Originally Posted by
rosefarts
I'm hot waxing my fleet.
On the road bike, it seems to last for hundreds of miles. Not sure exactly how much but its just never a problem.
The mountain bike lasts many rides. I ride that bike a ton and only switch chains a few times a year.
Now to the gravel bike. Unless it's a particularly short ride, the wax isn't enough to get through a single ride of 3+ hours.
All are done the same way, wash with soap and water and a few drops of degreaser. Rinse and dry. Then let soak it the waxy crock pot and agitate it so all bubbles come up. I let it stay in long enough to get to the same temperature as the wax, easy to see since a cold chain will turn white as the wax hardens on it.
My formula is paraffin and some powder PTFE. Based on information from here, I won't be adding any more PTFE once I run out since it isn't great for the environment and probably doesn't improve any performance.
I live in dry and dusty Central Oregon. The only water my bikes see is on vacation or me walking through a snow drift.
Are there any additives or premixed formulas that'll get my gravel bike wax longevity up to what I'm getting on the others? I don't mind some maintenance in the pursuit of cleanliness but I've got to be able to finish a ride without squeaks.
Couple of thoughts on your technique:
I don't think the soap and wax are helping you, but watching for bubbles doesn't tell you very much. You are not getting to the boiling point of water with wax temps, especially with a chain barely coming to temp. Water is heavier than wax, so it sinks, not bubbles up. So you have no positive sign that the water is gone. When I have experimented with water and wax, the water remains below the solidified wax when cool.
You might not be getting the chain warm enough to get good wax penetration. The rivet area is the densest part of the chain, so is going to warm up much slower than the side plates that you are observing. And trapped water is going to make that problem worse.
Personally, I use a sauce pan, and pop the solid disk of wax out of the pan to start. Then I put the chain in the pan on Low, and put the wax disk on top of the chain. That way the chain warms the wax, not the other way around. When all the wax is liquid the chain is definitely at the same temp. I pull it out and hang it to drip back in the pan. It has never overheated and allowed too much wax to run off, and I get good mileage. There are no bubbles to confuse matters.
Regardless of how you decide to heat the chain or the vessel, leave the chain in longer and shake it so the wax is definitely wicking into every cranny without fighting cool metal or water.
If I had to "dry" a wet chain in wax, I'd want the wax heated to over 212F to actually boil the water, then somehow cool everything down again to just over wax melting temps so the chain retains the wax when hung up. Which is neither real safe nor quick.