Campagnolo Electronic

On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 10:53:30 GMT, Bob De Jonge
wrote:

Hi Ron,
Some replies.....

Wax is dry,
and does not attract dust. Plus, when you wax it, you clean it at the
same time.

Wondering what your actual procedure is... you don't clean it before
putting it in the wax? How many times do you reuse the same wax?

I never throw it away - I keep using it. Recall that as you add wax to the
chain, some goes out of the wax can. You just mix up a bit more as you get
low. Now, the cleaning part -- No, the waxing doubles as the cleaning,
that's the nice thing. Every so often I use a suspended magnet hung into
the liquid wax (just after waxing a chain), which attracts the metal
particles. There is usually a big glob on the magnet, so I know there is a
metallic powder coming out of the wax. Then, every so often again, and not
AS often, I just scrape the bottom off the wax. That gets rid of the dirt
in there. But, the downside is it gets rid of your PTFE too, which falls to
the bottom of the wax when liquid. So, judgement is needed as to when and
how often you scrape the bottom.

[snip]

Dear Bob,

Strictly speaking, neither wax nor oil "attracts" dust.

The dust flung up by the tires simply sticks to oil much
better than it sticks to wax.

But some dust is inevitably squashed into the wax, as you
notice when you re-melt what's left on your chain.

Some of the metal collected by your magnet-in-the-wax comes
from chain wear, but much of it is just this road dust.

Iron is among the most common elements on the planet, so
dragging the same magnet over ordinary dirt will usually
leave it covered with the same stuff.

Carl Fogel