The company can brag that their formulation has a special blend of herbs and spices, but someone who wants to can obviously make their own special formulation and say that theirs is secret too.
More importantly, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And there is nothing particularly special about WD-40's formulation anymore. WD-40 consistently performs worse than nearly any other available penetrating oil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUEob2oAKVs It's a terrible long term lubricant (because it's designed to evaporate, it actually concentrates gunk and grime).
WD-40 themselves have come out with improved "Specialist" formulations that mostly just copy other, superior products.
> The actual ingredients are literally on the safety data sheet
This is an oversimplification, in a way that is likely not obvious to a lot of people on this (software-focused) forum. An SDS does not have to list exact amounts, does not have to disclose some details of how an ingredient or mix of ingredients was processed, and (depending on jurisdiction) may not have to identify some "safe" ingredients at all. Some ingredients may be identified in relatively vague ways, that are sufficient for safety purposes but do not reveal the exact product. As the SDS you linked to says "The specific chemical identity and exact percentages are a trade secret". An SDS is certainly very helpful to reverse-engineering a product, but it doesn't tell you everything.
All that said, yes, the main strength of WD-40 is its marketing and ubiquity, and claims about its secrecy have more to do with marketing than anything practical.
> Some ingredients may be identified in relatively vague ways, that are sufficient for safety purposes but do not reveal the exact product
Where I find this can be fun is that different countries seem to have different requirements for precision. Or just straight up different formulations for the same thing.
The SDS should include all SAFETY relevant information/ingredients for whatever jurisdiction. If the local area doesn't really care if it's hexane or pentane from a safety perspective, they'll likely just be lumped together behind a generic name/cas number.
Hopefully if you sum enough of those SDS across different jurisdictions, the actual list of ingredients will come out. Though I guess it isn't that simple.
I once had a problem with the ignition lock I couldn't turn the key, my mechanic told me that that could happen on a very hot day with that model. "use a lubricant or wait till it's colder" - "Would WD-40 do?" -"Guess so" made it worse. with the help of the AAA (well, the equivalent in my country) and an oil spray I could turn the key, since then I've always an oil spray with me
Had the same problem with my moto (key not turning the lock). Fortunately, there was a car nearby and owner had a spare jug of oil. I put some oil on the key, put it in the ignition lock, waited for 5 minutes, and it started to turn again.
Although I must admin WD-40 helped me in the past opening an old door lock.
I suspect the difference is whether (as with the old door lock) there is no lubricant at all and anything is better than nothing, or whether (as with the ignition key) there is a lubricant there which was designed for the purpose but for some other reason isn't working as intended, and which the WD-40 will displace and replace with something worse. "Fails in hot weather" sounds either like some sort of thermal expansion problem or the intended grease gets too thin to properly lubricate a high-pressure contact area. Or there just isn't enough of it.
I was 2000 km from home (1242 miles) and I was in panic because it was pretty uninhabited place. My bike is 12 years old but I used it in very harsh conditions (dirt, mountains).
Probably should replace the lock but it is so expensive.
In both cases, the real issue is when the oil (eventually all do) oxidizes and ‘gums’. Tight tolerances make it cause worse problems sooner of course, but it’s the same problem eventually.
Putting new fresh oil in it often temporarily fixes it because it dissolves some (or a lot) of the old varnish. Acetone can often do the same thing too, but can also wash the varnish deeper into the mechanism where it turns into really solid ‘plastic’ when the acetone dissolves.
WD-40's advantage is that it's not terrible to get on your skin when you're out working, and it's cheap.
The people who use it are looking for cheap, mostly.
Source: farming. We have many different lubes and penetrating products for when we're in the actual shop, but in the field, nothing beats wd-40 for getting back to work fast, or unsticking some shit when all you have is a hammer and you just know when that fucking bolt comes loose it's going to throw rust and dirt all over your face.
The caveat is use the right one for the right job. There's a meme that if its not moving but its supposed to you need WD-40... well you need Silicone WD-40 or any silicone based oil like for a garage. If you use regular WD-40 in a garage it is a degreaser essentially, and your squeaking goes away momentarily, and then comes back. After I learned this, you have no idea how much silicone WD-40 I had to put in my garage to make the squeaking stop for good.
I'm unsure what your definition of "cheap" is for WD-40 but I find it to be very overpriced. If I need a universal lubricant that is readily available and cheap, I just use used motor oil.
> If I need a universal lubricant that is readily available and cheap, I just use used motor oil.
Why? Used motor oil is, well, used. It contains metal particles from the engine and combustion byproducts, which is why it was replaced in the first place. Granted, most lubrication applications aren't the marvels of precision parts moving at high speed that a modern engine is so can probably make do with poorer oil, but still.
You can buy industrial lubricants in bulk for pretty cheap so that unless you use huge quantities of it, it shouldn't make much difference.
As an aside, my aunt's husband worked more or less his entire career in a heavy truck repair shop. And he had an oil burner heating his house (you can see where this is going, eh?). So he got used engine oil for free, the shop was happy to get rid of it as disposing of it properly cost money. I think burning used engine oil was illegal already back then due to the pollution, and nowadays I think they have some government mandated accounting system to ensure that the same amount of oil is sent to proper recycling as comes in.
You're right about getting industrial lubricants in bulk for cheap. But I don't need 55 gallons of lubricant. I'd never use it all nor do I want to store it.
Used engine oil isn't really suitable for lubricating an engine anymore but it's fine for a temporary lubricant of a drill bit, some random hinge on a gate, or stubborn bushing on a piece of equipment. Engine oil is only really replaced on an engine because at some point it degrades enough that things like oil film bearings in the crankshaft would start to fail. A bushing on something like a small dump trailer doesn't rotate at 2300 rpm.
> You're right about getting industrial lubricants in bulk for cheap. But I don't need 55 gallons of lubricant. I'd never use it all nor do I want to store it.
Well, the corollary to that is that if it's just small case usage then if you buy a 1L bottle of some general purpose lubrication oil for, say, $5, then it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things that the price/L is a lot higher than if you buy an entire drum of the stuff. ;-)
> Used engine oil isn't really suitable for lubricating an engine anymore but it's fine for a temporary lubricant of a drill bit, some random hinge on a gate, or stubborn bushing on a piece of equipment. Engine oil is only really replaced on an engine because at some point it degrades enough that things like oil film bearings in the crankshaft would start to fail. A bushing on something like a small dump trailer doesn't rotate at 2300 rpm.
