like about 4 lbs...takes a lot of time. Based on previous experience with wax, I'd put it at in the neighborhood of 30 minutes. Then you have to carry the wax to the bike, dip it and clean up.
I can lube a chain with a wax based chain lube in a solvent in less than a minute...without any of the hazards of molten wax.
Now you are just making stuff up. I've been using a commercially available "wax" chain lube for nearly 20 years here in dusty Colorado. No grime attraction that I've ever noticed.
I don't count the time it takes to melt the wax because I just throw it on the stove while I do other household chores (like sweeping, cooking diner etc.) as it's melting. So the time to melt the wax doesn't "count" to me. The pot I use is small not 4 lbs. It takes about 15 mins on medium heat to melt fully.
Yes sure squeezing a few drops of oil or commercially available wax based lubes like White Lightning are real easy and quick do do...until you get to part where you have to break and clean the chain and cassette and pulleys with smelly solvents to remove the nasty filthy black goo off everything
. I don't like to break my chain--I use expensive Shimano break-off pins and do not trust master links.
I tried White Lightning years ago and went back to wax for 2 reasons: 1) wax is almost free (I'm still using the same pot for years now) and 2) my drivetrain is cleaner. I don't see any advantage in paying more for a messy drivetrain that requires breaking chain to clean.
That's my key point here--I don't want to break my chain until I replace it with a new one. My waxing method allows me to have a clean waxed drivetrain without ever breaking the chain.