Candle Wax test
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ก.ค. 2024
- Finally! A working computer = managed to get to detail review for candlewax test. How did it compare.....
00:00 - Intro
01:25 - Customer thanks & testing model chat
04:45 - Low friction update
15:45 - Candle wax test!
20:45 - The Data!
26:50 - Test pics
28:55 - Cost to run
34:40 - Summary & conclusion - กีฬา
k so one thing i didnt wrap up properly in my ramblings - overall really impressive - but take not vs mspeedwax / hot melt etc it is still circa double the wear by end of main test. If your components are expensive - then wear rate of components still dominates your cost to run vs cost of lubricant. It can easily be a case of spend $50 to save hundreds if your cassette, chain, chainrings are top tier.
Also - we do not have efficiency numbers but it is known that oilier waxes will be slow compared to top waxes (and if contain impurities like soy, palm oil etc which candle wax's / cheap paraffin has) - so if you are an avid racer - the top waxes are a safer bet for your race chain.
However, considering how cheap this wax was, its overall performance and cleanliness - for many who dont need the best, or dipping their toes into trying immersive waxing - this particular candle wax was overall very impressive - especially for the price. Just please take heed however than your experience may vary A LOT, as there is huge variances in candle waxes / cheap paraffin.
Thanks for all the content! I've recently been into chain waxing and started with the DIY paraffin wax. I was glad to see the cost to run result. I use a very entry level drivetrain. My cassette and chain alone costs half of a Silca hot melt. While I may not be saving that much, the main reason for me is that it keeps the chain is really clean.
I've ridden it for 200km before my first rewax, which I needed to do because the last ride I did was had 40km of pouring rain and wet roads. It did develop some surface rust when I got home but it was easily removed by brushing (I also dipped the brush in some methylated spirits I had leftover from the first cleaning).
This is basically exactly what I expected, i.e. about twice as bad as dedicated commercial products, but still at least 4-5x better than the average (or even median) wet lubes. Thanks so much for the investment in testing this!
I use Candle Wax mixed with Molybdenum disulfide, works excellent. I used to have change my chain every year, since switching to candle wax I get 3 years to a chain. $15 of wax and $5 of Molybdenum disulfide is a lifetimes worth of wax.
I am here for this historic event hehe. Absolutely great information on the testing.
Incredible! Thanks for all the great work.
Thank you Adam! Great information as always…
Many thanks for all your work 👍🏻 Your videos convinced me to give immersive waxing a try and I am absolutely happy with results.
BTW your Channel just passed the 10000 subscribers milestone - congrats 🍾🎉 well deserved
Well done, Adam. Very interesting stuff!
Thanks a lot for all the valuable information! ❤
Excellent content, learning a great deal and about to move into Waxing
Thanks for resolving my curiosity on dry versus wet rewaxing!
Makes a lot of sense on the water and heat level of croc pot. Mine just has a low and high setting so no idea on the actual temp. I have only been using boiled water every 2-3 rides as just dry riding in South France. Then always use a hair dryer to properly dry my chain before a hot wax. But NOW will not bother with the boiled water process, makes things even simpler. Running a two chain rotation system.
* and a funny thing....I actually look forward to the time when I can hot wax, hang and dry my chains, when I used to dread the process with oil lubricants. I really do look forward to it!!! Maybe I am a bit weird.
Another round of great work and definitely appreciated as always! This will not take me away from being a user of Silca HM + Silca Super Secret in between full wax treatments. Thanks for the continued work!
I've been waiting for this!
Glad your break went well .
Thank you for taking the time to do the candle wax tests. I am using Parowax canning wax here in Canada. From my calculations based on 0.38 extra chain wear and 0.38 extra cassette wear it is cheaper to use Parowax for my 8 speed commuter. For my 9, 10, 12 speed drivetrains I will use a commerical wax blend to save the dollars in wear components. The commercial wax blend pays for itself and more here.
I've previously boiled the chain pre wax but don't anymore because it seems a bit to OCD. There is one maintenance trick I use for keeping my MSW cleaner and that is to use a vegetable peeler. When the wax cools, slip it out of the bowl and "peel" the bottom layer where all the solids settle. Sadly some of the lubrication additives disappear but its very little.
So far so good. My current ebike chain has done over 3,000k's and not showing .5 wear on my Park tool chain tool.
Thank you for all your testing and advice.
yes due to loss of additives, check out the two pot system like a boss - go to waxing FAQ vid and skip to 1hr 39 min mark. Over all that is the easiest and best way to have the best waxing experience and longest wax lifespan.
Very interesting. If you are interested in comparing paraffin waxes I might suggest the waxes used for embedding histology specimens for microscopic examination. These are highly refined and selected to allow cutting sections 4 microns thick or thinner while remaining intact and supple. they also penetrate extremely well and will get into the smallest spaces. I suspect these May be the base waxes for the commercial wax lubes
thansk william, yes i think you might be right. I dont get the secrets from the mfg that i have done a lot of private testing for, however i can say that some have started with some pretty average performance from base wax, and moved to a place of very high performance as that base wax has been improved, so no doubt they are adding / using the most fancy paraffin they can source that is viable for the blend. Some of the commercial brands have initially had issues with wax being excessively brittle, dry feeling and sounding, short lifespan etc - and then moved that base to a really impressive place - but the base blends are all secret of course as are the fancy modifier/s ratio's...
That stuff is definitely not very cheap, this sort of defeats the purpose. The 'pure' paraffin called Paraplast is like 100 dollars a KG! The cheaper stuff has plastics additives in it. You may be able to source leftovers if you work in a histology lab. However usually anything from a lab supplier is overpriced usually and more diffucult to get your hands on as a consumer.
