Originally Posted by
elcruxio
It really depends on how much heat you apply. A blue flame lighter has a temperature of around 1300 celsius,which is around the same as a hiking stove. Applying that to a chain, it doesn't take long to evaporate most of the water in a water emulsion wax.
That’s not where I thought you were going. I was thinking you meant to heat the water emulsion wax
before application to make it evaporate faster. But I wouldn’t heat it with an open flame either. There is simply no need. Either solvent based wax or water emulsion wax will work even when wet and there is no reason to try and use a torch, heater, lighter, or camp stove to hurry the process. And, at 1300°C, you could easily get past the flash point to sustainable ignition.
In a typical situation I would agree, but there are situations where the wax does need to be bone dry before setting off, or it will become a wet lube simulator. Wet gravel days (depending on the type of gravel) is one where even a dry waxed chain can accumulate a lot of dirt. I've had days when the chain was not visible below the buildup when I got to my destination. Had I had a wet chain then, the crud would have most likely gotten inside the chain. And when you tour in the spring (I'm going on tour in less than a week) or autumn, the expectation is that there will be no sun, just rain. That's a tough ask for a chain lube on the field no less.
Not really. Even when slightly wet, waxes are semisolid and don’t pump grit into the chain like oil does. Essentially, the dirt deposits on the outside of the chain but there isn’t really anyway for the grit to get down into the chain. The gaps are filled. Oil doesn’t provide the same kind of blocking of grit as wax does.
[The trouble with applying water based wax in wet weather is that it doesn't dry due to relative humidity being high. And solvent wax has the same issue no matter the humidity as you need to ride it to harden it. Heating the chain removes the issue with water based waxes but I was curious how one could safely do that while on tour. And it seems a stove will work just fine.
Again, no need. The biggest problem I have with water based emulsions would be that the material that allows the wax to emulsify with the water is still there after it dries. Add water and it becomes an emulsion again.
Then again you wear through chain in less miles than I do. Our application intervals are pretty different which I'm guessing is the explaining factor since I don't use expensive chains. Even at home I rarely ride a chain more than 300km before swapping. On tour it depends but I generally re-apply every 200km.
I don’t know that you can say that. I get around 3000 miles out of a chain (around 5000 km). That’s a reasonable mileage. And I apparently get far more distance out of a chain lube application than you seem to. If I were only getting 300 km (200 miles) out of the lubricant, I’d be looking for something different. I get 2 to 3 times that distance and still get 3000 overall miles out to the chain.