I cleaned my old bike chain properly with multiple rounds of soap & solvent and it was very clean. Then I hot waxed it for the first time and this is what I got. I don't know where the black that you see was hiding.
What should I do now. Can the chain still be recovered.
Thanks a lot.
by hlc4u
9 Comments
Just install chain on cassette and wax will drop.
Looks like you didn’t actually clean it.
You’re supposed to wipe off the excess wax with a paper towel when it comes out of the wax bath.
It’s fine to roll it like that. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that there’s wax between the axles and the rollers, inside the chain.
soap & solvent? i don’t think you’ve cleaned your chain properly, you don’t use soap to clean a chain.. you use degreaser like nitro or specific chain degreaser because otherwise your chain will be oily..
only possibility i see is to cook the chain in hot water to get rid of the wax & either redo it afterwards (and look up a proper guide how to do it) or go back to oil
Should be fine riding it.
Next time you’ll clean it, after shaking it in a solvent use an ultrasonic bath
TL:DR: 3 possible reasons: chain not clean enough, chain too cold, wax too cold
I’d highly suggest not using a used chain for waxing. It‘s almost impossible to thoroughly clean a used chain.
It seemed clean, but it was most likely not. You might’ve contaminated your wax.
Get a new chain, degrease it properly (there are many instructions online), don’t use soap.
It could also be, that you just pulled the chain way too early (it didn’t have time to adapt to the wax‘s temperature) so it accumulated all the wax on the chain, or it could be that the wax was too cold and that‘s why so much wax is sticking to your chain.
Looks like the wax wasn’t hot enough, or you didn’t leave the chain in long enough for the temperature to equalise. And then didn’t wipe it down after it came out of the wax bath. Options are to throw it back in the bath and leave it for a while then wipe down OR just pop it on the bike and worry about it next time. It won’t hurt anything but will be untidy
In general it is better to take a fresh chain, degrease it with powerful solvents before waxing.
The pictures look more like the wax was to cold when you pulled it out. It will break off during ridning. If you really don’t want to run it pour booking water on it.
Is the wax you used black? The optimized wax I use is black from the additives. However it seems that your technique is not optimal, which is totally fine for the first time.
– I think you might have kept the chain in for too long while letting the wax cool. The wax then cools on the outside of the chain as well. Make sure to take the chain out when a thin film of wax forms atop the wax pot. Thats the sign that the was reached the optimal temperature an cooled down enough so that the wax stays inside the rollers.
– Also make sure that before you take the chain out, you wiggle it around inside the pot. That way the wax doesn’t stick on the surface of the chain.
– If you think the chain cooled down to much inside the wax, simply reheat the wax, put the chain in for 10 Minutes and then take out when there is a thin film of wax.
– Residual lubricant inside the chain will work it’s way out over time. However in this time you won’t have the optimal gains from waxing aside from the cleanliness. If you want, you can boil the chain in water to get the wax out and then clean it again properly with a suitable degreaser.
Of course this is not necessarily everything to take care of, but just the stuff that came to my mind. Please add anything if you feel so