@@luukrutten1295 exactly. ieven if you could get it at a reasonable price it would likely be just another 'value added' premium product. i doubt very much that a white candle wax and paraffin oil mix can be significantly bettered in 'bang for bucks' terms. might seem so when focused in to the wax tests, but zoomed out and looking at waxes vs oils, all the waxes will be grouped quite tightly
Very true. Anything for a medical lab is expensive.@@luukrutten1295
If you are interested I have some from my lab and can send it too you if I can figure out how to send it from USA to Australia.@@zerofrictioncycling992
Great info ...
My 9-speed KMC X9SL chain + 11-28t Shimano CS-HG400 cassette costed me about 40 euros total. I think good quality candle wax is much easier to justify with those cheap components then those 44+ euros immersive waxes.
I understand the quality of the candle waxes vary, but i can afford to experiment with cheap components.
It's also a low cost method of finding out if immersive waxing is something that would work for me (lots of riding in the wet unfortunately).
I'm going to stick with the Silca HM and MSW (with occasional TT All Weather top up) but it is nice to know that if for whatever reason I can't get my hands on either of them or the price becomes an issue there is viable and cheap alternative that requires no horrible additives that I can turn to (maybe with more frequent application) as a short stopgap, rather than paying full bananas for one of the many unknown branded ones that have sprung up recently. I don't think I would enjoy riding with wet lubes again knowing what its doing to my drivetrain.
I'm quite impressed by the results there. Love to see if you can add some additions to that candle wax to see if you can improve it.
For sure we could, but again, i just really cannot devote a lot of test resources to DIY blends as it would never end, and is of value overall to quite a small subset of cyclists - who can take the base results and play themselves & test over time. We can already see if one gets even a half decent paraffin base they beat just about all commercial drip lubricants on the shelf re wear rate. They may not be as fast as say UFO or ss drip etc - but depending on the cyclist that may not matter.
How about pressure washing the chain (ONLY THE CHAIN!) on the bike while spinning the cranks a good amount of times maybe an quick and dirty option for drip waxers like me? I often catch myself the last day’s doing it out of very rainy conditions here in north Germany at the moment… I rotate 3 X01 12speed chains properly prepped with Effetto Mariposa Flowerpower drip wax. Maybe it washes out better than the immersive waxes. Flowerpower is very oily compared to… Proper drying is key, rotate the chains solves this issue for me. Works pretty good so far, no exzessive wear ramp up .
pressure washing will only remove surface dust. Dust that has been pressed into wax (immersive or drip) is effectively land locked in there. Water will not dissolve wax, so dust pressed into wax will not go anywhere. Most solvents do not work on wax, which is why melting off old coating via immersive remains easiest maintenance overall. FP is a great product, but for sure dust will build up over time, however it does have very good dust resistance. Periodic flush clean maintenance with their alpine extra product that dissolves FP easily would be recommended (every approx 1000km or post any mudder ride).
If you are looking to test a more refined wax im using Kerawax 422 described as "fully refined paraffin waxes of food packaging quality". I picked it as it seemed to fit your advice as good enough to try imersive waxing to see if it is for me. I have been impressed so far.
I'd love to see you try out renaissance wax. It's a super neat product that chemically binds to metal and other surfaces. At least in my experience using it for woodworking, I generally have to use less of it per application than other waxes. Thus, maybe the extra expense might be offset by using less?
that stuff is pretty expensive! on par with some of the top commercial bike waxes. alas that will be in the realm of DIY waxing experiments i am unlikely to get to, there is just soo much DIY test possibilities and so much other testing to be done!
Hi! Great video, useful info, as usual.
Got a question about chain prep, on your guide you mention the number of baths we should do when using mineral turps with shimano, campy and sram chains. Would you be able to tell how many baths we are supposed to do for connex chains? Thank you!
i have done hardly any wippermann as not very common here, but from memory i think they are fine with 3- but once you have done bath 3, if the turps is not looking really clear, then maybe a 4th to be safe - but i think it was 3, i think it might have impinged on memory the few i have done if they needed more than that.
Very interesting
Heeeere we go! 🍿
Make sure the 'cheap' pure parrafin has as low an oil content as possible and than usually that means it wont be from the cheapest source and usually you have to buy bulk like at least 5kg-10kg. And then you just need to add some sort of dry lubricant, MoS2 or just graphite. Plain it should not do as well.
When I boil my chain in water I will place it in a jar of methyl alcohol and then place on a fan to quicken the dry time. While I heat up my wax.
I have methyl alcohol around, so I’m using it, but if I didn’t, I wouldn’t go out of my way to get it.
Will you test this candle wax with additive like ptfe and molybdenum?
Useful. I would be interested to see testing of the variation I use - the Oz Cycle version, food grade wax with a bit of Teflon powder added. Understood that you might not cover all the variants! I am of course a cheapskate and won't spend much on my components or lubricants for my MTB fitness regime.
Overall a food paraffin with PTFE will be a perfectly great option for many. The issue i have with the oz cycle blend is a) He recommends 50 GRAMS of PTFE which is bonkers, and i do not know where he pulled that figure from. I would love to see the tangible testing and data that arrived at 50 grams. Original formula mspeedwax and UFO wax was 5 grams PTFE and 1 gram moly. I think he just wanted to safely cover PTFE base and thought well 50 grams should do it. That is just really wasteful IMO, and, also note that the vast majority of top mfg have moved away from PTFE due to environment issues, and that was when they were using very little of it, let alone such a massive amount. So that recommendation by his is not so grand.
b) His testing of his blend vs mspeedwax i think was very flawed, and deliberately dishonestly so. I have document - instructions tab - "that oz cycle video" that covers the concerns with that testing, and i can tell you he was within a hairs breadth of legal action by mspeedwax - something that if i was them i would have for sure pulled the trigger on. that video should not be up, it is very poor to (in my opinion) deliberately screw a test such that is slanders a great product and company.
lastly - you may or may not know this about him. I do not understand how such humans have support. What moral line do people have before they would stop supporting someone simply for cycling content. its not like he is the only person on earth who can solve climate etc so we still really have to follow what he is saying. I just dont get it.
www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-05/steven-john-leffanue-jailed-over-killing-neighbours-dog/101209462
@@zerofrictioncycling992 Thanks for the comprehensive reply and wow I never knew anything about this man beyond his YT cycling content. I am horrified to see the report of his actions (which I don't remember seeing reported in the UK), and I certainly won't be giving any more views to his channel.
