Teamprovicycle

really tho , im going to save all these suggestions once i build my SUPER COMMUTER in a few months will try them one by one , hilarious !!!!

Teamprovicycle

friction facts said it providence the best results , what ever those where you can go check it out youtube or website i think ?!?!

dahoneezz

frogman

I guess the trick is to make sure the chainrings/sprockets are squeaky clean beforehand.

dahoneezz

2manybikes

You can get a bottle of Finish Line Krytech which is wax lube for $4.95 at the bike shop on the east bay bike path. That won't last long enough for you?

crobertrose

Dipping in hot wax. Stays cleaner longer for me.

neverquit

Yes! I make my own wax lube. I got some paraffin candles, heated them up in a crock pot, then added paraffin oil until: after the wax/oil was up to temperature, I stuck a butter knife in the wax, when it cooled off, it had the consistency of heavy cream. This was explained on a youtube video that if the wax is too thick, it'll squeeze out from between the rollers when it cools. My procedure is to put the dirty chain in a jar of mineral spirits, shake for a minute or two, then rinse the chain under water, and wipe it dry, then I put it in a jar of alcohol ( to remove the excess water ), shake and let it air dry. I then put the chain in a crock pot wax solution, mix it a bit, then fish it out, ( it's HOT) , let it dry, wipe off the excess wax and install on the bike. Yes, I did add Teflon to the wax solution. Was told to use 1 to 5 gramsTeflon/pound of wax. WAS going to add the Moly Sulfide to the wax, but one guy said if you get that wax solution with the Moly on your riding clothes, it'll never come out. So poo pooed that idea. Anyway, that seems to work for me. If you know of better idea, by all means let me know!

Thanks
Lloyd

Bnystrom

In case there's anyone here who's confused about "liquid paraffin" and "paraffin wax", they are two entirely different products that use the same name. What people are referring to depends on which side of "the pond" they live on. In the US, paraffin refers to plain old candle wax (or "sealing wax" from the supermarket). It's a solid at room temperature. In the UK, paraffin is a heating fuel similar to kerosene (it may be identical, but I'm not certain). Both can be used in chain lubes, but result in quite different products.


I've been using a light oil based home brew that incorporates PTFE and MSO2, based on a formula that's available online. It's pretty dry and easily lasts 500 miles in dry road conditions and I've gone over 750 a couple of times before I started to pick up slight noise. The drivetrain feels really slick, even when it's time to relube. I can make it in any quantity I want for much less than the cost of most commercial lubes, so I always have plenty of it around. Most importantly, chain wear is negligible after several thousand dry road miles. For my off-road bikes it works really well, but I re-lube them more often, since I have to clean the bikes more often. It does seem to reduce chain wear compared to other lubes I've tried (lots of them), but it's hard to put any real numbers on it because the conditions the bikes are ridden in are so inconsistent.


I've thought about marketing it, but with all the competition out there with deep pockets for advertising, it's probably not worth it.


The moral of the story is that tinkering is fun and it sometimes works out well.

livedarklions

I just made my own chain out of used gum wrappers.

drbarney1

Ever since childhood I hated the taste of margarine. It never was as good as real butter. The greasy and artificial taste made me suspicious when the FDA told the public to use margarine because of the cholesterol in butter and history tells us butter is safe and margarine is trans-fats. It tasted more like what would work on a bike chain than food. So that is how I used it. It would take a laboratory test, comparing wear rates of different lubricants to find out how it compares, but I suspect it would hold its own.

TiHabanero

Lubes containing Teflon PTFE scare me. In West Michigan we are getting hit with all sorts of bad news about PFAS in our drinking water and underground water sources. My understanding is that it is used in a whole lot of manufacturing and bad for the environment. People have been ingesting it for decades which is not good, and I just wonder if we should stop using the stuff.

frogman

PTFE scares me too. I don't think they yet have a full understanding of what it does to us.
BTW I like your user name. One of my road bikes is a build up I did on a custom Habanero Titanium frame.

TiHabanero

Frogman, I have had two Habbies, one road, one cross, and loved them both. By far my favorite frames outside of the ones I built for myself. My son needed a wet weather/touring/gravel frame for riding in Seattle so I sent him my Habanero Cross frame. It is coupled with a Surly Cross Check fork and rides like a Cadillac. Seriously comfy. The first thing he said to me was how great it rides.

frogman

Don't want to derail this thread but wanted to reply that I understand where he was coming from. The Ti frame rides very smooth, I actually like it better than carbon fiber. I love my Trek Madone but the Ti is better. We need to get the thread back on track, we need to do the wax lube on our chains so they are smooth too.

MarcusT

I was not convinced either, but one winter I was bored and decided to try it.
Usually when I lube my chain, I'll oil it, spin for a minute then wipe it off, then give a good back pedal. With oil, the back pedal usually did 1 rev or 1 1/2.
When I finished with the first wax lube, the back pedal did 2 1/2 revs. I was shocked and started to experiment. I know this is not scientific in any way, but that back pedal really impressed the heck out of me.

frogman

Thanks for sharing your experience with wax lube. That is interesting. It means that wax lube must provide lubrication too !