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Immersive Waxing FAQ Q – Can I use a rice cooker or does it have to be a slow cooker? A – It must be a SLOW cooker. Rice cookers are tempting because they are cheap and a great size for a bag of wax. But paraffin likes to be heated slowly, as well as not get too hot. A slow cooker will blast heat in like a kettle on cook and this breaks down paraffin’s long chain molecules damaging its lubricity. Then after rapidly heating to 100dg, it then switches to warm. So if you pop chain in and turn rice cooker on and come back sometime later, wax will be at 60dg c, near its point of setting solid again, so you will bring a chain out with far too much excess wax on it making for a heck of mess when first start riding, and it’s a waste of wax. Do not use a rice cooker – buy a cheap small slow cooker.
Q – What slow cooker do you recommend? A) Currently the two best options in australia are the Adesso 1.5 litre from Woolworths for $16 – perfect size for a bag of wax, or Kmart have a lamb shanks 3 litre for $25. I recommend only going up to about 3 / 3.5 litres max or you will get a very low fill level for a bag of wax that may not cover the chain after a fairly short number of Re-waxes. A smaller pot will ensure chain coverage for the recommended number of waxes. Q – Can I use an instant pot, what is an instant pot? A) In Australia an instant pot is also known as a multi function cooker. Multi function cookers will have options like rice, steam, broil, desserts, soup, slow cook and more. Instant pots / Multi cookers are perfectly fine as long as you choose the slow cook function as then they will not blast heat in. They tend to heat up much more quickly than a slow cooker still, but not so fast that they damage the wax. They also often give you the ability to set temperature, so you can just set temp to 90dg c, and it doesn’t matter on what ambient temp is or wax fill level, wax will get to 90dg and stay at 90dg. So – these are great – but cost a lot more than a $16 slow cooker – so decide if popping a chain on top of wax and turning as switch from off to low and coming back in 45 mins to an hour, or whenever after that is somehow going to be a problem, or if you really need to return after just 10 minutes for some reason re should you spend the extra. Q) Is it ok to do on pot on my stove with a thermometer? A) Ok will put aside the Silca Sous vide bag for their wax for a moment, for mspeedwax or any other wax, do not use stove top, bbq, microwave, your oven, camping stove, pressure cooker, tokomak fusion reactor, flux capacitor, anti matter drive or any other method of heating wax.
In general though for I think most – a $16 slow cooker, pour bag in, swish like a pro, and on low with lid off, you will never ever have damaged wax or any possible issue, it is fool proof / forget proof – people do go to bed forgetting about their re-wax – I like the impossible to go wrong options overall Q) How accurate do I need to be with my wax temp? A) Not very. You do not need a thermometer. Whilst recommended perfect temp is basically 90dg Celsius, realistically you will do a perfectly fine waxing anywhere between 70 and 100dg, so that’s a pretty wide and easy temp range to hit. Q) Do I need to pre melt the wax? A) No. In fact it is best to put chain on wax then turn pot on. As wax melts and heats up, your chain heats up, previous wax coating will melt off, and then when you come back when wax is melted you can just swish and hang. Some have gone wrong by pre melting, putting chain in and swishing and then removing and hanging to set. Chain has not had time to heat up and old coating melt off so this leads to a very poor re-wax. If you have pre melted wax, leave chain in there for at least 5 to 10 mins for it to get up to same temp as wax and old coating melted off. Q) Should I put the full bag in or just half a bag? A) Personally I think it is a bit of 6 of one half dozen of the other. I have not been able to track a tangible benefit for one vs the other. Half a bag you change wax twice as often to fresh wax, but the wax contaminated twice as fast. Personally I just go the full bag, and simply re-waxing erring on side of early vs pushing treatment lifespans – you will get astounding parts longevity.
