In the early 1950s, the Convair Corporation was contracted to maintain America’s sparkly new arsenal of liquid-fueled SM-65 Atlas intercontinental ballistic missiles. Each of these civilization-ended monsters stood 75-feet tall, weighed a quarter million pounds, and carried a single 3.75-megaton thermonuclear warhead that was 234 times more powerful than the weapons that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was indeed an exciting time.
The Atlas pioneered technology like gimbaling rocket motors and balloon tanks. These novel fuel tanks used internal pressure to maintain rigidity rather than heavy structural material. Keeping them lightweight allowed for bigger atomic bombs. However, humanity’s most destructive weapons were simultaneously surprisingly delicate.
Early Atlas rockets were so big that we couldn’t launch them from underground silos. These enormous planet-wreckers were therefore deployed aboveground and exposed to the elements. Keeping these sensitive machines maintained and ready to go was a Gordian chore.
One of the myriad challenges Convair faced was how to keep the external skin of these towering nuclear missiles from corroding when exposed to the elements. To assist in this mission, Convair turned to Rocket Chemical Company. A Rocket Chemical engineer named Norman Lawson came up with the answer.
Better Living Through Chemistry
Lawson did his best work at home. Via trial and error, Norm tried multiple permutations of common industrial chemicals in an effort at achieving just the right combination of lubricity and environmental resistance. When finally he was satisfied, he sold the formula to his employer for $500. That would be around $6,000 in today’s money.
Rocket Chemical synthesized Mr. Lawson’s concoction and sold it to Convair to help preserve the external skins of those big honkin’ missiles. Over time, however, the bean counters noticed that a fair amount of this custom lubricant was disappearing. It seemed that Convair workers were pilfering the stuff and taking it home for use on things other than enormous nuclear missiles.
The president of Rocket Chemical, one Norman Larsen, had the idea of packaging their missile lubricant in aerosol cans. This hit the commercial market in 1958. The company began selling it to individuals in 1961. By the mid-1960s, all the major airlines were using it to maintain big jets like the Boeing 720 and the DC-8. They later began marketing the stuff to farmers in England. From there, it spread around the globe.
In 1969, somebody observed that the Rocket Chemical Company did not technically make rockets. They obviously needed a new name. For inspiration, they went back to Norman Lawson and his kitchen table experiments. Lawson kept meticulous records, documenting each successive failure. The successful formula was his 40th effort.
Of all the many-splendored uses for Norm’s magical goop, the primary goal throughout had been water resistance. In 1969, the Rocket Chemical leadership christened their aerosol lubricant WD-40 and renamed the organization the WD-40 Company while they were at it. WD-40 was short for “Water Displacement-40th Formula.” The WD-40 Company went public in 1973. Their gross revenue was $620 million last year.
We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Patents …
One of the reasons that WD-40 has had such staying power is that nobody is still completely sure what’s in it. It’s the Colonel’s Eleven Herbs and Spices of the industrial lubricant world. Had Mr. Lawson patented his magical brew, they would have had to publish the specific composition. Instead, they locked the recipe away and dared the world to figure it out.
The original formula was moved to a San Diego bank vault for safekeeping in 2018. The material safety data sheet lists the ingredients as 45-50% low vapor pressure aliphatic hydrocarbon (isoparaffin), <35% petroleum base oil, <25% aliphatic hydrocarbons, and 2-3% CO2 used as a propellant. European and Australian versions differ slightly in the particulars.
WD-40 has been subjected to gas chromatography and mass spectrometry testing to determine its specific formulation, but we’re still not completely sure. WD-40 has such a stranglehold on the consumer market that it really doesn’t much matter. This unpatented lubricant can be found in most every household in America.
Ruminations
WD-40 isn’t the ideal long-term gun oil, but it does a zillion other things very well. I once met an old codger who sprayed his fishing lures with it, claiming that drove the bass wild. I can attest from personal experience that, when combined with a cigarette lighter, WD-40 is just the ticket for wasp nests and web worms so long as care is exercised not to burn your house or workshop down.
The slippery stuff in that iconic blue and yellow can got its start on the nose cones of Air Force Atlas ICBMs. Now it is most everywhere. WD-40 stands in glorious testimony to the ingenuity and perseverance of American industry.