@@ridefast0 Yeah i didnt know too much about him for a long time other than he seemed to have a good following so i assumed he did some good content - but then that wax test vid was a big worry and red flag, and then he was often with Venereal D (Durianrider) - which is another rather massive red flag - and then wow what do you know - turns out to be a horrific torturer of neighbours pet, receiving i believe the longest sentence for animal cruelty in the states history. It saddens me when he was back that a lot of comments were welcome back from jail etc - so those people know, and for them its all fine :(. then for normal good people, the reaction when know what he is like is omg i am steering clear! I am always heartened to see normal good people reaction like yours!
talking about water in wax, if the wax temp is below 100c then any water will never evaporate because its going to sink to the bottom of the pot( wax less dense of water) and the wax will seal it in there! Any water in a sealed-in condition can only escape through transitioning to steam above its boiling point surely?
If i put my crockpot on low +-80, it usually wont boil water out. If i put it on high +-120, sometimes tiny bubble formation can be observed, which is water boing to surface.
I am not 100% sure. I will try to do some of my own testing one day, but for sure we have enough to know that it is a concern. It is possible convection will get water to a place it can evap out a bit over time (ie water evaps from lakes and oceans and skin etc) - but you are correct, it cannot if it is held sufficient down from the surface.
I would suggest to raise the chain off the bottom of the pot anyway by using some sort of wire mesh basket like in an ultrasonic cleaner so any heavy contaminants (including the water) can sink below the chain.
The mesh is a good idea. I should find something suitable. What I mentioned about the water evaporation. It will take really really long to fully evaporate out all the water. Many hours, maybe overnight, not a 20 minute boil.
Really useful info but there has always been a bit of a grey issue around longevity of the wax in the pot, basically when do I change it
OK I understand there is a huge number of variables here, but my impression is that this batch is still good....chain still sounds quiet.....should I be looking at some other factors?
Yes i was overall very surprised. It would have been much easier for my overall message re beware of cheap wax if it performed a lot worse :) The factors really are just take note that it was still around double the wear of mspeedwax / hot melt - so if you are running an expensive cassette, chainrings, chain - then saving $50 to spend hundreds more over time in component wear is still a false economy. over time on many groupsets, wear rate is still by far the dominant cost vs lubricant cost. And of course that it will be slower if one cares about speed, and mostly - unless one is buying the same candle wax - their cheap wax my be very different vs how this tested.
oh re when to change - it would be similar - most should be fine for 20 to 30 rewaxes per 500 grams as a good time to change to fresh wax. Overtime as contamination will start to build up in the wax, the wax will start to become slightly abrasive, and treatments will not last as long. So if one starts to notice treatments just dont stay as smooth for as long as they used to - ie used to be fine for circa 300km, now its feeling sounding dry by 200 to 250 - time to change - or just pre emptive change circa 20 to 30 re waxes.
Regarding your suggestion to not worry about boiling the chain unless it gets wet and grime from a ride, I'm wondering your opinion on my situation. I've been waxing my mountain bike chain. The chain lasts a decent amount of time when riding in less dusty conditions. However, over the summer in the Tahoe / Truckee area it doesn't rain much and the trails can become insanely dusty. Despite wiping the chain with a micro fiber cloth after every ride, the dust seems to build up over a much shorter period of time and cause the drivetrain to really start squeaking. My assumption is that this extreme level of dust is making its way into the chain and creating the squeaks. I've been boiling the chain before re-waxing in this case, but the extra maintenance is somewhat annoying since I find I have to do it every 2 weeks or so in these very dusty times. Do you think this is the right approach? Or is there something else I should consider doing to extend the time between waxing in these very dry and dusty conditions? Thanks!
Hey chris - the squeaking in really dusty conditions is mostly from dust abrading wax off sides of rollers and between inner plate link and outer plate links, and so those parts can start to run with basically no lubricant. This will cause more lateral wear of chain (squeaking will normally start on chain line angles as more load is on the sides of those bits). Dust still has a lot of trouble penetrating deep enough to main load surfaces that cause elongation wear. So its mostly an annoyance re you have to re wax more frequently to avoid a not as optimal ride experience re chain sound and feel.
Easiest approach by far for this type of riding is two pot system like a boss. Check out the waxing FAQ vid, and skip to the 1hr 39 min mark to see this. If you ride a lot, just run two chains on rotation so it is easy to pop a fresh chain on when need too, and re wax the other. You always need a new chain sooner or later, so pre buying next chain to have the great convenience of two on rotation is a smart way to roll for cyclists riding in harsher dust conditions / frequent wet.
anyone having trouble with wax longevity on Transmission XX SL chains? i am wondering if its the holes in the plates?
Hey jack that is interesting, mostly sram chains get along really well with wax, their surface treatments / finish seem to have wax bond well. Typically eagle chains etc enjoy very good treatment lifespans. How did you prep chain and what wax are you using, how re waxing?
Is there any concern re frequent boiling water flushing the chain from an expansion and contraction point of view?
I guess we rapidly heat/expand the various chain components when we wax but if you flush before every wax that's 2x the expansion/contraction cycles over the life of the cain.
Just a random thought. Maybe a contributor to the cases of folks getting less than expected chain life?
no not at all, no more than re waxing itself, the temps re metal / chain construction cause zero issues - chains almost always fail early in life if they are going to fail due to a mfg fault, once chains are well into lifespan, if you keep that lifespan extended with immersive waxing, you just enjoy a vastly longer life from the chain. Very worn chains have a higher risk of failure, but thats not the risk with waxing.
