3 Answers

Water Displacement try #40

It all started in 1953, when a small company of three people, called the Rocket Chemical Company, worked on developing a line of solvents and degreasers that would prevent rust and corrosion for the aerospace industry. They worked in their small laboratory in San Diego, California and tried 40 times until they came up with a water displacing formula that was really good.

WD-40 was used first by Convair to protect the outside of the Atlas Missile from rusting and corroding. It was such a great product that some employees would take a can home to use. After several years, Norman Larsen, the founder of Rocket Chemical Company, started experimenting by putting WD-40 into an aerosol can, thinking there might be some home uses for the product.

It started being sold to the public in 1958. By 1960, the company had almost doubled in size with seven people. Together, they sold around 45 cases a day to hardware and sporting goods stores, delivering them by car. By the next year, they started selling by the truckload. Their first order was used to recondition equipment that had been damaged by water from the rain and flooding from Hurricane Carla.

The WD-40 Company

Rocket Chemical Company was renamed the WD-40 Company, Inc after its only product, in 1969. WD-40 is now a household name, and has many uses including uses in the home, on the farm, in aviation, and manufacturing. By 1993, WD-40 could be found in four out of five households in America.

The WD-40 Big Blast was introduced in 2003. It had a nozzle for spraying a large area quickly and easily. In 2005, the smart straw was created, which offers a small straw for better control of the product which was permanently attached to the can. This attached straw solved the biggest complaint about the product, as people would often lose the straw.

Another improvement came in 2006 with the introduction of the WD-40 No-Mess Pen. It controlled the application of the product and was portable, which made it handier to take with you.

The WD-40 Fan Club grew to 100,000 members, which is a great tribute to this versatile product. In 2009 the WD-40 Trigger Pro was released, which was a non-aerosol product that would work better for industrial uses.

By Your Dictionary

Ever use it for ignition wires?  It works amazingly well, if wires are wet, or even if there are splits in wires, or distributor cap, spray and wait a few minutes, and engine will start like never even wet!  It does disperse water that well...

I heard it is based on fish oil. Can anyone confirm this?