Cycling & bikes - Dry lube?

On Wednesday, May 2, 2018 at 4:48:15 AM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/1/2018 3:09 PM, wrote:
On Tuesday, May 1, 2018 at 7:26:57 PM UTC+2, sms wrote:
On 4/29/2018 8:19 AM, wrote:

Another thing that is puzzling is that while you are recommending this
remarkable foaming stuff and don't actually say so your language seems
to hint that without foam it just won't penetrate into the chain links
yet I have worked on chain driven equipment with chains that were ten
or more years old. Still perfectly usable and no foam at all. Just a
SAE 40 oil bath.

It is easy to penetrate a chain. The lube just has to have a low enough viscosity that is all. Thats why wax based lubes have some volatile component. The cheapest is iso propanol. Oil has a low enough viscosity of his own.

So the question is, is foam really necessary?

Of course not.

The advantage of using a foaming chain lubricant is that, unlike an oil
bath, you don't have to remove the chain and soak it.

With an oil bath, it does help to heat the oil slightly if you want to
speed up the process.

I have tried doing an "oil bath" with one of those chain cleaning tools
filled with non-detergent oil instead of solvent. It works, but it's
messy and probably no faster than removing the chain, since you need to
move the chain through the oil pretty slowly.

With the new thinner chains, you want to minimize removing them unless
they have a connecting link and don't require a rivet extractor.

My goal is to minimize the time and expense of chain maintenance. A
chain cleaning tool used with kerosene or diesel fuel as a solvent, and
a can of non-O-ring foaming chain lubricant gets the time down to just a
few minutes. I have no interest in recreational chain maintenance.

Then I do everything wrong:
- use wax base lube,
- don't use a torch, just drip the stuff on every roller,
- never take my chain of the bike,
- never clean it with nasty solvents.
Rode last Sunday more than 2 hours is a down pour. My chain didn't squeak after the wetter improved. Came home and hosed my bike with the garden hose. Wiped my bike and chain dry, put it in the stand and lubed my chain the next day.

Well **** it, a chain life of 8000 km is good enough for me...
I showed this picture befo

https://photos.app.goo.gl/LHuxnrNkPxZL8NbF6

From top to bottom: new chain, chain lubed with my wax based lube and chain lubed with Rohloff chain oil for a while. Both chains had a milage of 8500 km. Yes, Mike, Sheldon and Jobs had it wrong sometimes IMO. But if you happy with your foaming lube that is OK, but don't tell me that I have to spend a lot of time on chain maintenance to get a long chain life. You are losing your credibility.

To translate things to American units: Looks like you're getting about
67,000 miles per inch of chain stretch. The author of the old article I
linked earlier https://flic.kr/p/dkULS1 found 50,000 +/- 20,000 miles
per inch of stretch for paraffin wax applied hot. So you're at the top
end of his range, without using heat. Very good!

What is your wax-based lube? And how often do you reapply?

As it happens, slight squeaking told me I had to re-wax my wife's
touring bike chain yesterday. She doesn't ride much these days, maybe
400 miles per typical year. From what I can tell from some sketchy
notes, I last waxed her chain in 2013, so maybe 2000 miles ago. BTW, she
almost never rides in the rain, unless we're traveling somewhere.

--
- Frank Krygowski

I used to use something a collegue developed. He sold his formula to a commercial company, but they don't make it anymore. Now I use Squirt. I PIA with wax based lubes is that you first have to get rid of factory lube on a chain. KMC offers now a chain that is already coated with Squirt so this will be my next chain:

https://www.bike-components.de/en/KM...-Chain-p57457/

Lou