Is there a way to tell from visually seeing the melted candlewax if it's going to be a disaster or not? Can I dip a nail or something in and tell from sticky factor, residue left, something like that? What if it smells like Christmas? That has to be okay right?
Alas i cant say, i would need to do a bunch of visual / feel tests and then control test to see how it correlates. I would say sticky factor would not be a good sign though, that will likely be a) very slow, b) much more likely to be quickly dirty and gunky - so if you can tell that from feel, then that would be not a wax i would run.
Anything scented is not a great sign if looking at things from the perspective of i want the best lubrication. Adding substance for scent - lets say 5% of volume is that substance, thats 5% less substance that could be lubricant. And it is doubtful that substance brings anything great to the party re performance - scented candle wax was simply not designed with lubrication of an extremely hard working mechanical part in mind - it is just an incidental factor for them that overall paraffin wax is an amazing lubricant for bicycle chains, but other things they contain outside of high quality paraffin will not be helping.
Its gonna take a lot of commitment to take my chain straight from my bike and put it back in the wax. It seems very wrong, like putting dirty oil back into a can of new oil. Anyway, say I was about to rewax, but my chain has began rusting between the rollers and plates. Should I still sling a rusty, dirty chain back into 100% pure wax? How long can a chain have surface rust on it before it starts pitting/degrading the sliding surfaces of the chain? Is there any way to remove 100% of rust from a chain?
Hey Josh - ha yes that is difficult for some, but - again - compare to what drip lubricant users have re the ratio of lubrication to contamination going on vs what it takes to get anywhere near that in hundreds of ml of wax in your wax pot. Unless you are slinging chains post full mud rides in every time, dry riding - you dont have to worry at all, and if you do worry - then overall vastly easier is the two pot system like a boss demonstrated at 1hr 39 min mark in waxing FAQ vid.
Surface oxidation is mostly just an unsightly issue. Outside will start to oxidise well before inside where it would cause issues due to lack of air exposure inside chain.
However to remove is not easily done depending on where it is. If its on rollers, that will wear off over time, if its started a bit in spots on plates, thats hard to remove - really the only viable way is ultrasonic and ultrasonic solution specific for rust.
mountain bikers what protocol do you use to get the chain clean on rewaxings?
Hey Jack, either just re wax, or if you want the best path, go to the 1hr 39 min mark on Waxing FAQ vid to see two pot system like a boss, that really is the best way to go for offroad cyclists.
This is great Adam. What are your thoughts on using a wax like this as your “reset” for contamination in conjunction with something like UFO drip? I use a wax from a similar supplier and regularly top up with UFO
Personally if i was using a great and not cheap product like ufo Drip, then a not so pure wax with likely a higher oil content + likely some palm or soy in there - it wouldnt get the most out of UFO - you are mixing a pretty flash product with something lesser. i would personally at least spring for a food grade paraffin so you have good clean base on there. Remember used in conjunction with UFO so only using every say 5th re lube- it is going to last you a very long time, overall cost of your wax will still be very low.
Cool that makes sense. I checked and the wax I bought is refined pharma grade - not sure how this compares to food grade but hopefully is reasonable. Will keep an eye on it incase I need to upgrade approach.
For me the immersion wax is mostly a game changer for how easy it is to clean the chain.
Interesting. A parallel to this experiment in the wet lube category could be testing Canola Oil (originally developed to lube mechanical parts) & compare to top / mid performing wet lubes.
IIRC, un the friction facts days they tested extra virgin olive oil to be one of the best oil-based lubricants you can get. Anecdotally I know of at least a road world champion that swears he never put anything else on his chain
it barely matters if the expensive 'value added' brands win. the micro difference between ordinary wax/paraffin oil and expensive brands of wax will be trivial compared to the gaping difference between 'all waxes' and oils. its interesting to know though, and helps those that absolutely want the best. but i think going with the branded products over homebrew is a case of very rapidly diminishing returns for quite a big ramp up in costs
To a degree. For sure for many cyclists if they are on a good DIY paraffin, that will be all they need. If on expensive components, a double wear rate difference would still definitely be in favour of the top commercial products tested - it could easily be a case of spend say $60 more to save some hundreds per 10,000km - which is a good investment.
but also - remember these companies need to make viable revenue and profit to survive. So if we want companies that have put in Genuine R&D & capital investment to bring genuinely great products to market, and not just great marketing to market with BS products, it is also a good thing to support genuinely good products & the mfg behind them etc. There are so, so many things we buy with rather horrific mark ups - ie i had to buy a new charge cable for my garmin watch. It was $39.90. I would say the mfg cost for it is about 20 cents. And the investment to get that up and running overall - not very much for garmin. Similar re say do you need a new computer mount, or an exposure light mount, or some pedal cleats, and on and on. I can tell you the production cost and margins on say mspeedwax - a very hard working little company for a genuinely great product - it is overall a fair deal for the consumer that is for sure - just a fair viable margin for them to be here for the future, and a great product for the cyclist that will genuinely give them back their money and so much more re drivetrain wear savings.
Will you test some cheapo all-temperature ski wax. Maybe compare it to a nicer flouro ski wax, too.
no. I think i covered in the vid, i could test all sorts of waxes until i am 1000 years old - i really need to focus resources on high value knowledge area's. People can test these things themselves and see if happy - each test just takes a lot of time and resources i just cant spend years on countless DIY blends + ski / lanolin / beeswax / carnuaba /ikea tea light / motorcycle etc etc
My first chain wax was the cheapest tea lights I could find and then adding some paraffin oil trying to make it stick a little more on the metal.
I really loved it it felt good and stayed clean. However I couldn’t get it to last very long in rain. But other than that it was pretty good.
Now I switched to Silca it lasts longer in the rain.