Fair enough. I guess I just don't see the benefit here vs just having some bottle of cheap unused lubricant. Except if used engine oil is the only thing you happen to have at hand.
The WD in WD-40 stands for "water displacer." It makes water go somewhere else. Secondarily, it is a solvent, and it's great for dissolving glues, like the glue used to affix government-issued tax licenses to automobiles. It's not really a lubricant, but in a pinch it can temporarily function as one.
I like Swiss army knives, but they collect lint and gunk from my pockets. I use WD-40 to dissolve gunk, and to drive out water after an ultrasonic bath, but I lubricate with the light machine oil used for barber's clippers.
It is a blend of oils.
Light oils evaporate (like kerosene does for example), and dissolve thicker oils and grease.
Oils displace water in general and once in the surface pores they prevent water from getting in there again, a mixture containing light oils flows in easier and does that better.
Being predominantly a light oil it is a poor lubricant, but it is better than nothing, and can flow in crevices where thicker stuff would not.
It is really simple and there is no magic.
The name took off as a brand and completely different stuff from the 40th iteration of a Water Displacer formulation is being sold under it as well.
> It's not really a lubricant, but in a pinch it can temporarily function as one.
That's wrong. WD-40 is a literally a lubricant mixed with a solvent that makes it very fluid so it can enter small interstices, the solvent then evaporates quickly, leaving the lubricant in place.
There's not a lot of lubricant in there compared to a pure lubricant, because the solvent takes a significant share of the volume, but it's still a lubricant once the solvent dries up.
It literally says it is a lubricant on the can but you can’t find a thread on the Internet about it without someone saying that. It is a lubricant, just not a very good one for most situations.
I’m not surprised. If your hobbies include things that take you to the DIY corners of Reddit you are exposed daily to the “WD-40 is not a lubricant” morons who cannot be swayed by either reading the can or Googling.
“WD-40 is not a very good lubricant and you should almost always use something else” is a mouthful I guess, but their denial of reality over something so meaningless is always astounding to me.
The unexpected part though, is that I don’t think this is causing people to actually believe that WD-40 is not a lubricant. It’s causing them to post that perhaps.
And it seems like such a strange thing to become emotionally attached to. But these people will sooner die then admit the thing that says it is a lubricant is a lubricant.
>is that I don’t think this is causing people to actually believe that WD-40 is not a lubricant.
Why do you believe this? The vast majority of people commenting on the internet haven't used WD-40 in the past year. Why wouldn't they end up believing a wrong thing that has been confidently stated that they otherwise know nothing about?
People have always loved these factoids, long long before the internet. It was common conversation fodder for upper class folks in history to repeat outright falsehoods as "um actually"s or "You should know"s.
Do you know how many people for whatever reason believe that Columbus believed the earth was round and everyone else thought it was flat, despite all historical evidence being contrary?
Basically "Common consensus is X but I'm super smart and know REAL truth Y" is like the optimal meme shape for the human brain. The biases in our brain will always support such an argument shape, and humans get a reward for relaying that info, correct or not. All our innate and fundamental physiological biases will be triggered by this kind of statement.
IMO the super interesting aspect is the second and third generations of "Um actually" where a previous "um actually" gets further "um actually!"d, and even that gets "um actuallyyyyy"d. I wonder if we will get a cycle at some point!
Some things are lubricants for a little while, until they suddenly become the opposite. Wood glue, for example.
That’s how I would describe the original and most common WD-40 formula: a passable short-term lubricant for quick and dirty jobs, but not a long-term high quality lubricant, like, say, 3-in-1 (graphite) or silicone lubricants.
Adding to the confusion is that WD-40 sells a silicone lubricant that is a much better lubricant for many purposes than the original formula.
You're technically correct, the best kind of correct.
However, if you're looking to lubricate something and have it last for a reasonable time, then WD-40 is a poor choice. However, using WD-40 first to hopefully dissolve contaminants/rust and remove water and then after a quick wipe to remove excess, applying something better such as 3-in-1 or silicone grease etc is a good idea.
The clue is in the name - Water Displacement 40.
If you want a spray on penetrating lubricant, then GT-85 is usually better as it has PTFE included to better lubricate. It still won't last that long though as it'll only make a thin film.
Edit: I've just seen that WD-40 make mention of a bus driver in Asia using WD-40 to remove a python from his bus' under-carriage. If in doubt, spray it with WD-40.
Yeah, it mostly evaporates and only leaves a thin film behind. It's better than nothing if there's no lubricant in place, but will actually make things worse if there is a functional lubricant in place.
I just bought a little bottle I can squeeze from harbor freight. One drop is usually enough. If I need to I can give it a big squeeze and get a bunch out.
Isn't a pretty wide range of products you'd use for this? I guess vegetable oil isn't and it works fine. Fluidfilm I don't think is either. I wear PPE for this reason however.
If you want a clean cheap petroleum oil, chainsaw bar oil will work. Generally I prefer the generic Tractor Supply bar oil because it seems a lot stickier than walmart's version which seems more like hydraulic fluid to me. But either way it is cheap because in a chainsaw 95% of it is just sprayed all over the place anyways.
The last time I bought chainsaw bar oil I think it has added sulfur or something like that. I'm not really sure. It's actually worse to work with than used motor oil. Used motor oil starts out clean & is constantly being filtered in a normal motor.
Might just depend on the brand and luck. Ive always suspected that bar oil was either extra of whatever oil product didn't sell at the time, or an oil product that didn't technically meet spec for another application like hydraulic or transmission or engine oil.
silly goose, everyone knows you have to use fresh lemon juice on motherboards and ssds. the electrolytes from the lemon help speed up and cleanse the circuitry.
Sure, but the difference between one particular formulation of mineral oils and another cannot possibly be that important to the formula.
And even if it were, the recipe was supposedly created by a guy in his shed after only 40 attempts with the technology available 70 years ago. The idea that an R&D team with an entire lab of equipment couldn't recreate or improve the formula if they wanted to in that time seems a bit far fetched.
> WD-40 consistently performs worse than nearly any other available penetrating oil.
The video’s test showed wd-40 worked slightly better than kroil and pb blaster, which all performed in the same range, being not much better than nothing. That’s particularly interesting because of how often kroil/pb come up as recommendations to use instead of wd…
Acetone+atf did better and liquid wrench penetrating fluid did the best, but *nothing* beats heat.
Idk about wd40 but acetone is pretty gnarly. Know what acetone does to your eyes if you get some splashed in them? The same thing it does to everything else.
