Hello, Hivers it's been a while but lockdown can do that having not a lot to do and lots of time to do it in.
At the start of things, this time I moved my road bike back up to the living room for a bit of exercise as soggy UK Januarys are not the greatest time to be out on the road.
After a few days, I noticed the chain and gears were getting really noisy and obviously in need of some lube normally I'd just give it a clean and oil it but being in the house that would be a bit messy so I had a look around for some other alternatives.
One thing I found some people use is hot wax dips. You can get chains pre-waxed or there are some propriety kits both of which are a bit expensive so I went down the DIY route so Youtube and eBay are your friends.
You don't need a lot, a couple of plastic containers, a bit of bent wire, a small slow cooker, Paraffin wax and some PTFE powder to improve the lubrication.
After a week of waiting for everything to arrive and the chain getting noisier by the day, it was time to give it a go.
The important thing is the chain must be totally clean and grease-free when you wax it or the stuff doesn't stick where it needs to, so even a brand new chain needs to be cleaned of any factory lube.
First of all, is petrol wash which is simply a few 100ml in a seal top plastic container dump the chain in and give it a good shake and a soak. This took the longest and needed a couple of changes before things didn't turn black instantly.
Then degreasing this is a similar process to the petrol but with degreaser that gets rid of any oily residue that's left.
Finally, after a quick rinse in clean water and swill around in some methylated spirits to ensure the chain is squeaky clean and grease-free.
Now the fun starts. Stick 500 grams of wax and 50 grams of PTFE in the slow cooker and wait for ages for it all to melt then give it a good mix round.
String the chain onto the wire so you can swirl it around and fish it out when it's hot.
Then dump it in the wax for about 30 minutes giving it the odd swish to make sure the hot wax and PTFE bits get into every crevis. Small tip, don't forget the joining links I had left mine in the Meths :(.
Nearly done now just take the chain out of the wax bath run it under the cold tap to cool it off and it's done. Well, almost the chain will be really solid with the excess wax so just needs to be worked to flex each link before putting it back on the bike.
So did it work? After 3 weeks of cycling, the chain and gears are still nice and quiet. The only mess is a bit of wax dust that just brushed off so I'd give this a big tick.
One other advantage is the wax isn't supposed to pick up road muck as much as wet lubes do so doesn't turn your chain into grinding paste in the winter but we will see how that goes once I start back cycling outside.