Originally Posted by
Duragrouch
I disagree with him saying that after drenching in oil and wiping off excess, a "membrane" is left behind. A membrane is different, something solid and thin, like a drum head or many parts of the body. What he should say is that a thin film of oil is left behind.
Rock ‘n’ Roll lubricants are wax in a solvent. When the solvent evaporates, a wax “membrane” actually is left behind.
Second, he's drenching the chain in excess lube, ostensibly to dissolve and lift the dirt inside to be wiped off. That's fine if the lube is not expensive. If it is expensive, it would be more economical to use an on-bike chain cleaner with low cost solvent, wipe and let it dry, then relube, and I'll bet that also results in a cleaner chain before lube. On a road bike, most of the wear contaminant is extremely finely ground steel from the chain, you can easily verify this with a magnet in the cleaning solvent, it will be covered in black sludge. Those particles are what turns the lube to paste, no matter which oil lube you use, or how thin. Wax lube seems to avoid this, so either no steel particles, or they are shed into the environment.
Most all wax based lubricants have you flood the chain with the solution. The solvent in the lubricant has limitations on how much wax is can carry. However with a lower loading, more of the mixture has to be used with wax in order to get enough lubricant into the chain. In an oil based lubricant, the percentage of oil carried by the solvent is higher and less can (and should) be used.
Wax lubricant does, indeed, cause wear of the chain but the mechanism is different. Wax, as a solid, blocks the infiltration of dirt into the chain. However, because of the solid nature of wax, the pressure points in the chain get less lubrication resulting in more metal on metal wear. The worn metal either falls out of the chain or is trapped in the wax with the former probably more prevalent.
With oil, the pressure points aren’t starved of lubrication but the oil as it flows around the chain picks up grit from the environment which results in grinding of the chain surfaces but not through metal-on-metal wear. The removed metal remains in the oil/grit/metal bits paste which is why you can pick it up with a magnet.