Home Depot is such a wasteland. One shit brand of every product, and that's it. Row upon row of worthless, crumbly Dap wood filler, for example.
I went there and asked three employees, probably separated in age by a decade each, for household oil. It's as if they didn't even understand the words. We're talking about 20- to 40- or 50-year-old HD employees who don't know WTF 3-in-1 oil is. Incredible.
I strongly prefer going to my local ACE Hardware or True Value Hardware before Lowes or Home Depot. Their prices will tend to be a little bit higher. However they seem to be staffed by people who know what they are doing, and Home Depot and Lowes stopped doing that entirely. I can walk in, ask the old guy working there what he might recommend and he will give me a recommendation.
Lubricant analysis is a commonly available service. It's normally done on lubricating oil for large engines (heavy trucks, locomotives, ships) as a diagnostic tool. The usual tests are mostly to see what properties of the oil or engine are degrading. Full analysis of new oil to validate that it conforms to specification is available.[1]
> If it wasn't eminently obvious, most of these "secrecy" programs are marketing fluff.
Yep, and equally obvious is that keeping some piece of paper in a bank vault for PR doesn't change the fact the "secret" formula still needs to be turned into millions of gallons of product in factories around the world, so people in supply chain procurement and manufacturing processes have to have practical knowledge of how to make it.
It was originally designed to displace water for corrosion resistance and cleaning. (Edit I think it was originally used for de-icing in an aerospace context?) You probably will never need a single can of WD-40 in your life. Try PB Blaster or Liquid Wrench!
3-in-1 oil. PB blaster and liquid wrench are more for breaking apart rusted together bolts and pins and stink too much to want to use in your house. You really don't want any kind of spray can for door hinges because door hinges need less than a single drop of oil to be fully lubricated.
Petroleum oils aren't really good for hinges (which I assume is what is squeaking) for a variety of reasons. If you use wd-40, you find that the squeak goes away and quickly returns, sometimes worse. The reason for this is that WD-40 will wash out any grease or oil in the hinge as well as attract whatever dirt or dust is around, both worsening the squeak.
3-in-1 (in the dropper can) is a good, effective lubricant but it has an important drawback that is shares with WD-40, it will wash out any grease already in there as well as attract dirt. 3-in-1 (tin dropper bottle) is great for light mechanical duty like a bike chain or as cutting oil and even some gears, but it wont work well as a deck lube, way oil, or hinge grease because of its very light weight.
Lithium grease (sometimes called White Grease) is excellent for door hinges because it is dry, wont drop, will spread instead of being pushed out like oil (even 3-in-one), and lasts forever. Since its pretty dang thick and not really a liquid even in the spray version, it also wont drip onto your carpet as readily while you apply it. Get the spray version, protect the paint behind the hinge with a towel or a piece of printer paper(TIP: Cut the paper %85 of the way in half long-way (hotdog fold) and slide the paper over the hinge as you spray it with the door closed and from a bit of an angle, pay more attention to the top part, just under the head of the hinge pin. That should be more than enough. Spray-on oil would soak the paper, lithium grease won't so this is another benefit of lithium)) and give it a couple squirts while working the door. Wipe the excess off and enjoy years of squeak-free operation!
It is perfect for light-duty applications where the lube sticking to its lubricating point is important. White Lithium Grease is [Edit, its Lithium soap? whatever that is.] and mineral oil, sticks to metal excellent, and is compatible with almost all bushing rubber.
You can also literally just spray a rubber or plastic part with Lithium Grease (or just silicone oil, which is cleaner and much better for rubber and plastics but IMPOSSIBLE to clean, so DO NOT SPILL and wear gloves. Seriously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30286616 ) to protect/shine them up. It will work totally well on your tires, but I don't like that idea because it might fling onto your paint or transfer to your rotor if you touch it while swapping wheels. Seems it might work well to prevent dry-rot during storage, now that I think about it. I feel like basically nobody does this though.
Thank you for this opportunity. I had a lot of fun thinking about one of my favorite lubricants, which is of course silicone, and I expect that it will add much value to your life!
I'm not shooting WD40 or dripping oil onto a hinge, garage door part, etc, etc because it's the best. I'm doing it because I can do that a hundred times before coming close to the time and effort expenditure required to disassemble the item and lube it with grease.
“WD-40 performs worse than oils” because WD-40 is not an oil, it’s not even a lubricant. It’s a water protector.
many make mistake using WD40 for lubricating everything because it’s mainly for water related applications. There are flavours of WD40 that are more “oil”.
A coworker was asking if someone had some WD40 they could bring in because his chair was squeaking. "I do, but I'll bring in something else for your chair." Another coworker asked "Are you one of those guys that believes WD40 isn't a lubricant?" to which I answered "Absolutely."
In artillery and similar massive pressure applications are used chlorine based lubricants.
These have the ultimate performance as the chlorine firmly attaches to the metal, but it also destroys the surface immediately (which is not a problem in an one shot application).
Would you argue that these are not lubricants because of that?
> It's a terrible long term lubricant (because it's designed to evaporate, it actually concentrates gunk and grime).
I recently read that WD40 isn't actually a lubricant but a lubricant remover. So as you write you'd use it to remove gunk but then follow it up with an actual lubricant.
On the last two bottles of WD40 I came across (im Germany) I checked the back and it indeed said that it's not a lubricant but a lubricant remover.
(Disclaimer: can't read the article past the intro where it does call it a lubricant...)
Yes, it's more correctly labelled as a solvent. Part of their marketing secret is that their product is inherently "addictive" in a way - it can loosen up things quickly but also make them seize more quickly. Which gives users a sense that they constantly need to re-apply WD-40 when most of what you are doing is cleaning up the mess of the previous application.
> WD-40 themselves have come out with improved "Specialist" formulations that mostly just copy other, superior products.
We all know that there is something better for the job than WD-40, its value comes from its convenience, affordability, availability, brand recognition, and the number of cases where it is "good enough".
The "specialist" brand is what its name imply, specialist products, all of them better for a specific application, but none of them as universal as the original. The original formulation is not magic, but it is the one we are familiar with and it works well enough when you don't have anything better for your specific job.
Once you know that WD stands for “water displacer”, everything makes sense. It’s an adequate short term lubricant but its real purpose is to separate water from sensitive materials.
It was also not really intended as a lubricant but as something to get water off equipment and mechanical components. “WD” stands for “water displacement.”
As you say, there are much better lubricants out there.
The SDS here may not be sufficient to deformulate as many of the CAS# reported are generic and represent a broad class of compounds. Probably easier to just go run it on a GC.
