Originally Posted by
Gunder
Wend is a pretty major OEM supplier for most of "wax and lube" companies in skiing, surfing and biking. At the end of the day, I'm not a fan of their products performance whether it's something they brand or that someone else does.
The vast majority of all chain wear is not due to a lack of lubrication, but instead is from contamination. So the best way to increase chain life, like most mechanical things is to keep it clean. I use an ultrasonic cleaner ( use water and dawn in it, Simple Green will strip the anodizing on aluminum parts) to clean my drive train once a month or so (more often this year). My experience with traditional wax lubes is its more difficult to clean off, and more difficult to apply. I would much rather have a cleaner chain that is cleaned and lubed more often to reduce contamination, so thus I like wet lubes.
Wet lubes are also thiner, (even when wax is melted) so they do a better job of penetrating into the relative tight tolerances that make up the chain rollers. (I think you are noticing this with your quick links being more difficult to latch due to wax and containment build up). This same argument works for wet lubes over dry lubes in general. Liquids in general do a better job of penetration than solids. Just think about the difference between ice and water and which one will soak through a garment.
Most bike lube mfg's are just rebranding and relabeling industrial lubricants. A few things to note, I dont like WD40 for a lube. It is actually a Water Displacement formula and not a lubricant. It was designed to be a corrosion inhibitor and not a lubricant. Its used quite often as an industrial cleaner, but more relative to biking, it is commonly used as a CUTTING FLUID for aluminum.
Boeshield T9, was developed by Boeing and I am willing to bet they have done a hell of a lot more testing on what's the best lubricant for aluminum and other metals than any bike lube or website has done. It uses a solvent carrier, so It's thin, enabling it to seep into tight areas, the solvent helps flush gunk out, than evaporates and it dries into a film and doesn't seem to collect as much dirt and grime (contamination) as other lubes (wet or dry), it is easy to clean off and reapply. Since it uses a solvent carrier, each time you reapply it, you are essentially flushing the old stuff out, resulting in a cleaner chain. It is also very commonly used in industry for lubricating industrial machine parts.