Originally Posted by
Kontact
What such a test is going to fail to capture is all the imperfect cleaning and lubing that go along with buying and maintaining a pre-lubed factory chain. What's the best lube for Shimano's factory lube? How about SRAM's sticky stuff? If you get the chain totally clean using warm gasoline, what lubes fully penetrate? Which lubes work well with the leftover lubrication from normal solvents?
Many tests have been performed, and straight paraffin is among the best possible lubes. But I use it because it doesn't stick to the cat, or vice versa. How to quantify convenience?
Several places have said that the grease that comes on a new chain is great stuff, so don't wash it off, and I believe it. The problem is there is no way to replenish a thick grease into a chain without creating a giant mess; They put the grease on during assembly, not after assembled. So you start with that grease. But once the chain is used a long time, that grease will hold metal particles, so it's the lesser of evils to rinse it off with solvent and start fresh and clean with some other lube.
Any liquid lube will penetrate the links instantly, there's a lot of play around the rollers. Same for melted wax, you just need to leave it in long enough to melt the hard wax still inside the links, and a bit of agitation if possible to have any metal particles fall out from inside the rollers, but usually this is much less with wax.
Solvent is exactly that, solvent, which means it's compatible with the lube, provided it's in small amounts. Engine oil gets slowly contaminated with gasoline over time due to ring blow-by, not a problem, unless it's a lot and it thins the oil. I clean off my gear lube with mineral oil (just because it's cheap from leftover tiki torch fuel), and I usually do this on a rainy day because giving it a day to dry, and it will mostly dry off, just a very slight oil film from lube contamination in the solvent when cleaning. But even if a little solvent present, not a problem with the lube, and it should evaporate out of the lube in a few days.