>The actual ingredients are literally on the safety data sheet:
The only CAS number listed in that data sheet that doesn’t return Molecular Formula: Unspecified is carbon dioxide. The other 98% of the formulation is just sort of vague references to petroleum distillates.
Bike chain lubes are mostly terrible, they are meant to work properly for maybe a few hundred miles assuming they were applied to a properly cleaned chain, properly applied and the weather cooperates. They all wear chains and chain rings quickly unless you are very good about cleaning and relubing your chain. 3in1 is still king unless you are racing.
I would expect WD-40 to work fairly well because it cleans the chain and gets the filth out of the links, filth is a big part of drive train wear and we really don't need much in the way of lube as long as things are kept clean and rust free so the links move smoothly.
> I would expect WD-40 to work fairly well because it cleans the chain and gets the filth out of the links
That it does, but it doesn't leave much lubricant behind, which you need for a properly functioning chain. As you know, you want something that will get between the pins and rollers and stay there, minus the grime that would turn it into grinding paste. Which is probably why some people swear by wax, but that sounds like a giant hassle.
That's not really true. There's lots of research out there showing that waxed chains result in less power loss over longer time compared to no lubrication and most other lubricants (both bicycle specific ones and more general ones). Now waxing your chain is admittedly annoying, but it does work.
3in1 is actually bike specific, it fell out of favor with the rise of the modern bike lubes. Wax collects dust and dirt, especially when friction or the sun cause it to soften, which turns your waxed chain into a drive train eater and will cause power loss. More for the track than the road.
Wax is great for road riding. I ride in Auckland where it’s wet half the time (all the time this summer). I re-wax every 400 or so km. It’s clean running and beautiful compared to the expensive oils I was using, and lasts longer.
Wear appears to be down too.
The reduction in grease and dirty chain makes is so nice.
It is much better than the expensive oils, but not as good as old fashioned 3in1. The expensive chain lubes are mostly meant for racing, they give you the least friction by a long shot but don't last and most of them do not take well to reapplying without cleaning, you end up with grinding paste.
Wax holds up quite well against water but does hold grit and tends to deposit it on chainrings, sprockets, and pulleys, and it wears them quicker than 3in1 will. Wax shares the downside of PTFE, you need to clean off the old before applying more or things start wearing fast, which is not an issue for everyone. It is nice and clean.
Here in the winter of northern Minnesota, one good snowy ride with the road salt and sand will strip wax. Not that you would want to use wax in this sort of cold even if the road salt and sand were not an issue, wax gets stiff and brittle in the sorts of cold we get. I am an everyday rider and bike is my mode of transportation for everything, in this climate I need ease of reapplication or I will be replacing chainrings yearly.
What sort of temperature are you getting down to? Any special gear needed for you or the bike?
Here it’s never below about 5C and maxes at about 30C. It’s mild. The rain is the only thing that can be a lot. The most was about 250mm in a day, which is exceptional, but sudden, very downpours are common.
We can go from 30C to 5C in a couple minutes with a wind change, the weather here keeps your toes. We always get down into the -20sF with another 20 degrees thrown in by the windchill and can spend weeks at that, 2014/15 we spent 3 months in the -20s. Coldest I have biked in is -47 before the windchill. Windchill is tricky on a bike since you make your own wind, it is considerably colder biking than just standing or walking in such conditions.
Gear has mostly been a move away from cartridge bearings, you are lucky if those will last the winter. Old fashioned cup and cone bearings hold enough grease to get you through most winters without having to repack. For the messy and icy weather I try to ride my fixed gear, does not matter if the brakes freeze up, very simple drive train (single piece crank!) I can just ignore all winter other than oil the chain and its 1/8" chain sucks up a lot more oil than the skinny 10+ speed chains and sheds filth much better as well. 3in1 helps a lot as well, it is pretty good about shedding filth. For the brutal cold, when things are dry and for most errands it is generally my touring bike, its granny gear is nice when the grease starts to thicken in the cold and high rpm pedaling does a good job of keeping you warm but keeping the derailers working well even with friction shifters can be a chore.
Only specialty gear I have is studded BMX pedals, they do a great job of keeping your feet on the pedals and are footwear agnostic. Not the best pedal choice for a fixed gear, they can really shred your shins.
Distance is fairly variable, minimum is 4 miles, a busy day can be 50 miles. When we get extended bitter cold I tend to start running errands before work since I can break up the distances and stop and warm up instead of the shorter straight shot, that will be about 10 miles a day.
It is not as bad as most people think as long as you get out there everyday and avoid getting in the habit of not doing stuff because it is too cold. That first -10 day is brutal but that -10 is not so bad after a -20 day and feels almost warm after -30. So I convince myself that a beer would taste really good and bike to the bar in -30 just to get out there because the longer you go without riding in that sort of cold the harder it is to get back out there, do it daily and it is easy to remember that it is just a minor discomfort until you get the blood flowing.
> It's a terrible long term lubricant (because it's designed to evaporate, it actually concentrates gunk and grime).
You're not supposed to use it (and similar products) like that tho. You're supposed to use it to flush out the gunk and grime by dissolving it, all it is supposed to do is to make stuff that doesn't move, move, enough to fix it now and maybe prepare a bit for putting proper lubricant.
Like, it's not fault of their formula that people are using it wrong
I thought it was mostly meant to protect against rust due to moisture in the ambient air so I put it on tools in my basement. But if it's evaporating, maybe it's not so great at that.
But yea, like Coke or McDonalds, the brand is probably worth far more than the secrecy of the recipe.
There is a product called BOESHIELD T-9 which actually does, reportedly, work for this. It was suggested in some thread years ago and I got a can, it appears to work well enough keeping rust creep off my ancient drill press table.
Great to see Boeshield in this thread - so much of what's happening in this thread is the wrong product for a particular application. As you point out, Boeshield is a great product for protecting cast iron
Boeshield has a tendency to increase friction though unless buffed really hard.
Lanolin based coatings (fluid film, et al) don't have this issue.
Of course, i live in a super-humid place these days, so i have to control humidity anyway. This doesn't stop rust, but it means i can worry a lot less about which coatings and how often.
My stepdad was a drywall finisher, those crews washed the drywall off their tools with water, then got the water off (prevented rust) with WD40.
Difference being, they applied it every day, and specifically to prevent rust because the tools were wet. But man did they love it. Went through a couple cans per week I bet.