Q) How long will a bag of Mspeedwax / Silca Hot melt last? A) ZFC recommends to re-wax by around 300kms (road) and to change wax by 30 re waxes so you should get approx. 8000 to 10,000km per bag. If you re- wax more frequently to take advantage of the stupendous longevity benefits this brings – you can increase number of re-waxes per bag as long as your fill level in pot allows for it. When you re-wax more frequently less airborne dust will have penetrated, so you don’t have to change by 30 re-waxes, you can use km’s (approx. 8000 to 10,000km) still as your guide re when to change to a fresh bag. So if you re-wax every 200km – go 40 re-waxes easy etc. For off road – it is hard to give a km’s or hours guide as the conditions are much more variable. Stereotypically in good dry conditions that are not super dusty – you should get 8hrs per treatment, so 30 re waxes x 8 hrs = 240 hrs – call it 250hrs – which is about same as 5 x 50hr suspension services – so a long time. Again – erring on re-waxing more often has enormous benefits overall. Q) I have read about two pot system – do you strongly recommend this? How much difference does it make? A) Over the years and over 100,000km of personal immersive waxing experience and both field testing with many riders and control testing, I have become much more of an advocate of re-waxing early – which in some cases means a two chain on rotation system – as having overall a much greater benefit vs two pot system. What is the two pot system – basically you put chain in pot 1, swish, move to pot 2, same – and pot 1 has flushed out contamination from old coating, pot 2 leaves a cleaner coating. But of course over time, pot 1 will get less amazing, and so you are swishing in less amazing wax. It is kinda like diluting the contamination into 2 bags vs one bag, but getting the worst out into first pot to try to keep second pot cleaner. It is better than one pot, but…. Vs re-waxing early and therefore if necessary having two chains on rotation vs going two pot system, the two chain system /
When always pushing towards max treatment lifespan, you increase the time that any contamination that has snuck in has to get a shot at wearing on your chain metal, and as the coating becomes very thin, it does offer less wear protection. If you re-wax frequently, you re-coat all parts of chain in a solid super slippery coating again, chain metal just rarely gets a chance to come into play and start wearing, and airborne dust has more trouble getting into freshly waxed chains vs chains where wax is worn very thin. From lots of tracking on road customers – those who rewax by ZFC’s recommended 300km mark typically achieve; Ø Average of 15,000km for a ybn chain re-waxed by 300km Ø This drops to 8000 to 10,000k for those frequently pushing to 400 / 500km Ø This increases to 20,000 or even 25,000km for those re-waxing by circa 150 to 200km. Q) Isn’t re-waxing that often a hassle?
Ok so this leads me to my 2 chain on rotation recommendation. Sooner or later almost all of us are going to need another chain, so pre buying you next chain costs you no more. With two chains on rotation – high mileage riders can use one chain for mon to fri, then one for weekend – re-wax both at once on rest day More normal volume riders can use one for one week, next chain next week
Aside from increasing chain longevity to pretty astounding numbers, you also ensure that you get two chains through your drivetrain instead of one if one is left running too long. For expensive drivetrains – ensuring you get two chains through it is very very smart for the simple process of pre-purchasing your next chain.
Re-waxing frequently also ensures there is a protective coating of super slippery wax on your chain ring and cassette teeth which is again very wear protective This wax coating also softens the feel of running a solid lubricant which for some can feel quite different vs if they previously ran a thick, heavily damping drip lube. If you are in camp wet lube, I just lube chain, wipe and ride – you might think that going to two chains on rotation & immersive waxing is all a bit nuts – but the reality is, waxing is super easy – refer episode 4 demonstration – and you don’t have to do any cleaning ever to attain simply astounding chain and drivetrain longevity. This of course means you are running very low friction day in day out too. If your parts are wearing fast, this = high friction chain. Many avid racers on two chain system with immersive waxing sell their bikes after a couple of years having done somewhere around 30,000km – and they havent had to change any drivetrain components. Normally in that time they would have replaced circa 6 chains and somewhere between 3 & 6 cassettes, and a set of rings. They just same system again with new bike. Enormous cost to run savings better spent on other cool cycling stuff like glasses, helmet, shoes, kit etc vs spending it on just burning through drivetrain components. if that sounds batshit crazy to you – well, its your money. I know what I would rather spend mine on. Q) Should I clean my chain before I re wax it? A) For most no. I don’t know where it has come from, but a surprising number contact me re they love waxing but are tired of turps and metho cleaning chain every time before re wax. All information is that this is for initial chain prep only to clean off factory grease / existing drip lube before starting waxing, after that it is for most just pop chain off and re-wax, that’s it.
