Originally Posted by
SoSmellyAir
That is not my experience. I had a Shimano 105 (CN-HG600) which I rinsed out with boiling water, then blow dry with an air compressor. There were little spots with surface rust by the time I was done with the blow drying (in a matter of minutes).
That's strange indeed. In my experience Shimano chains have been fairly resistant to rusting, however not as resistant as KMC. The difference between the rust on my shimano chains and the Connex quick link is pretty stark when I take the chain off a bike after 200km in a wet road salty environment. The connex quick links really don't like water or salt. Good thing they're made of such thick stuff.
I don't think so. Water is a polar molecule, which would tend to adhere to metal more than a non-polar molecule like OMS or wax. Thus, a slight amount of water would remain within the chain.
That would likely be the theory level explanation. However I've tested this in multiple situations and I've had to conclude that once you get the wax to touch metal, there is no amount of water that will wash it away. It's the same sort of problem as with oils and grease. You can't wash them off without a detergent of some sort once they get stuck on a surface. However wax would seem to be even more resilient than any oil I've ever tried.
I tried cleaning a smaller waxing pot with boiling water, but after I was done there was still a thin wax surface on the pot, even at the bottom.
I tried leaving water at the bottom of a container whilst the wax solidified. After everything had cooled down, there was still a wax coating between the metal and water.
If the wax is 100C+ when wet chains are added, the chains will begin to bubble with the boiling water inside them. However with little agitation (or just by lifting a chain out from the wax and letting it sink in again) the bubbles stop coming from inside the chain and the originating point shifts to the bottom of the pot, which tells me that the water has flowed out from inside the chain and to he bottom of the container.
So it would seem that once wax is able to creep in to a surface previously occupied by water, that area is then permanently taken by wax. And wax being hydrophobic, water just slips away to a point of least resistance, ie. down.
Another thing that will have an effect is the sheer mass of wax vs. water. There is considerable wax flow and hydrostatic pressure vs. what the remaining water has to offer in opposition. So the water droplets can just be swept away after the chain is dropped in or lifted out or agitated in the wax.
There don't seem to be pooling points inside a chain where water could conceivably hide especially if the chain is agitated whilst in the wax. However I think the agitation isn't even necessary.
I understand about low thermal capacity and flammability of wax. I was just not sure that there is much difference between watching one pot vs. two pots of the same material.
It's mainly about monitoring two temperatures instead of one and managing heat settings for two pots instead of one. My induction plate even on it's lowest setting can heat a kilo of wax to a surprisingly high temperatures if I'm not careful with it.
As I noted above (in post #1240), a Crock Pot (the actual brand, not the genericized term that some people use to refer to all slow cookers) would maintain a temperature of 98 *C.
That's true but my experience has been that once the lid is removed, the wax surface solidifies and any chains added in take a very long time to warm enough to shed off the layer of wax that forms when they're first put in. Even when the chains are boiled seconds prior.
Perhaps it'll be different in the summer, but this has been a fairly cool winter and my crock pot can't keep up against -10 celsius with wax that has such a high melting point.
As noted above, salt does not dissolve in OMS. But if one has waxed a chain properly to begin with, any road salt would be on the surface of the wax, such that the salt would also come off when you use OMS to remove the wax.
While wax is really difficult to remove from metal, mechanical abrasion will do it. After 200km in a wet road salty environment a lot of the wax on the outside of the chain has been worn off leaving metal exposed to the elements. This of course leads to rust (which I don't really care about on the outside of the chain) and salt adhering to the metal. Considering what chlorine atoms do when they get their corrosive hands on steel, I've found it best to try to wash away most of it with water, since salt can actually dissolve in it.
Some slight amount of water would remain within the chain because water is polar while wax and OMS are not.
While writing this comment I did a bit more digging and it's a lot more complicated that just polar vs non polar. Surface tension is one thing that has a major role in which substance eventually sticks to the metal and paraffin wax at 100C has only around half of the surface tension of water.
There are oil/water separators which rely on the fact that oil will stick to metal more readily than water. Wax isn't oil but molten wax has similar characteristics and will behave in a similar fashion.