Great research. Now with that out of the way I have another lubrication 'hack' for you to test if you are intrested. I once met a rider who told me that they dont use wax or oil, they instead boiled their chain in fat, which they obtained from the local butcher. I dont know the details of how that setup work, but from what I heard from them, its somewhere between wax and oil..
Ha yes there is so much stuff like this out there! At this stage i will leave that for someone else to test. Along with whale oil, seal blubber etc etc :)
Don't even bother. I've had customers doing this when I was working in a shop focused on oldtimer bikes because it was some thing someone did in the 30s or so and those drivetrains were the biggest gunkiest mess I've ever seen.
@@vien4875 yes that is the concern! a little inconvenient the wax i found was pretty good, what others end up getting for DIY can be not so much....
Wipe down ,air nozzle dry then then re lube . I clean my chain often. Crossymy fingers lol
Yeah, candle wax is funny. I have three types: two is hard, but the color is different. The third is somewhat softer, and leaves some kind of oily layer on my hand.
I also mixed the hard candle wax with hair removal wax to make it softer (2 candle 1 hair removal based on weight) I am curious, how will it work, because while it is a bit softer, it somewhat sticks. (the paraffin oil came out of the candle wax, so I dropped that idea)
Hey Adam! Great work, and, for me at least, actually surprising that the commercial products are that much better than a good base wax. Makes you wonder what exactly it was that absolute black did to their wax to make it behave that... interestingly. It would be super duper interesting to see how sunflower seed wax performs, especially as the Effeto Mariposa Flower Power apparently blows the other drip waxes out of the water. Are there any sunflower seed wax based immersive products out there that you know of? Best, and thanks!
thanks aelaeks! This is just my best guess re AB wax, but...... for one, i think their wax base is simply crap - they went for a "pliable" wax - but its just a poor base wax going by its performance and treatment longevity. For two - the pricing is a bit hint that there is likely to be almost no graphene in their graphene wax. Graphene is EXTREMELY expensive. look at the price of their actually very high performing graphenlube - $220 a bottle. Look at the price of Silca Hot wax X with an rrp of $285 for a 300gram tin. So what does AB graphenwax have in it at $45 for 320 grams? Black food colouring is my guess, with perhaps a token molecule of graphene so they can legally add that to name and marketing.
FP is a great product, from ZFC side the main thing that has stopped it reaching big sales here is that it runs black so one does not have a very clean drivetrain after a little bit, and most really do love clean drivetrain - there is just something inherent in most - especially if you have beautiful & pricey components - you want them to look good. Having them quickly covered in a black lube - it is just not to many's liking - especially if you have say a copper or rainbow xx1 cassette, or rainbow red cassette - but even just normal silver cassettes - people want them saying clean. So despite its no penetration issues, great dust resistance, very smooth feel and very low wear (all at a great cost, and an enviro friendly product) - i think literally running black puts many off, and also that it is a different wax altogether and just doesnt play well to use with immersvie waxing. Most of our sales of silca ss drip or ufo drip are to waxing customers as they can use those as top up in between, they are clean, and you can re wax straight over.
I have not heard of any sunflower wax immersive waxes - but there are a lot of immersive wax products on the market now, it is possible i have missed! if you see one, let me know :)
Big kudos for your detailed answer(s) and always taking the time to do it right! That´s so refreshing nowadays :) Re AB, I guess you´re right, even though in my naivety I would have assumed that there was some actual testing involved before putting the prodcut on the market... especially since they depict themselves as science-driven. And it could have been so easy... pick a good base wax (as you demonstrated, available for cheap), throw in some black food coloring, profit. Especially since people (including me) were already on their hype train after the GrapheneLube success. Re the sunflower stuff, I just wonder if the black gooiness comes from additives that that are required to make it a good drip wax and achieving the almost perfect penetration characteristics or of it is a characteristic of the wax itself. In other words, it might be possible that sunflower wax is a superior base compared to paraffin. Imagine with the right additives... the bike will basically power itself and chains will never die again! Completely off topic: Does anyone have any insight how long a chain on the turbo trainer lasts? I was running a dedicated indoor chain (campy potenza 11) with silca synergetic for a year now and some 6k km, and I dont see any elongation with both a chain wear gauge and calipers.@@zerofrictioncycling992
@@aelaeks AB did contract a lot of testing for graphenlube with myself and others (like wheel energy). You may notice that the test data from me is not released from NDA. You may notice the test data from W.E is up there with the wackiest data ever released (refer vids on lubricant testing - it is NUTS that data was published). A number of test facilities work very differently to ZFC. with ZFC, we have built up over 7 years a pretty large open league table (it has taken a long time as each test takes a long time indeed - usually months). This means a mfg can contract ZFC for a test, and their result can be benchmarked, block by block as we go- against their key competitors.
others that conduct much shorter duration testing - the cost of one test is much cheaper than ZFC - but, they then on have N=1. The way those test facilities make money is that the mfg needs to have their product and number of competitor products tested to get themselves a data set. There is no open data table, all testing from previous data sets belongs to the mft that contracted that testing. The test facilities are not doing testing of their own volition, nor putting together a data set from mfg who have gone public with their data. And - the data from one facility for X lubricant if the mfg goes public themselves for marketing often conflicts with test results for the same lubricant from a different test facility.
So what usually happens is mfg contracts X for testing of their product. They contract them also to test say 10 competitors. Lets say 5 competitors were better, 5 competitors were worse. They are not going to go to market with the full data set. they will go to market with their lubricant and 5 competitors whose data was worse. Which is why every mfg who has contracted testing with anyone else other than ZFC, has always been able to go to market as the winner of the testing.
AB did do some testing i think for graphenwax but it was very very limited vs what they did for graphenlube. I am very certain AB know exactly what graphenwax is, and i think that absolutely it was there to a) jump in on the popularity and growth of immersive waxing, and b) use graphenlubes excellent credentials to sell graphenwax. it is a shame that graphenwax is so bad (In Zfc opinion) whilst graphenlube is overall outstanding (just far too expensive).