Personally I always re wax after a wet ride, as wax is abraded off outside of chains rollers first, and chains rollers can oxidise if left exposed after being wet as they are made of a high carbon steel for hardness. Sometimes its fine – ie freshly waxed chain, light spray – you are not going to have any issues. But I cant give a black and white modelling of how much wet after how many kms done on treatment – just follow the if in doubt re wax – you can never go wrong by erring on re-waxing, all that ever leads to is super long lifespans. Q) Should I do boiling water flush rinse all the time then if I want to get absolute best possible lifespan? A) No. This is a waste of electricity and time. There is no tangible benefit to boiling water flush rinses after dry rides – especially road riding where extremely little contamination will get into your solid wax lube – but even for most offroad riding unless extremely dusty – just wipe outside. There have actually been some cases of possibly killing chains earlier with too much intervention. Water is not pure – it has minerals and chemicals in it. Maybe once or twice a year I get a case of a customer getting far less lifespan than expected from chain, and if another error hasn’t occurred like using a rice cooker – often it has been they have boiling water flush rinsed every time even though they ride only in the road. It is possible that doing every time, over time it is possible this is leading to a poor wax bond to chain and higher wear. I have been waxing for a long time, so have countless riders in my city of Adelaide including a number of entire race teams as well as feedback from countless waxers around the country. Don’t over complicate things – basically
just re wax unless fully wet ride and you are likely to get the same amazing average lifespan immersive waxers on a top wax enjoy. If you just cant help yourself and have to perform some type of clean every time before putting chain into wax pot, then always finish with methylated spirits round to ensure no film left. But – if you follow recommendations – you absolutely do not need to, nor should you – boiling water clean every time for training chains – race chains should always be reset – but that is a more involved process including ensuring no film left. Training chains – the vast majority of the time for the vast majority of riders – just re-wax for the best lifespan – again the best thing you can do overall is re-wax early. Q) I ride / commute often in wet conditions / wet and salted roads – I have heard that waxing is not suitable for such riding and that I should use a wet lube, is this true? A) No. This is one of the biggest misconceptions around waxing I am trying to correct, but there are a few components to it that have lead to this misconception. Ø Firstly – the abrasive contamination brought in by water will abrade wax off chain and so wax treatment lifespans are shortened in harsh wet conditions Ø Secondly, as the rollers will be exposed and not coated with a wet lube – if you just park your bike for a day – they will oxidise or rust. Ø This leads to the common habit of such riders using a wet lube. Alright step one is to get your head around just how extreme a lubrication challenge this is. Your chain has lot of moving parts, under very high pressure load as the parts are small, and it is operating completely exposed to the elements.
rest of your drivetrain. So again, it costs no more to pre buy next chain, or next two chains – and then clean and wax 3 at once. This is very very time efficient, and the overall drivetrain longevity from having say 3 chains running on wax on rotation will save you a ton of money over the course of a year. If you need to boiling water rinse every time, as per previous point – every now and then give them a methylated spirits flush too to ensure no film from minerals in water messing with wax bond. You wont need to do every time, and you will be able to get a lot of rinses from same bath of methylated spirits. The testing from ZFC is extremely clear re wear rates of top immersive waxes vs top wet lubricants to date. At time of this video / FAQ update (2nd^ September 2021), the average wear rate for Mspeedwax and Silca Hot melt in wet contamination block 4 is 8.5%. The average for the top two wet lubricants tested to date which are Silca Synergetic and Nix Frix Shun is 28% For Extreme Contamination block Mspeedwax and Hot melt average 14%. The top two wet lubes which in this block were again silca synergetic and nix frix shun averaged 56%. That is a massive wear rate difference and the reason for this wear rate difference is not what happens on the single wet ride, BUT CRITICALLY IT IS WHAT IS HAPPENING AFTERWARDS.
With a wet lube, if you ride in harsh conditions, add lube and wipe chain – more and more you are just going to be adding lubricant onto what is trending ever more towards an abrasive paste unless you very frequently use a lot of litres of solvent to fully flush clean. With waxing just even straight re-Waxing will reset contamination in chain extremely well, and a brilliant job can be done with just some boiling water. Again – just think about what would be happening to your bearings riding in such conditions – even if you throw more grease into bearings – you are not getting rid of the contamination that’s in there causing lots of wear and damage. What if you were able to easily pop bearings into a nice bath of hot super high quality grease that was going to flush out the old grease and replace with new grease – that’s what you are doing everytime you re wax. Yes over time your wax will become less amazing so you need to periodically change it, same as if you would need to do that in the bearings in hot bath of grease analogy – but vs adding a few ml of lubricant over 100+ links of chain which is about 0.05ml of lubricant per link going on top of a lot of abrasive stuff – well – hopefully you can see why the test results, and the real world results simply have waxing delivering massively lower wear rates vs wet lubes. It is just a different way of operating. Instead of one chain you keep just dripping lube on or trying to clean and re lube, the best solution for you is likely to be 2 or 3 chains on rotation going through your hot wax spa. Q) What should I do with my chains if I cant re-wax them straight away post proper wet ride? A) Ok especially for the above question running multiple chains where there could be some days between wet ride and re wax, you should wipe chain dry,
A) Ok this comes up a lot. Some links are officially re-useable such as the YBN qrs links, most other brands links are officially stated as single use link only. For immersive waxing to be viable you need to be able to re-use your master link. The YBN QRS links which I have for 8 through to 12spd are officially re-useable 5 times. Most customers do not keep an exact count – somewhere between 5 & 10 has seemed fine, in 5 years and thousands of 6 packs of QRS links sold I have had 2 reported link failures, both of which were link engaged on one side only. There is a but here though – the QRS links I only rate for road use. Narrow /wide tooth profile systems + offroad riding – the short straight locking channel – I have had a couple of failures in offroad use – so I will cover options there in a mini. But for road use, the QRS links have been basically perfect – they are really well priced with a 6 pack for 24.90 lasting circa 10,000 to 15,000km for road use. Other links – sram power lock 10 & 11spd, sram eagle 12spd mtb, sram axs road 12spd, shimano 11 or 12spd – all officially single use. For say sram eagle waxers, axs road waxers, shimano 12spd waxers – Officially I need to say you should only use the links once as per mfg instructions. Unofficially I can also say that countless waxers have been re-using said links circa 5 times each to make waxing viable – including myself on my mtb’s - and to date I have had zero reported failures – which again considering my waxing customer base and years passed now – is a good sign. But – YOU have to make the call yourself to go against mfg instructions – you cant re-use a single use link, have a failure and go over the bars, and then sue ZFC because I said its fine to do so. I am just reporting what has been happening with re-useable links since little ZFC started, and ZFC is a bit synonymous with waxing as ZFC has done a fairly strong job of explaining why immersive waxing delivers astounding low friction and wear every day.
