This is the second time that Todd K7TFC has sent in a comment that is so good that it gets elevated to the main blog page. When I was typing yesterday's post about how WD-40 had restored life to the hard drive in my old Tandy 1000 computer, I knew that this would stir up anti-WD-40 sentiments. I'm grateful that Todd weighed in with such a thoughtful response.
What can I say? I was young and foolish. I thought WD-40 was the answer. Now I know better. I have can of DeOxit D5 on my shelf. I only use the WD-40 on my bicycle.
Todd K7TFCApril 9, 2022 at 7:49 PM wrote:
I think even the Pope would argue his pee has already served its only real purpose: to remove unwanted substances from the body. WD-40 is useful for that purpose as well--it's pretty good at dissolving and blasting away dirt and grease from tools, hardware, or small mechanisms. That's no doubt why it worked to get your hard-drive spinning again. As a lubricant, though, it is deeply flawed.
If you have nothing else at hand, it can also substitute as an penetrating rust buster. The purpose its developers intended is coded in the name itself: "WD" stands for water displacement, and its very good at doing that. It's not so good at many of the other uses to which it's commonly put.
A very-long time ago, I worked at a company that made its own PCBs, and they had some very-precise NC machinery (programmed with punched tape in those days) for drilling and routing the boards. After a series of baffling and costly shutdowns, the culprit was discovered and WD-40 was banned entirely from the plant. The plant-maintenance guy and janitors couldn't even have any.
It was found that once completely dry, the oils and waxes in it would slowly polymerize (as they were intended), leaving behind a sticky film that protected from moisture and rust just fine, but it gummed up precision machinery. The Chief Production engineer (my father) got the company brass to ban WD-40 entirely.
Why ban it from even plant-maintenance and janitorial work? Because you couldn't keep the PCB-production crew from resorting to it in a "crisis" if they could find any at all in the building. It meant they weren't careful enough to keep the proper lubricants in stock. You could either fire them for their shade-tree-mechanic mentality, or you could ban WD-40.
Needless to say, I've kept my congenital anti-WD-40 animus alive all these years, but I do have a can I use for cleaning and water-displacement purposes. When tempted to use it otherwise, though, the memory of my father sniffing the air suspiciously for its distinctive odor flashes in my head, and I reach for something else. --73, K7TFC
Keep this product out of your guns. Hosing those guns out with WD-40 and putting them in the safe will result in inoperable weapons when you pull them out later. The wax like residue will not usually gum up revolvers but fire control mechanisms of semi-autos will likely be compromised.
ReplyDeleteWD-40 is super for cleaning pine tree sap off of hands, clothes, and tools after antenna work! 👍
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