>>1872192>Anything organic is very likely to polymerize, which turns it into very hard debris that is impossible to remove.>My friend used a thick plant oil on his chain and when he left it on for a month it made the chain seize.Its a good point and worth considering. Many vegetable oils are hygroscopic meaning they absorb water. Water means oxygen, and any iron present means rusted chain this would be the "hard debris", I would think, as if it were just an organic polymer (& not semi-aqueous emulsion), it would just be greasy.
What I'm doing is adding essential oils (that are basically purified and concentrated light fractions of terpenoids) at something like a 1:50 v/v ratio to mineral oil, just enough drops to thin so it drips like water, and coats the chain and the smell only lasts maybe a day before it evaporates compeltely (the aromatics) leaving the heavy mineral oil. Those aromatics are a diverse array of terpenes. I did a quick search and it doesn't seem likely to polymerize. Because of the heterogenous mix of the heavy mineral oil (stable) and terpenes (light) they separate rather quickly and the terpenes "boil off" the outer surface leaving the mineral layer.
>>1871728>For the last few months I used industrial vaseline.Here is an example of a heterogenous mixture:
>Vaseline: Water (aqua), Glycerin, Stearic Acid, Isopropyl Palmitate, Glycol Stearate, Peg-100 Stearate, Mineral Oil, Dimethicone, Petrolatum, Glyceryl Stearate, Phenoxyethanol, Cetyl Alcohol, Methylparaben, Acrylates/c10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer, Triethanolamine, Propylparaben, Disodium EDTA, StearamideThe problem is that first ingredient. Vaseline is more of a greasy emulsion. Because it is semi-solid at room temp, he has to heat it to get it to flow like mineral oil. And the chain flings it off. As long as he keeps glopping it on, I'm sure things will run smooth. I'm not in a high-salt environment, but I wouldn't use this if I was