However – IF you want to get onto waxing BUT you do not want to take the chance of re-using an officially single use link, then you should go to next best option to immersive waxing and that is; Use Silca ss drip in conjunction with immersive waxing. SS drip was designed to be used in conjunction with immersive waxing. So start waxed, use silca ss drip for next 5 re lubes, then do an immersive re wax again to reset any contamination, and use a new master link. SS drip used properly is extremely clean as it has a low application amount and sets to a chain coating so you apply, work into chain, wipe excess, allow overnight set. Other top chain coating lubricants can also be used such as UFO drip – brilliant lubricant, also extremely low wear – but heavy application amount so just be prepared to spend more time and cloths wiping excess after application. Also true tension tungsten all weather – also extremely clean, was overall outmatched in dry riding wear rate performance by SS drip and UFO, but it did come out ahead for wet weather riding – like ss drip this one is a low application amount so very easy to keep chain very clean between waxings. Q) What link for what chain? A) For all 8 to 11spd road use chains – QRS links are recommended as no failures, officially re-useable, and very budget friendly. For offroad use for 10 or 11spd I would use either a shimano or sram link as they have a longer and stronger locking channel which seem to have no issues with narrow / wide mtb systems.
Note that even factoring in the cost of master links – the total cost to run due to the exceptionally low wear rates of immersive waxing with either msw or hot melt – or the combo approach using wax + ss drip. A pack of links lasts a long time, and the super low wear rates, always super clean drive train – these product just deliver the lowest overall cost to run when you factor in wear rate cost for your chain, chain rings and cassette, and the margin is not even close vs your normal random lube choice. Q) How do I know when I should change my wax? A) If you haven’t been keeping a rough track of how many re-waxes or km’s your wax has done, you will know that it is time to change wax when each re- wax is feeling and sounding dry noticeably faster than it used to. This means that over time as each re-wax imports some amount of abrasive contamination, the amount of contamination in wax is reducing treatment lifespan and it is time to change to a fresh bag. Q) How do I change my wax? A) Simply melt wax, pour into an aluminium bbq, wipe pot clean with paper towel (wear gloves as will be hot), and pour in fresh bag. Let wax in bbq tray cool, and when full, dispose of in hard rubbish. The top immersive waxes of Mspeedwax and hot melt are both now extremely environmentally friendly the main base is highest quality food grade paraffin – so the base sans friction modifiers you could literally eat. Hot melt has not PTFE and msw last update was under 5 grams per bag, I believe at time of writing / this video now their latest formula has removed all ptfe – will be confirmed soon on product page on website if not already. Friction modifiers like tungsten disulphide according to material safety data sheets are toxicologically inert, however will can cause lung damage if you breath in the powder. As the tungsten disulphide in your wax or lube is not in powder breathable form, this is not possible.
I have gone through material data safety sheet for molybdenum disulphide and its basically same – again I am not sure if latest blend of Mspeedwax has both moly and tungsten disulphide or also moved to tungsten disulphide as main friction modifier – so it may no longer be present – I think their packaging still has to be updated re latest formula – I will update the FAQ document when I confirm further. Overall however consider system as a whole. These products themselves are either 100% environmentally friendly or extremely close to 100%, and whatever % they are not is inert and would take some kind of chemical reaction to release harmful components. Compared to the environmental impact of millions of households using how many litres a year of sovlents & degreasers to maintain drivetrains, and where is this ending up, as well a the extra waste of components being used up at around triple the rate, or more – they are an extremely environmentally friendly option. Disposed of in household rubbish it will go to a rubbish dump, which are typically designed not to leech into wider environment as people throw away all sorts of very toxic stuff in their household rubbish like batteries, harsh chemicals and more. In short – it is environmentally safe out on the road or trails, and environmentally safe to dispose in household rubbish. No compounds will soak through your skin and cause cancer. Q) I overheated my wax and it started fuming, are the fumes hazardous? A) Yes.
