WD-40: The Cold War Missile Coating Locked in a San Diego Bank Vault

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The blue and yellow can under your sink began as a fix for a frightening aerospace problem. In 1953 the Rocket Chemical Company of San Diego was asked by Convair to stop rust on the Atlas missile, whose thin stainless steel skin doubled as the wall of its balloon tanks. With no internal frame, the rocket held its shape through pressure alone, so even minor corrosion was a threat. The answer had to creep under moisture and lift it off the metal. It took forty tries, which is the whole meaning of the name: water displacement, 40th formula.

This episode sorts out who deserves the credit. Company president Norman B. Larsen has long been named as the inventor, but historian Iris Engstrand points to Iver Norman Lawson, a chemist who mixed the formula at home and was paid 500 dollars. Larsen's contribution was the aerosol can that carried it into garages by 1958. From airline hangars to a public listing in 1973, the story ends with a recipe that was never patented and is still kept secret.

The Atlas missile would crumple like an empty soda can without internal pressure pushing against its thin steel skin.
By 1965 Delta and United were using the spray, with United applying it to the joints of Boeing 720s and DC-8s during overhauls.
The company skipped a patent, which would have forced disclosure, and in 2018 moved the original paper formula by armored vehicle to a bank vault.
U.S. safety data sheets list 45 to 50 percent isoparaffins, under 35 percent mineral oil, and 2 to 3 percent carbon dioxide as propellant.
Wired magazine ran the spray through gas chromatography and mass spectrometry in 2009 and found C9 to C14 alkanes and mineral oil, ingredients but not the recipe.

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