And possibly re sunflower wax, i really have not seen it in its raw form re lubrication ./ wax, and i have no idea what Effetto may have done with it - but overall, it is brilliant product - its only main negative for those not immersive waxing is it being visually not clean - if it was as clean as ss drip but kepts its performance it would be astounding.
indoor training can also be pretty variable but overall it should be longer than outdoor due to lower contamination. But this can be offset by indoor typically being less free (rolling) kms - ie if i ride for 30 mins at 300w up a hill, i then have about 10 km of free kms going down hill. on a trainer after 30mins of pedalling power, you normally just have never ending mins of pedalling power. Also, more tend to use indoor for higher intensity workouts or zwift races vs 4 hours of zone 2 - higher avg load will impact lifespan.
Synergetic is extremely wear protective though, and so that is likely why you are seeing such a great result - if you see its block 1 result of 0.0% wear for that 1000km block, thats a good match for your indoor cycling :)
A clean drive train is the primary reason I prefer wax. FP running black is off putting for sure and disappointing as a product as potentially eco friendly would very appealing to me if it ran clean. It does make one wonder what else is in their blend though. What struck me as a little odd was that when you tested it, you described it as softer setting and a little oily. Sunflower wax on its own is pretty hard and dry. It does have a very high oil bearing capacity though. You can mix in a lot of oil and it will remain very solid, getting softer the more you add.
Squirt was one product that you tested that sounds like it runs similarly to FP in that it runs black. Given Squirt uses slack wax, which by definition contains oil it might be fair to speculate that FP does too?
@@uncleants ooh very hard to say, it really would be high speculation. Vs Squirt - FP has SIGNIFICANTLY better penetration, and that is something not that easy to achieve with wax drip lubricants. It is not so much about viscosity at all, as i have tested a number of wax drips (not public) that have struggled re penetration, they have gone higher and higher viscosity and still struggled, and yet others such as ufo drip are notably lower viscosity but do not have penetration issues. Wetting agents / surfactants appear to be key as lowering surface tension appears to be much more important than viscosity re geting past that crucial very tight gap between inner link plate shoulders underneath the roller to get to the pin. If surface tension is too high, even with high viscosity, it basically just runs around that gap and drips out the other side of the chain onto the floor. Just adding some slack wax / oil to sunflower i do not think will have achieved what they achieved. Someone who really understands chemistry and the task at hand and what is needed to achieve it has done a great job. I cant guarantee of course since i dont know, but i do not think that whatever they have used will be in breach of its Eco credentials. From my dealings with them, they seemed nothing if not passionately genuine about that aspect as well as what they had created overall. Muc-Off in my call with them were also passoinate about what they were saying, but that was a completely different feel - that was feel of lets try and dazzle some smoke and mirrors to distract from not answering questions re why we FTT test for long intervals when we know without doubt it gives incorrect results for many lubircants. Or what is going on with their wear rates in ZFC test. or why their lubricants absorb contamination so quickly etc. Effetto were just how you want a mfg to be when having a chat to them re their product - whilst of course they need to keep their secrets from competitors. To be honest, i didnt expect too much, i thought they were mostly just going for a good performance from and enviro friendly lubricant, but they really knocked it out of the park.
if only it ran clean looking! :)
Why does the candle wax "Lubricant cost" $4.00 for the Dura Ace 11 spd table, but $6.00 for the GRX tables?
for given distance, people riding offroad need to re lubricate or re wax more often - lubricant treatment lifespans do not last as long offroad as on road- road you zoom along so for a given number of powered pedal strokes, you cover distance faster - offroad you travel less distance for your powered pedal strokes, and there is dust that impacts as well. The modelling factors that you will need to re lubricate 50% more for offroad riding vs road riding, so the lubricant cost for offroad is 50% higher vs road
Have you tried a combination of parrafin and soy wax to make a chain lube?
Negatory. Resources to properly test are limited, and combinations for DIY are a lot . ie i am often emailed re blending in lanolin. or beeswax. or bees + lanolin + soy. and what about with some paraffin oil. and maybe some carnuaba wax. or sunflower wax or oil. And a dash of xylene. and what if we put in ptfe AND Moly AND ws2 AND graphene. And oh so much more.
There is nothing to suggest that heating paraffin wax to higher temperatures like 150 deg C does any harm to the wax.
If long chain polymers in the range of paraffin lengths could be broken down this way then industry would have solved major problems.
Some chain lube manufacturers may however use friction modifier packages that break down at higher temperatures.
But if using straight paraffin it is better to heat to around 140deg C.
This ensures that any moisture boils off quickly and may make it easier for the wax to get into the chain spaces.
I can suggest some :). For one, the wax cools to a yellowish colour vs white. And then, those using damaged wax find that it feels and sounds pretty bad pretty quickly. And then they see their chain wear rates shoot up if continue to use. Overheating does indeed damage the wax, this is a test you can easily do yourself at home, and very easily you will see the difference. The mfg would not advise against it if it was not an issue, but it is most definitely an issue, and one we deal with relatively frequently when a customer accidentally leaves their wax on high overnight etc.
@@zerofrictioncycling992 I see no drop off in wax performance.
Only poor waxes will yellow quickly unless you reach silly temperatures.
@@darrylduck6356 Okay. I can only report what a) the mfg advise and b) what we see and deal with - we have many thousands of immersive wax customers. Many have wax for years and countless cycles, no degradation. Some accidentally overheat, and that is the only time the (SAME) wax yellows. Post overheating, degradation in performance is very tangible - and is usually the impetus re why they email me to ask re if they have damaged. So we have a pretty strong link to what is observed in real life matching warning by mfg's re not overheating.
if nothing else it seems like candle wax would make for a perfect first, sacrificial bath, in a two bath process.
