Brief history of the liquid MacGyver: WD40

Ahh the WD40… The next liquid you apply when Holy Water doesn’t work. WD40, liquid equivalent of MacGyver, Swiss Army Knife, Duct tape, and my peni….

Everyone loves this can full of unicorn magic and use it on pretty much anything that moves. This unassuming oil became a legend, a meme.

But not a lot of people know where did it come from and what it stands for. I’m pretty sure you don’t know it as well because you clicked on this post!

WD40 is developed by the American Military during the 50’s. It was meant to be a oil designed to prevent ICBM(Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) from rusting. Every oil they developed failed except for the 40th one. The WD40 stands for “Water Displacement perfected on the 40th try”. Even though it was a top-secret military grade missile oil, staffs started stealing it like it was some sort of office supply. Then they realized that is was pants sh!ttingly good on things other than ballistic missiles. On 1958, the WD40 came to the public.

Since then, people started finding amazing uses of the oil; on door hinges, on terminals, on glasses, on cocaine, on pens, etc. This made the WD40 a go-to oil for people, who don’t know anything about machines, for almost 50 years. During that time, misconceptions (and false hopes) about the WD40 started and I would like correct that. Yes, the WD40 has some greasiness that can be useful for some uses like door hinges. However, WD40 is meant to be a cleaner. It was meant to clean rust and grease and has chemicals that melt plastic products. Therefore, if you apply WD40 on Rubik’s Cube, you are absolutely F^cked. Also, WD40 has a tendency to evaporate on high heat. That’s why you don’t pour WD40 in to your engine.

If you spray some WD40 on to your bicycle wishing it would clean out the rust, it will. But, it will also wipe out all the grease applied on the bike, making it fantesticles and weight reduction bro. Also If you don’t wipe out the WD40, it will become a brown, sticky, dust accumulated mess. So please, no WD40 on bicycles except when you want to remove old grease and re-grease it.

Oh, and if you spray WD40 in to your computer, It will melt some of your components, remove all the grease, make the computer sticky, brown, and even more dust accumulated than before. Use air spray to dust your computer.

Side note, WD40 seems to kill bugs. Not as fast as a dedicated bug spray, but it’ll kill ‘em. However, it’s worse for the environment and your body than a bug spray. So spray it only in emergency.

Now you know the ins and outs of the WD40. Only thing left to do is to google “WD40 life hacks” and get amused.

Kaede out