This is why I generally keep my chain related opinions to myself.

Chain cleaning and lubing is a weird hill to die on but people do it all day.

Cheap and Easy.

https://www.fleetfarm.com/detail/ext...xoCKOMQAvD_BwE

The link I provided seems to indicate that group V is just a catch-all without any real commonality between them. Is that your understanding? To me, this means that citing category 5 as being suitable to combine with wax is either not fully correct, or just about any oil will combine okay with wax.
I obviously haven't gone into this too deeply, but my understanding is that the categories are just base oils that people usually combine with other things.

​​​​​​​This conversation reminds me I need to buy some paraffin.

the last time I was involved with a stripper things got very complicated

just sayin

Finally someone gets it. Was her name Silca?

It’s kind of like the soap you use to wash your hands with. Sodium lauryl sulfate (aka sodium dodecyl sulfate) is a liquid that contains a sulfur oxide group as the anion. Soaps work by having a part that is hydrophobic (water hating) and a hydrophilic part on the same molecule. The hydrophilic end turns outward to interact with water and the hydrophobic end turns inward to react with nonpolar substances like oils and fats. The soap you wash your hands with…think glycerine soaps…is often made from animal fat which is what is called a triglyceride. The triglyceride is “saponified” with a caustic chemical usually sodium hydroxide (lye) or calcium hydroxide. The hydroxide cleaves the triglyceride into glycerine and a salt of the fatty acids that makes up the rest of the triglyceride. The resulting salt has that hydrophilic/hydrophobic end and will dissolve in water while also dissolving some fat and oils.

In grease, the most commonly used material is calcium stearate. The stearate is used to thicken the oil so that it doesn’t flow away. When Josh from Silca talks about hardening the oil/wax mixture with their Strip Chip, they are likely using something like a stearate. Stearate are commonly used in candle wax making to make the candle harder and give it a higher melting point.

More modern greases are getting away from calcium stearate because the older wax formulas can release the oil. The old “peanut butter” or grape jelly that is left over in old bearing races is the stearate after the oil has flowed away. Polyurethane greases don’t have the separation problem and are more durable.

The factory “grease” on a chain isn’t any of the above. It’s more like the Cosmoline of old which is a wax, not an oil. It can feel greasy but any lubricant can feel “greasy”

Being cheap and cheerful, I put the chain on, drip on some Boeshield and wipe off the excess and ride. I wipe or brush trail dust off the chain regularly and reapply. Then several thousand miles later I replace the chain. Running single speed helps because you can tolerate twice the lengthening.

Otto

i'm on 5 years now. two baths a dirty one and a dirtier one. dirty or not they get the job done.

Did you go for the cheap and easy stripper from Farm Fleet?

Yes, Group V is pretty much a catch-all but the oils are synthetic. These groups also only apply to oils which are liquids. Waxes don’t fit in those groups because they are solid. My link refers to “paraffin and sulfur content and degree of saturation of the oil” with regards to the groups. In this context, “paraffin” doesn’t refer to waxes but to the class of aliphatic compounds that are known as paraffins. Paraffins are “saturated compounds that have the general formula CnH2n+2, where n is the number of carbon atoms”. They can be gases (methane through butane), liquids (oils and some fuels), and solids which are waxes. It’s a nearly infinite homologous series. You could have a carbon chain of 10,000 carbon atoms and as long as the chain has 20,002 hydrogen molecules attached to it, the molecule is a paraffin.

OMG, we've been using wax all along! Soon it will be the oilers fastidiously stripping new chains instead of the waxers.

Daniel sahn, wax on, wax off, then paint the fence.

One million posts in and finally it dawns on someone, chain manufacturers do have a clue ;)

Yes, I'm starting to understand. Big Chain coats their chains in wax, and then Big Chemical sells strippers to remove the wax, so that Big Wax can sell you wax to put back on your chain.

Well, it does explain why all you have to do is clean your new chain off with a wipe from a paper towel and dump it into a small pot of melted paraffin, and then put it on the bike. All the rest is needless ritual.

So it's a coercion racket! ROFL, I knew something was going on! Truth be told I ran a new chain without doing anything to it, no cleaning, no stripping and no re-lube for over a year and it was still working just fine. Dirty as heck but still worked fine. Makes one wonder, eh?

OK, so a lot of Stu's upper division chemistry stuff just flew over my nodding head , but my big question is: if the factory lube is also a wax lube, then how come the factory lube is so sticky while the home wax job is totally non-stick? If I just touched an SRAM chain I have to wash my hand for like 5 minute.

My money is on Dubai call girl. :innocent:

Cant be. Every bike manufacturer has 100s of workers stripping and cooking chains before final assembly, cos "cosmoline" (WAX) simply doesnt work .. hahaha! :-)

Just don’t pour that **** down the basement sink.

Different waxes. Have you ever handled Vaseline? Candle wax and canning wax are examples of hard waxes. Vaseline (aka petrolatum) is a soft wax with a carbon backbone of about 25 carbons. Hard waxes have carbon backbones of up to 40 carbons. You could use petrolatum for waxing or mix it with hard wax to make the hard wax a bit softer like Silca’s suggestion of adding oil.

The reason it took so long for the wax from the chain to come off is because wax is highly hydrophobic. Even with soap, the polarity of the detergent makes it ineffective for removing the wax.

Finally, one very good use for Vaseline is to squish some of it on cotton balls and use it as a fire starter. Usually a single spark from a flint is enough to ignite it and it burns hot for several minutes.

Gentlemen! Put your hands together for the Lovely Siiiil Caaaa! Next up, fresh off the plane from Italy, Dooooomannnneeee!

Again, not a chemist (but I am enjoying your posts). Doesn't "paraffin" refer to stuff like kerosene, heating oil, etc. in the UK? I haven't seen it used that way in the US among consumers anyway.

Drifting into wax and fire starting....I have some 1-2" diameter rolls made up of 1" strips of newspapers (remember them?). The strips were soaked in liquid paraffin and rolled up and tied with a piece of string similarly waxed, easy to unroll and take a piece from. A couple inch piece will start an intelligently built fire. Some of these rolls I have had since the mid-80s and have been on many wilderness float trips without any regard for protection from rain or dunks in rivers or lakes. They're so old because I always try to start a fire with material on hand just for practice, and leave the waxed paper for "emergencies".

Not relevant to anything, except fire starter with wax, hard wax vs soft wax.

Best to keep that to yourself — I see some thoughtful person is offering black magic death spell services, and you don’t want anyone coming after you.