Soon after I bought my first recumbent bike, I became a devotee of chain wax instead of oil. When I was a kid, we always used 3-in-1 oil on our chains, but it only took one application of that stuff to the long dangly chain of a Bike-E to make me realize my error -- oil got all over my leg! I had to remove all the oil with a rag and replace it with wax. I was so sold on wax that once when I took my bike to a small-town shop for unrelated work and the well-intentioned mechanic thought my chain looked "dry" and oiled it for me, I made him wipe the oil back off and gave him a lecture!
Anyway, the point is that I now have this stuff on hand and rarely use it for its intended purpose anymore. But it has found a lot of household uses, for most of which it's superior to any alternative I know, because it goes on clean and stays clean and resists water without being slippery to the touch.
- lubricating and water-protecting tools, including between the blades of the reel lawnmower
- silencing hinges of cabinets and doors (the previous owners used graphite, which works loose over time and makes black smudges on the paint)
- loosening sticky doors and windows during humid weather (my father the engineer once used silicone spray for this, and I nearly broke my back when I stepped on the door jamb)
I hope you find it useful, too! It retails for about US$6 for a 4 floz bottle. If you visit http://www.whitelightningco.com you'll find that there are three variants of this product; I tend to just buy the original formula because it's cheaper and I've never had any problems with it.
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