I've been waxing chains for years, only ever w wax alone. PTFE is on its way out, i think it might be forbidden to import it in powder form in the EU already.
Not all paraffin waxes are created equal. Because it's a by product of oil refining, afaik, you get different purities, a big difference being how much oil there is in the wax. Oilier is cheaper. The dude from Zero Friction Cycling said he's tested chains that were gunking up fast with store bought waxes, it was probably high oil contents from cheap paraffin.
Last year i bought 5kg of the most expensive paraffin wax i could find, i think it might be lab grade. It's brittle, very low oil.
Do i feel a difference in every day use? No.
The biggest draw for me is that it's now clean to handle bikes. I do more maintenance and use my bike more now that it's not a nasty source of grime.
Now, my chains do stretch, and i have nowhere near the claims of eternal life that immersion waxing somehow promises. But i use YBN or KMC 20 eur chains, typically, on cheap drive trains, and based in Europe, last time i checked, the Silca stuff was just too expensive to make sense to me, so i'm happy w my setup. It's important to dilute the crap from the chain into the bowl of wax, it's that action that purges the contaminants from the chain; i dont want to spend 50 eur to maybe save 3 eur worth of chain on every chain for the next 15 years.
I melt the wax in a metal bowl in a double boiler on the stove (bain marie), that way the wax can't catch fire. It does reach recommended paraffin temps. i wiggle it with bent metal hanger, and voila. It takes 5min of work, and i dont need a dedicated rice cooker. I've also provided that setup to all the friends i've built bike for, it's pretty easy once you've done it a few times.
I would never go back to oiled drive trains.
As to stripping the grease from the factory, using white spirit and the likes does stink badly, and these solvents aren't actually cheap, but i bought 20 bottles of it once, so i'm set to use that for the next 20 years
I heard Silca opened a European warehouse so it might make more financial sense now for those in Europe. But i still feel their US prices are high for what they offer; but convenience has a price for sure.