I learned the whole "not a lubricant" lesson the hard way in 2009 when my idle pulley was squeaking on a long drive. I stopped and bought a spare and sprayed it down with WD-40.
Forty miles from my destination, it seized. Sadly, not knowing it was reverse thread, I stripped it with a breaker bar and had to have the truck towed.
WD-40 is great for cleaning, particularly threads, but also metal surfaces. It generally doesn't eat plastic, isn't a crazy skin or respiratory irritant.
I use it a ton to clean off threads of stuff exposed to the elements. Get dirt, old oil/grease, water, and any grit or rust or other things out of threads so they tighten properly and don't get jammed up with stuff.
If something I'm working on is dirty, it gets a spray of WD-40 and a rag to help not foul up the inside of whatever I'm opening.
It's garbage in the same way that the Bourne shell is garbage. People can pontificate 19 replies deep in the comments about the right way to express a problem using sum types in Rust, but sometimes you just want to check the script in and move on.
Same deal here: there is value to having a product that stops squeaks, cleans rust and de-goo's gunk on the supermarket shelf. 70% of the time, snobbery is just snobbery. The world runs on Getting Stuff Done.
WD-40 works great for its intended purpose. The problem is that they've marketed it the way that the dad from My Big Fat Greek Wedding raves about Windex. It's not a good lubricant, as many people have noted, as it evaporates and concentrates contaminants. It's not a good protective coating because again, it evaporates. What it is good at is drying off metal parts, and as a mediocre and cheap rust remover.
If I accidentally leave some pliers or my socket set out in the rain, I soak them with WD-40, scrub off the rust with a wire brush, and wipe off the excess with a towel. It does a decent job of preventing further damage. If I have some rusty parts sometimes I'll throw them in a glass jar, soak 'em with WD-40, shake them around, let them sit for a day or so, and then scrub them with a wire brush. Gets most of the rust off.
If you want a lubricant, just buy the correct one for the job. Silicone oil, lithium grease, graphite, all will do a better job in the long run than WD-40 if you use them in their intended role. My goto "universal lube" personally is "Super Lube", a PTFE-based lubricant which is NSF rated for incidental contact with food and dielectric.
When I was a kid some family friends used WD40 on their joints - arthritic knees and such. Church friends, actually, which I mention only because stuff like that probably helped me reject the religion as readily as I did.
A web search for "WD40 arthritis" shows that there are still people doing this.
There isn't one. I guess the actual reason I mentioned it was I felt weird calling them family friends when they weren't, but I also felt weird calling them church friends for no stated reason, so I added a little personal anecdote about it, which now I think I shouldn't have.
But since I did, lemme clarify, it was a pretty out-there fundamentalist church that I'm glad to have escaped early, and my comment is just that seeing people there do stuff that I couldn't make sense of, even totally unrelated stuff like this, probably helped undermine any sense of authority they had in my mind.
>If you want a lubricant, just buy the correct one for the job.
I use WD-40 exclusively as the lube to mount rubber tires onto wheels. I've found it's the best choice for that task. The wax paste tire lube is inferior. I'm just reaching for the WD-40 anyway to remove the wax paste residue on the wheel rim.
It’s like python. It’s not the best at anything but it’s a decent all arounder. Not everything that’s practical and useful has to be super specialized + best in class.
I've grown to dislike the smell of 3-in-1. It's not awful, but once it gets on the skin you smell it for hours, even after washing.
I've started using M-Pro 7 gun oil for the same tasks. Not that it solves world hunger or anything, by I always have some around, I don't end up smelling volatile organics for the rest of the day.
3-in-1 is pretty unpleasant, I agree. I use it as a cutting fluid for drilling steel mostly and it's not any nicer when hot. Perhaps I will try some of your gun oil.
Best smelling shop liquid I've yet encountered is Marvel Mystery Oil. It's amazing.
Pluses and minuses as cutting fluid. It's not sulfurized or chlorinated, like actual (and lower cost) cutting fluid. On the other hand, the vapors are non-toxic, being mostly polyalphaolefin synthetic oil, and it likely is better than 3-in-1 as cutting fluid for adhoc use, if only due to significantly lower vapor pressure and higher flash point.
FYI: none of the "penetrating oils" actually work. They don't wick into threads on stuck fasteners. Heat is the only thing that really works. Causes expansion of the metal followed by shrinking which mechanically disrupts the oxide jamming whatever is stuck.
WD-40 is great for machining aluminum, cleaning grease/other oils, and if you want a mild temporary lubricant not something that will make a massive mess or irritate your skin.
I'd be very interested to know how they produce it if the formula is so tightly held. At some point people need to be purchasing the ingredients and mixing them together.
It's possible to separate out these tasks such that no single person or group has every needed piece of the puzzle.
The Carthusian monks who produce Chartreuse (a collection of herbal liqueurs popular for use in cocktails) have been producing it and protecting the secret 130 ingredient recipe for over 400 years successfully. At any given time no more than three of the monks hold the entire recipe, and yet they have a company they have formed to execute most of the production without the secret being leaked.
The designated monks coordinate production and are involved in QC, as well as developing new blends for special releases, but much production is done by paid employees who do not know the complete recipe.
I suspect though that a lot of the secret behind Chartreuse isn't just the recipe, but the actual sourcing of the ingredients.
Presumably the recipe relies on very unique and location-specific herbs to the alps. Part of the justification for limiting supply is concern for the environment and sustainability of their production. The order also had to cease production while they were evicted.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the key ingredients weren't wild foraged or at least very unique species.
You could say the same about cryptographic signatures where each party only knows a part of the key, yet those all work fine. You could probably piece together the formula by a sum of some employees and some external suppliers if everyone broke their NDA, but if people keep their word, your factories could just as well see shipments of "Ingredient A" and the worker only knows how much to add to each batch.
Real life ain't abstract math. You have MSDS 'mulmen mentioned, but I also can't imagine any factory being able to just mix shipments of ingredients "A", "B", "C", etc. without the actual content being documented on purchase orders, OSHA reviews, etc. You may want to operate in secret, but at the very least, the taxman really wants to know if you aren't skimping on your dues, so there should be plenty of relevant documents in circulation.
Since they're operating in Europe it's trivial to split manufacturing into 3+ places that are within an hour drive but also in 3+ distinct jurisdictions that are part of the same free trade zone, so no tax authority can have a full picture either. And you'll never get, say, French and German tax authorities to voluntarily talk to each other.
I do recall some episode of "How its made" or similar of a food factory discussing some mix they were doing for a fast food chain, IIRC, that involved "two separate bags of spices, each sourced from a separate supplier for secrecy". That's about the level I'd expect out of such a scheme.
