How often do you change out the chain wax in your crock pot? Is it a look thing? I’m using Silca Super Secret… great stuff, but I don’t want to waste it.
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I am supposed to change it out?
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I typically just top it up. Recently I removed the wax when it was in solid form, gave the crockpot a clean and scraped the black grime off the bottom of the block of wax then kept using it.
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I switched mine out after roughly 30 000km of waxing various chains across a few bikes.
The main trigger was getting a new road bike with new chains. I wanted to start super fresh. However I had noticed that the chains weren’t coming out as clean as they had originally so it was probably due.
I made a mess of it but I’ve since learned it’s not too bad to tip your pot upside down and turn it on. After a little while the whole puck will fall out while it’s still pretty solid.
I’m kinda keen to do it again soon as I want to switch to Rex (currently have MSW + Silca Endurance chip).
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If you chuck the pot in the freezer for a while, the wax will come out without the mess.
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Nice - but making room in my freezer sounds like way more effort than dumping the puck onto some baking paper or something!
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Go to YouTube and give the silica channel a watch and Josh explains how often to do it there. I have found waxing mine works about every thousand miles. I keep up in between with the drip wax. To make it easier I bought a second Insta pot container and just leave the wax in it and it works wonderfully. It about 20 minutes to heat up and dip the chains. Hands-down, the best chain maintenance going.
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That makes a lot of sense… I think I’ll try the scrape off the bottom technique, then top it off. But since I just waxed a couple chains, it’ll have to wait until tomorrow.
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And Scott, I tend to go back to the silica YouTube channel just to be reminded on some of the specifics that Josh has put in to the process. I feel like I have a pretty good handle on it now, but it took me a few views to have it down. And I do believe they have the best wax going. The hardest part is trying to convince others to switch from traditional oil to waxing.
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Only when the wax isn’t deep enough to hold a chain … I dump it out, then start over with a new puck
I’d guess this is once every 12-18 months (or ~20k km’s?)
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Its like sourdough, i just add to it. My chainwax mother is probably 7 years old. I hope to hand it down to my kids someday…
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If you’re using a strip chip, there is some limit around 6 uses before performance drops. I replace annually just as a ritual, and for me that’s about 12k miles, 20 rewaxes across all my bikes.
I notice absolute Black and cyclowax each recommend replacing after a small number of uses but those are each more performance/race oriented formulations.
Is this the Grandpa’s Axe or the Ship of Theseus of chain lube?
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The chemicals used in the wax blends are quite inert and don’t degrade easily. Been waxing for several years and only replaced the wax once (probably wasn’t needed).
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Thanks for opening my mind to the philosophical ponderings of this paradox!
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Colour me slightly obsessive: I use new wax every time.
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Sorry, what?! That’s not “slightly obsessive”, that’s insane. Is that not costing you a fortune?
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That seems very wasteful. There is an environmental impact to the chemicals used. It is low amortized over many many waxings with the same wax, but tossing the wax each time is like turning your bike into a motorcycle lol!
OK, quick update here…. getting the block of wax out of the pot is kind of a pain. I think for next time I’m going to come up with some sort of handle I can put in the wax while it’s still liquid, let it solidly around the handle, then pull it out cleanly. But the sludge I pulled off the bottom made it worth it. Thanks for the discussion here!
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Wait I actually have remove the chain from my bike and dip it in a crockpot of wax? I’ve been doing the drip on wax every 300-500km for the last…10,000km?