Yep for sure it if its a good one like that one - it can be a good kick off to start 2 pot system, however in time as one is moving pot 2 over to become pot 1 wax, you then have same wax for both after X time anyhoo
TLDW. Went over to website to read the results. Cliff notes r good.
My tap water is so hard, i boiled a chain and it became a frosted mess. Ill have to use purified water.
@joshuabuilds3051 Use rain water from a water butt, preferably with an inlet filter to stop leaves and bugs. Most of the debris will sink to the bottom so as long as the outlet tap is not there ( would be a bad design ) then your good to go. Obviously its a good idea to sterilize the boiling container afterwards if your using it in your kitchen.
Any candle making wax has mould release agents that tend to make the wax slightly softer and build up on the drivetrain.
I believe it is primarily the slight build up that attracts dirt which causes the cassette wear over straight parafin wax.
I guess it can't hold a ...candle... to the purpose build stuff.
except silca hot melt, molten speed wax, rex black diamond, shame on the entire lubricant industry for under-perfoming such a simple lubricant. the cumulative wear differences as opposed to wet lubricants is especially staggering as always. so, the product you linked, paraffin pillar wax from aussie candle supplies, "Pour Temperature: 85-90 ˚C Melt Point: 60-62 ˚C" *clean* paraffin wax, no additives, for wet conditions especially, is a good alternative to most waxes on the market, save for the very top shelf stuff. we could call this lubricant "Median™©®". kinda confirms what i think a lot of people already suspected but it's nice to see it from a reliable source as opposed to hearsay.
Yes overall agree - part of it is that paraffin is at its heart just a great match for lubricating the sliding surfaces of articulating chain parts, and the fact chains operate outside exposed to all contamination (unlike most lubricated parts in most machines) - being a solid lubricant is a big advantage. Add into that the huge benefit with immersive waxing of flush cleaning whatever amount of contamination did get in each time, it is VERY hard for drip lubricants to match immersive re lubrication over time, but some of the top wax drip lubricants were pretty close, and with some basic periodic maintenance could pull ahead - and with fancy wax base and friction modifiers - would be faster for racers on a properly prepped chain.
Wet lubricants overall struggle. For bicycle chain, overall the general rule of thumb is the best lubricant is the one that REMAINS low friction. Alas for wet lubricants every particle of dust sticks on contact unlike wax, and, being wet, the contamination has a pathway to get from outside to inside chain and cause friction and wear damage. A particle of dust on the outside of a wax chain, it just does not have path to travel inside.
If one only ever rode in dry road cycling, the block one only test is a bit more applicable vs the full 5000km test which has dry dust and wet contamination blocks, so a number of the top wet lubricants tested would give this cheap wax a good run.
However MANY wet lubricants are flat out pretty average to terrible. i think MANY wet lubricants are simply re bottled and rebranded whatever from X industry, and are in no way developed specifically for use on bicycle chain - which is actually a pretty extreme lubrication challenge due to it being a very hard working part completely exposed to the elements and contamination. Many others that supposedly have been developed for cycling it is just well this is a good X lubricant from somewhere, lets add some things that sound good and should improves its performance - but there is ZERO objective, tangible testing to prove if it is good, or how it performs vs competitors. Most times the product will be sent out with cyclists, and company staff, all report it feels great - and yeehaa - the next wonder lube with magnificent claims is there. Or - conversely as we see with some brands, the product was developed 30 years ago, and is still basically, or exactly the same and they are living of brand name recognition.
And this will continue, until cyclists start voting for proper high performing products of their preference vs still supporting products that bring only marketing BS or 30 year old performance to the table.
@@zerofrictioncycling992
I can see the chain prep being mental hurdle for many customers. If chains came ungreased from the factory, I could imagine many people would have no second thoughts about using some convinient drip wax as a default option rather then a "complicated pro thing".
And in the shop, I probably wouldn't sell that prep work very well for walk in customers either since I'd have to charge quite some working time for something my customer probably would perceive as too much of an up-front investment.
I guess that this test shows how crap conventional wet lubes are.
ha most yes - really there have been only a handful of high performing wet lubricants - a lot of really really average results, and a bunch of absolute shockers. Chain is so hard working, under very high pressure loads, and completely exposed to contamination - so in general the best lubricants tend to be the lubricants that resist absorbing contamination, and this why wax based lubricants are very much dominating. Immersive has the advantage of every re lube is a great contamination reset, as well as extremely high contamination resistance to begin with. But even the good wax drip lubricants, they just have much lower contamination absorption, but also dust that does adhere to the outside has a very difficult path to move inside where it will cause friction and wear. If the lubricant is a solid coating or semi solid - it is a near impossible or very difficult path to move from outside to deep inside chain where it will do the damage. Wet lubricants, aside from every particle being absorbed on contact, the wetter the lubricant is, the easier the migration path to go from outside to inside, and that is exactly what has born out in testing, with the wetter wet lubricants by far performing the worst.
I was using MucOff C3 Ceramic on our bikes as the LBS recommended it as the "premium option". I arrived at ZFC from reddit, and I swapped to Silca Hot Melt! Well, not yet, as I'll start with a new chain and mine still has some life left, but my next ones will be hot waxed (and my family will run on SuperSecret). @@zerofrictioncycling992
Putting "super secret" in the name just rings my sus alarm even more, it strongly reminds me of the FireClean *lube* debacle in the firearms industry, and to even further back the first advertised, ultimately ineffective cure of tuberculosis, which was later used successfully to diagnose the disease.
The thing with FireClean was that it worked amazingly, but that's not the point, it was about the price when people found out what it actually was. The scandal is across disciplines but still I think it draws parallels to the bike industry, especially all the sementic wiggling the company did to justify the cost in the aftermath.
