Originally Posted by
cyccommute
Setting your bike on fire is generally not a good idea. I fail to see the reason in the first place. It’s an unnecessary step. Solvent wax may take some time to dry but even if it isn’t “hard”, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t doing its job. Even if you have to ride right after applying it, the solvent will dry reasonably quickly. No need for heat or flame or anything. Water emulsion wax, by the way, will dry even slower than solvents.
I'm guessing that a chain that moves will agitate the solvent wax and thus make it dry quicker.
Any burns one does on a solvent wax (nobody should do that. It was just a test for a laugh) should be done with the chain off the bike. But it was interesting how the wax was deposited inside the chain and didn't burn off with the solvent.
The idea behind heating water emulsion wax is to make it dry quicker than the recommended 24 hours and make the resulting wax molten and homogenous instead of the tacky wax flour that results after the wax has dried. Ie. make it work even if relative humidity is high.
And as I noticed, heating a chain enough to melt wax /evaporate water doesn't take long even with a blue flame lighter. I'm guessing it'd take a few seconds to run a chain through a gas stove flame so an easy quick chore while cooking.
As to your claim that solvent wax has a shorter duty cycle than water wax, I doubt that claim. As I’ve stated above, I’m currently doing a tracking experiment. In 1960 miles, I’ve lubricated the chain 4 times since installation. The average mileage between applications is 450 miles. The highest mileage is 680 miles and the lowest is 265 miles. The bike that I am using for tracking is my main/commuter bike and the rides I do are around 20 each. At 450 miles average, that is around 22 rides between application of lubricant. Personally I’m not looking for anything that is longer lasting.
So there shouldn't really be a difference between how long wax lasts on a chain (solvent or water emulsion) given that the actual wax is the same. What I meant is that when applying, one uses so much more solvent wax. In order for the solvent wax to remain fluid, it needs to have a water-like viscosity, which results in a lot of applied wax with some of it flushing though the chain (which in some cases is of course a desirable thing) It begins hardening the second it leaves the bottle and in my experience a fair amount is left on the outside of the chain.
On the other hand water emulsion waxes tend to have the viscosity of wet lubes so you can apply it one drop per roller. Ok, sometimes the drop rolls off the chain so you need to add another one, but in general a bottle lasts quite a few applications.
Both work and on short tours it doesn't really matter. On longer tours it can make a difference which one chooses if resupply isn't easy, especially if one uses particularly long chains and/or rides in weather that eats up chain lube. Our cargo bike (that we use for touring) chains are nearly 200 links so give or take double that of an ordinary bike. It takes a while to lube those up.