Different sources credit different men with inventing WD-40 formula in 1953 as part of the Rocket Chemical Company, in San Diego, California; the formula was kept as a trade secret and was never patented. According to Iris Engstrand, a historian of San Diego and California history at the University of San Diego, Iver Norman Lawson invented the formula, while the WD-40 company website and other books and newspapers credit Norman Larsen. According to Engstrand, "Lawson was acknowledged at the time, but his name later became confused with company president Norman B. Larsen." "WD-40" is abbreviated from the term "Water Displacement, 40th formula", suggesting it was the result of the 40th attempt to create the product. The spray, composed of various hydrocarbons, was originally designed to be used by Convair to protect the outer skin of the Atlas missile from rust and corrosion. This outer skin also functioned as the outer wall of the missile's paper-thin fuel balloon tanks, which were so fragile that, when empty, they had to be kept inflated with nitrogen to prevent them from collapsing. WD-40 was later found to have many household uses and was made available to consumers in San Diego in 1958. In Engstrand's account, it was Iver Norman Lawson who came up with the water-displacing mixture after working at home, and turned it over to the Rocket Chemical Company for the sum of $500. It was Norman Larsen, president of the company, who had the idea of packaging it in aerosol cans and marketed it in this way. It was written up as a new consumer product in 1961. By 1965 it was being used by airlines including Delta and United; United, for example, was using it on fixed and movable joints of their DC-8 and Boeing 720s in maintenance and overhaul. At that time, airlines were using a variant called WD-60 to clean turbines, removing light rust from control lines, and when handling or storing metal parts. By 1969 WD-40 was being marketed to farmers and mechanics in England. In 1973, WD-40 Company, Inc., went public with its first stock offering. Its NASDAQstock symbol is. In 2014, WD-40 was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. By the fiscal year 2017, gross revenue for the company, including sales of the familiar WD-40 Multi-Use as well as other products, totaled $381 million in annual revenue; about half of this was for sales outside the US. CEO Garry O. Ridge told a NASDAQ publication that they manufacture the "secret formula" in four plants located in various countries and ship it to other companies which then blend and package the product before shipping it to customers.
Formulation
WD-40's formula is a trade secret, and has not changed over the years, according to historian Iris Engstrand. To avoid disclosing its composition, the product was not patented in 1953, and the window of opportunity for patenting it has long since closed. WD-40's main ingredients as supplied in aerosol cans, according to the US Material Safety Data Sheet information, and with the CAS numbers interpreted:
In 2009, Wired published an article with the results of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry tests on WD-40, showing that the principal components were C9 to C14 alkanes and mineral oil.