Not entirely sure what you are getting at here. But i will take a stab, and see if i can help with some concerns, not just on behalf of silca, but overall i think it helps people to understand how business works sometimes.
>First there is R&D cost behind a product like this. Unlike circa 1000 "bike" lubricants on the market that are just rebottled and re branded something from X industry supplier - some lubricants are developed specifically for use on a bicycle chain, which is actually a very specific use case factoring contamination, very high pressure loads - stiction on 8 separate sliding surfaces per link per articulation / reticulation, ability to penetrate to pin (difficult for wax emulsion lubricants) etc etc. Aside from the chemistry and mechanical knowledge to make a true top performing product - it still normally takes a lot of testing across many base blends and potential production blends. This costs real money, that has to come from somewhere, to do. In the longer run, the costs have to be paid back via return on the product.
> Then there is volume production once the final blend has been decided. This involves proper supply chain of key ingredients from tier 1 suppliers, batch analysis of key ingredients, and the actual product and bottling costs
> Then there is marketing and distribution costs.
> Then - Silca need to make margin between their sell price and the price it is sold to importers. Importers then need to make margin on selling to their w/sale accounts (online stores and bike stores). The online and bike stores need to make margin selling to the cyclist. So there are 3 layers that need to make viable margin.
> If we want good companies to continue to exist, we want them to make viable margin. We want them the get a viable return that pays back the initial investment in bringing to market, and then to provide revenue for R&D into next great products coming to market. How many treasured business in many western countries have been lost in the last 10 years. Kitsbow is a good recent example in USA, and there are so many more.
> In the case of this product - it is pretty well proven. The zfc test is a very harsh test, and it is an independent test. Vs many direct competitors, it will save cyclists A LOT of money in much lower wear of chain and drivetrain components. Even on mid tier groups sets - vs many other wax lubricants costing half the price - it will deliver at least half or one third the wear rate. So if one spends an extra $20 to save hundreds - well, warren buffett would say thats a mighty fine and mighty smart investment.
So i dont think there are any parallels in your example. Cost to produce some wax emulsion lubricants is not miniscule, factoring in more expensive base wax blend vs some just using slack wax, factoring in true high quality ws2 from tier one suppliers. Batch analysis of key ingredients to ensure they are precisely what they are meant to be, even from tier one suppliers. Production control so that each production batch is the same as the last etc etc.
I am not sure what you think silca rake in for a bottle of lubricant re profit, but i will bet it is much less than what you had in mind when you wrote up the comment. And that is not a criticism of your comment at all, i think your thinking is quite commmon - i just dont think a large % of gen pop truly understands what sits behind many the prices of many things. And they complain about cost of lubricant that has a fair bit of stuff going on, but we have to pay $30 for a little plastic go pro mount adjuster that would cost 5 cents, or $40 for a garmin charge cable that would cost maybe 15 cents, or X for a set of headstem bolts, and on and on and on - i could find about 500 examples on a large online store in 10 minutes of price vs production/ marketing / distribution gaps that dwarf anything in the lubricant space.
So i hope all of the above helps explain. Sometimes genuinely great products that had genuine R&D to excel in their actual use case can have a higher base cost, and R&D to pay back and then profit to be made for future. And if we want companies who are making genuinely great products to still be in existence and doing such into the future - they should not be begrudged too heavily for ensuring viable profit.
hope that helps!
Bees wax next?
negative :). Honestly it would never stop! It is interesting but the test resources are too precious to spend a lot of them on never ending DIY wax blends, and remember this is still just a very small subset of cyclists so it would be a huge amount of time and $$ to find out for John Smith that his blend of 50% beeswax, 25% lanolin, 20% xylene and 5% paraffin oil is pretty good, and that Bobs Carnuaba + graphite + linseed is also pretty good etc etc - and how much cross over adoption / help that will add to the world when really the vast majority of waxers are going to either stay with a proven top commercial product, or keep it very simple with paraffin. The DIY waxers can test themselves, and if they get great results, they can put out the results on forums, or on YT vid comments etc for others to see and try.
Or of course, if truly passionate about it, they can book in for a test! i just cant cover the costs and time for never ending DIY blends or every possible wax base for DIY, there is just so much other higher value testing to be done!
Beeswax isn't exactly a great solid lubricant by itself.
As a high concentration additive or even cosolvent, it is a pretty good additive.
But by itself? Stick to other natural waxes like fully refined soy wax, sunflower seedwax or rice bran wax, which are harder, tougher, and have interesting properties regarding metal lubrication.
Candles are still better than a certain M off brand. 😂
Its like they are being bribed by component mfg to make lubricants for maximum parts consumption!
There is a fan noise.
ah ok thanks russel, will try and sort more next one!
You must have an audiophile setup, audio sounds great to me.
Edit: I came back with headphones on, and yeah there is a bit of noise, but minimal.
@@zerofrictioncycling992 Fan vibrations might be transmitting into the computer case making it act like a speaker cone. Some silicone anti vibration fan mounts might help ? . I can't give you links as my posts keep getting removed :-(
@@dawn_rider thanks steve! whats going on with your posts? Im not removing them!
@@zerofrictioncycling992 I should have said that youtube is removing my comments. Sorry if I implied it was you Adam :-(
Its fair to say it is not doing your channel any good as this has been slowing me down telling other channels about yours. Certain words seem to cause it. I will send you a direct email to your gmail. This is my 4th try at this comment !!!
i use 2 pots for hoping to keep the 2pot with cleaner wax, is it a good choice to put the cheap wax in the first pot and the silca in the second ? or am i thinking the wrong thing .
one could probably do that as a cheaper way to start 2 pot. You will be bringing a bit of cheap wax into pot 2 each time, but it shouldnt really affect the good wax too much unless the cheap wax was really not great. But next fresh bag, pot 1 will then be basically hot melt as well, and then it will be both hot melt into the future as pot 2 becomes pot one, fresh bag into pot 2 etc