Exactly what I was thinking. I mean how can you produce something, esp. in bulk, when the exact ingredients and quantities aren't known? Assuming it is made in a typical factory, the machines would have to be programmed and that would typically mean someone has to know. I wonder if they split the knowledge over several different groups so a group only knows a single piece? Hmm....
This is how they do it. There was a documentary about coca-cola and they explained that they completely separated the supply pipeline. Operators manipulate unlabelled sources coming from separate parts of the company.
It's a myth that Coca-Cola is a closely held secret, though. Any food flavoring specialist can reconstruct the flavor of Coke almost exactly.
A few years ago I (not a specialist!) made lots of batches of OpenCola, which is based partly on the original Pemberton recipe, and it comes so close that nobody could realistically tell the difference. If anything, it tastes better, because I imagine Coke doesn't use fresh, expensive essential oils (like neroli) for everything.
The tricky piece that nobody else can do is the caffeine (edit: de-cocainized coca leaf extract) derived from coca leaves. Only Coke has the license to do this, and from what I gather, a tiny, tiny bit of the flavour does come from that.
> If anything, it tastes better, because I imagine Coke doesn't use fresh, expensive essential oils (like neroli) for everything.
I've not participated in Cola tasting, but assuming fresher tastes better isn't really a safe assumption. Lots of ingredients taste better or are better suited for recipies when they're aged. I've got pet chickens and their eggs are great, but you have to let them sit for many days if you want to hard boil them, and I'd guess baking with them may be tricky for sensitive recipies.
Anyway, even if it does taste better for whatever that means, that's not meeting the goal of tasting consistently the same as Coke, in whichever form. If you can't tell me if it's supposed to taste like Coke from a can, glass bottle, plastic bottle, or fountain, then you've told me all I need to know about how close you've replicated it.
I think my point flew past you: If I can make a 99% clone of Coke in my kitchen, any professional flavoring pro will do it 100%. The supposed secret recipe isn't why Coke is still around, it's the brand.
And by fresh I do mean: The OpenCola is full of natural essential oils (orange, neroli, cinnamon, lime, lavender, lemon, nutmeg), and real natural flavor oils have a certain potent freshness you don't get in a mass-produced product.
I'm merely making the point that there's nothing magical about the recipe. Anyone wanting to truly replicate it for mass production can simply use commodity flavor compounds.
Coca leaves contain various alkaloids, but not caffeine. Coca Cola gets its caffeine from (traditionally) kola nuts, and (today, presumedly) the usual industrial sources.
You had better luck than I did, I tried my hand at making Open Cola, put around $300 into it (between the carbonization rig and essential oils primarily), and while I'd say it was "leaning towards coke", I would also definitely say that nobody would mistake it for coke.
I noticed it was incredibly important to get the recipe mixture exactly right, because even a slight measurement error resulted in weirdly wrong flavors.
I did my OpenCola experiment in the company office together with a colleague, and we ended up hooking it up to a beer tap, with a canister of CO2. I'm proud to say the whole office really got into it.
Ive heard from others that this is how defense software engineering goes.
You write code for a certain part/spec that could go on a number of things (missle, airplane, etc). You dont know if your code will be used in a missile or not.
Considering how complex some software can get, it's more surprising there are people who can hold enough of the whole design in their heads that they have a good idea of what's going on in general.
A fairly obvious solution (IMO) would be to have multiple people buying the ingredients, some even buying unused ingredients. That would cover purchasing.
The mixing, again, spreading it out, have factory A mix ingredients x, y, and z, factory B mix ingredients Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and factory C mix factory A and B's mixtures.
The title is clickbait though, he admits near the end it is not in fact a perfect replication. I could feel this of course, long before even starting to watch it. Still, upsetting because otherwise it’s an entertaining video.
The main ingredient he is missing is coca leaf. I used to buy Mate de Coca tea from Peru/Boliva no problem. It's a decocanized coca leaf tea. Shame he didn't hunt around or try harder to get it.
He said his first order of decocanised cocoa leaf was seized at the border. I can see that discouraging trying again, esp when he's trying to make something others could reproduce.
He did find a pretty good substitute for the primary cocoa leaf ingredient though. Also, what he made was virtually indistinguishable in the taste tests. One person said that his tasted closer to the 2L of coke than the can of coke did, which suggests the final bit could just be carbonation level of the soda stream.
That was our theory in the office when we taste tested the various cokes. The favorite by far was kosher for Passover coke. At first we thought it was the sugar vs. HFCS, but bottled Mexican coke didn’t fare as well — blind most people thought Coke Zero (which is my favorite coke) was Mexican Coke.
My theory was that the carbonation was perfect and the product was fresher, as the bottler requires rabbinical supervision and they probably make it for a limited run.
There is essentially zero chemical difference whatsoever in sugar vs corn syrup coke. sucrose disassociates in the presence of an acid into glucose+fructose simple sugars. Just being carbonated will disassociate the sucrose.
> sucrose disassociates in the presence of an acid into glucose+fructose simple sugars
Which tastes different from pure fructose. If you want to taste them side by side, you can absolutely tell the difference. (If you've done any endurance sports, you know what I mean.)
Once digested I agree that the health effects are suspect. But tastewise, fructose, sucrose and glucose are distinct.
I'm confused by your reply. GP's point is that they both dissociate into simple sugars, and thus it doesn't matter what the source is. And your response says correctly that sucrose tastes different than both fructose and glucose, but I don't see how this contradicts him. There is (practically) no sucrose left.
Are you perhaps thinking that "high fructose corn syrup" is predominantly fructose? The name is confusing, but it actually means that it is high in fructose relative to normal corn syrup, not that fructose predominates. HFCS is usually pretty close to 50:50 fructose to glucose, just like sucrose is:
How much fructose is in HFCS?
The most common forms of HFCS contain either 42 percent or 55 percent fructose, as described in the Code of Federal Regulations (21 CFR 184.1866), and these are referred to in the industry as HFCS 42 and HFCS 55. The rest of the HFCS is glucose and water. HFCS 42 is mainly used in processed foods, cereals, baked goods, and some beverages. HFCS 55 is used primarily in soft drinks.
I made no assertion about the taste of sugar vs. corn syrup. There are a number of products marketed as "Coke", and those products have different flavor profiles. Some use sucrose, some HFCS. It might be formulation, it might be packaging, freshness or bottling methodology. Maybe they don't tweak formulas for limited run products or in local markets like Mexico. I have no idea.
Even with the standard fountain formulation, there is a different/better flavor at McDonald's because of the standards they apply to each part of the supply chain. In a few weeks, depending on where you live, there will be two liter bottles of coke with a yellow cap. That's kosher for passover -- try it.
Sorta, it’s a mix of mixtures of molecules so you also need to consider the makeup of whatever compound it’s made with (but it’s probably something dumb like kerosene).
Reality is you’d want to make something with similar physical characteristics and call it a day. Kinda like how we don’t bother with hplc on gasoline, you just fill your car with something that meets the specs and get on with life
To some extent. There are limitations on the technique, including, but not limited to, not determining the relative concentrations and not detecting all components. The WSJ article actually links to an older Wired article about doing gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy on WD-40 and the results: https://www.wired.com/2009/04/st-whatsinside-6/
The components are on the MSDS (albeit only the CAS codes not the specific chemical), only the percentages seem to be a trade secret? Basically a light carrier oil mixed with kerosene-esque solvent. I almost feel the secrecy is part of the marketing ploy, since w-40 in particular isn't the "best" tool for any job (there are better standalone degreasers and penetrating lubricants). No one who cares enough about the exact composition would bother using wd-40 in the first place.
Knowing all the molecules in it might be only a minor step towards actually making it, especially since some inputs of production might not be present in the final product.
It probably wouldn't be that hard. This mystique is mostly marketing. I mean it's not like WD-40 has no competitors on the market. It might not even be the best.
As an alternative for better lubrication of two-metals-rubbing together (door hinges, simple tools, etc) I use Tri-Flow because it has PTFE that stays as a white powder. If you have a stuck bolt, PBBlaster wicks into the threads better. And if you have sticker glue, use GooGone.
It or its variants probably contains PFAS which probably makes it hazardous to spray. Also, I suspect that breathing its ambient vapor while spraying it is is bad for the body and brain.
Canola oil works in practice for basic tasks, but requires routine reapplication.
WD-40 classic does not contain PFAS. Which is not to say you should breath it in.
> Canola oil works super well in practice without any of these risks.
I cannot advise enough against using canola oil for most lubrication purposes. It's biodegradable and will break down (good for some applications) but for the most part oil breaking down is a bad thing if you want to keep something well maintained. It would gum up over time, start reacting chemically with dust or other chemicals, and potentially even cause damage. Especially if you lubricate to prevent rust.
Also, in the context of breaking loose bolts, oil alone doesn't have any capacity to break up or penetrate rust.
I have used it on doors for years with zero trouble. Granted, I have to reapply every four months. It is infinitely safer than the toxic brew that is WD40.
Do not use canola oil for most lubrication tasks. You should almost always be using lithium grease.
Spray on white lithium grease works for most "architectural" or furniture uses (ex: door hinges, gas springs on chairs, garage door rails and chain, etc).
For anything constantly moving (ex: gearboxes or bearings) you want a more viscous lithium grease (ex: red n tacky or lucas xtra/green).
But in pretty much every situation (on land) you want to be using a form of lithium grease if you want to actually keep the interface lubricated.
I think that outside of narrow engineering circles, most use of lubrication is based on a mixture of trial-and-error, folklore, and marketing. One reason is that most lubrication needs are actually quite low performance, and you could probably use practically anything. People use WD-40 because they have it around, and this adds to the list of its uses.
It's essentially a mixture of mineral spirits and oil. Used as a lubricant, the mineral spirits evaporate, leaving the oil behind. It might be enough oil to keep a mechanism working for a while, or it might not be.
It's a "water displacer." Oil displaces water, who knew?
It comes in a spray can, so you can get it into things like a bike shift lever. And you can get the over-spray on things like the garage floor.
Bicyclists tend to get really worked up about WD-40.
I really don't get how most comments don't get that "wd" stands for "water displacement". I buy and use it not for lubrication but for eliminating moisture and cleaning. What would you use in a distributor? Motor oil or penetrit?
Maybe I'm just a fuddy-duddy but my eyes about rolled out of my head reading this. The same article could probably be written about multiple companies and it'd be just as uninteresting. It's my understanding that there isn't anything special about WD-40, as in alternatives exist that can work just as well. Now, I think WD-40 is a brand name that can be trusted to work well more often than most alternatives but that is more about process than recipe (I would think).
I've long thought that every restaurant/bakery/etc could publish their full internal cookbooks and not see a drop in sales. People don't buy it because they are incapable (or think they are) of making something, they do it because it's faster, they don't have all the ingredients, they don't have the time, they don't have the skill, the list goes on. I bet I could give the instructions, the equipment, and the ingredients to people and they'd still choose to buy it. Sure, you might lose a tiny bit of sales to "home bakers" [0] but I think it'd be eclipsed by people that saw/read/heard about the cookbook (maybe never even saw it) and that was enough "marketing" to get them in the door.
I've always found "secret knowledge" to be a little silly. A sort of, security through obscurity. Knowing a recipe doesn't make you special, being able to build/run a company around it and make it consistently good does.
[0] I love to cook, I sometimes like making copy-cat recipes. I cannot think of a copy-cat recipe that I made more than 2-3 times. While it's fun to do, it's never exactly the same, and I also believe that "food tastes better when someone else makes it". Also it can sometimes be just-as or more expensive to make some food items due to needing a bunch of ingredients that they don't sell in exactly the quantity the recipe calls for.
> I've long thought that every restaurant/bakery/etc could publish their full internal cookbooks and not see a drop in sales.
Makes me think of all those stories[0] employing a "secret recipe" plot. Some baking/cooking recipe (or a whole cookbook), written down by grandma and passed down in the family, or such, is critical to the fate of a bakery/restaurant/Thanksgiving dinner/etc.; predictably, it gets stolen, and suddenly the meal everyone loves cannot be made anymore.
It's a dumb idea if you think about it for more than a second - even the worst home cook will naturally memorize all the ingredients and steps after using the recipe more than couple times. If the process involves more than one person, there's bound to be copies and derivative documents (e.g. shopping lists) around, too. Recipes are good checklists and are particularly helpful when onboarding new cooks, but losing an actively used one isn't a big deal - it can be recreated on the spot by those who already know it by heart.
--
[0] - One I've watched recently was Hoodwinked! - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoodwinked!. Great movie, but out of all the absurdities in it, by far the biggest one was the whole "stealing recipes to put bakeries out of business" plot driver.
Recently Fallow posted video on how they made demi glace. Bit specialized ingredients probably if you ordered far enough from butcher doable. Bigger issue was the larger scale and time effort.
I really feel main difference is the scale and then getting right ingredients and then actually using all of them. Later making thing somewhat cost effective.
I have no doubt any serious company couldn't make something like WD-40. Not exactly same stuff, but in general close enough. Probably close enough that if you labeled over nearly all users would not notice.
Nothing gets gearhead nerds going more than arguing about lubricants and gas. Ask the wrong group of dudes about when to change your oil at breakfast, and they will still be going at dinner.
Not surprisingly, that's just a mixture of mostly liquid alkanes, although "mineral oil" is amusingly imprecise --- I guess they just mean everything heavier than C14 (tetradecane). The dimethyl naphthalene might be an impurity.
I don't know if that's really fair. It's much more rare for HN link posts to have bodies and this one is a single line of the gift link. Yes, that gift link works today but it's also completely reasonable to post the archive link.
WSJ 'gift links' often do not actually work. I don't know whether they have a "usage count" or a 'good for x time' expiration, but more often than not they don't work (beyond "gifting" a paywall).
I thought it was a good lawnmower carb boost to start one, until I used the real "start your lawnmower with one spray" and then I realised, WD40 was possibly just a placebo and gave my tired pull arm time to recover.
A bakery I used to go to had highly excellent marzipan puff pastry. When the bakery closed because the master baker who owned it went into retirement, I asked for the recipe so I might be able to replicate the enjoyment. The answer was that he will take this recipe to his grave. I'd call that a secret.
In the PNW at least there's a cult application of WD-40 as a fish attractant (applied to lures). Not sure if anyone's done any sort of controlled trial but lots of folks have sworn by it for decades.
It requires a special key, nondisclosure agreements, passage through a bank vault and, typically, an executive title. The drinks don’t flow, members don’t rub elbows with notable people and chefs aren’t filling plates with tasty bites. The only perk is knowing the secrets of the world’s most famous lubricant. And yet, for those in the know, there’s no greater privilege.
It is absolutely a lubricant - it is a combination "lubricant, rust preventive, penetrant and moisture displacer". Whether it's the correct or best lubricant for many applications is iffy, but that doesn't mean it isn't a lubricant!
From personal experience, I can count on one hand the number of times that wd40 (edit: at least the canonical formulation) has been the best lubricant for a given application.
yeah, most of my use-cases for classic wd-40 have always been getting things unstuck rather than long-term lubrication. The lubricating action tends to evaporate with the solvent(s) and leaves, as you've pointed out, the famous gummy residue that is good for keeping moisture out but not at being a lubricant
Is it? Please explain and provide sources. Just because it feels like a lubricant and maybe advertised as a lubricant it might not actually be a lubricant.
> Just because it feels like a lubricant and maybe advertised as a lubricant
Not the parent comment, but sometimes comments are so outrageous it makes me laugh.
Like what else do you even want at that point?
Source that you can put gas in your car? That pop tarts are food? Like yes, it's advertised as food, I can tell it's food, I've eaten it - but where is your source for it being food other than all that?
Point being, if you're using it as a lubricant, you're using the wrong stuff. What it leaves behind isn't very useful as a lubricant... unlike, you know, an actual lubricant.
Myth: WD-40 Multi-Use Product is not really a lubricant.
Fact: While the “W-D” in WD-40 stands for Water Displacement, WD-40 Multi-Use Product is a unique, special blend of lubricants. The product’s formulation also contains anti-corrosion agents and ingredients for penetration, water displacement and soil removal.
"WD-40 Multi-Use Product is a...blend of lubricants"
How does the author of that fun facts page know this for sure? I just heard that only executives get to see the ingredient list. Is this fun fact author an executive?
Sure, and sand is a lubricant in the right scenario. This of course completely misses the point.
Anyone who actually use wd40 will eventually notice it not only has poor ability to stick around under load, but also likes to oxidize, forming a varnish or horrible goo depending on how thick it was left on. While this doesn’t matter (or is even desirable) for loosening a bolt, it’s a poor choice on tools, hinges, etc.
If long term lubrication is needed, then people should just use an appropriate grease or a non-oxidating* oil meant for staying around and lubricating.
*Plant based oils generally contain high amounts of polyunsaturated fats, which love to oxidize. Great for seasoning cast iron, but bad for other things. The goo/lacquer you get on kitchen pans and around the oven is oxidized fats linking together.
There are rare exceptions to plant based oils being a bad idea for lubrication, involving genetic modification to produce mostly monounsaturated fats and further processing, like with alg’s “go juice”.
Yeah WD-40 is good for cleaning up old grease or loosing up seized mates more than anything but pretty much as soon as you get it moving you want to clean it up, let it boil off, and then replace it with lithium grease.
Yep, there are lubricants listed in the ingredients, but the stuff it actually leaves behind when the volatiles are gone is mostly good at displacing water (as the article points out.) Very little in the way of friction reduction.
It also makes a superb bug killer, especially in combination with a barbecue lighter.
Interesting use case. lol. I use it to remove sticker residue from the insufferable companies that use stickers on their products attached with super-glue like adhesive.
Using the sticker itself, along with some patience, usually does the trick. But yes, every time I bump into the worst offenders I always feel tempted to just keep sending their product back as damaged until I get a sticker that comes off clean.
I hate that. In particular, there is a special place in hell reserved for businesses which put those stickers on books. It's almost impossible to get some of those stickers off without leaving residue or harming the paper.
I am not sure why you are being downvoted but you are absolutely right: it is even in the name (WD stands for 'Water Displacement'). My reaction to this article was a huge: 'why?'. WD-40 is at best mediocre at everything it is used for. Wurth makes much more capable compounds for the came purposes. Their penetrating oil is unmatched. I guess as part of the popular culture, WD-40 has its value but I am not sure its chemical properties are all that unique.
The actual ingredients are literally on the safety data sheet: https://files.wd40.com/pdf/sds/mup/wd-40-multi-use-product-a...
The company can brag that their formulation has a special blend of herbs and spices, but someone who wants to can obviously make their own special formulation and say that theirs is secret too.
More importantly, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And there is nothing particularly special about WD-40's formulation anymore. WD-40 consistently performs worse than nearly any other available penetrating oil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUEob2oAKVs It's a terrible long term lubricant (because it's designed to evaporate, it actually concentrates gunk and grime).
WD-40 themselves have come out with improved "Specialist" formulations that mostly just copy other, superior products.
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