PSA: WD-40

In the spirit of the holidays, I bring you this PSA regarding WD-40.

"There are only two tools you need. Duct tape and WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn't, duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, WD-40."

This has been bugging me lately. Maybe its because its the time of year when people feel obliged to buy gifts for, among others, the rough and tumble manly men who adhere strictly to the duct tape and WD-40 regimen. (adhere!) Don't get me wrong, duct tape and WD-40 are both terrific in their own rights. As far as I'm concerned WD-40 is the master of its game for what it's supposed to do. The trouble starts when people start declaring it universally helpful and applying it where it shouldn't be used. At this point you have a pile of guys thinking they've got it under control, maybe grunting a bit, and ultimately using a terrific invention to break shit further. For shame.

Let’s start at the start. WD-40 stands for “water displacement attempt number 40.” Forty was just the time that it happened to work. The job of WD-40 is to get rid of water. Along with this goes getting rid of rust and gunk, as well as preventing the same. If properly used it’s slick as hell. When it comes to these tasks, you’ve got the magic bullet. And it smells pretty good.

What WD-40 isn’t is a long lasting all-purpose lubricant. For that, you want grease, oil, graphite, Teflon, something not this. The thing about WD-40 is that it doesn’t really have staying power. It dries up, blows off, runs away, I have no idea what it’s actually doing, but after a while it just ain’t there no mo. The other (and significantly worse) thing about WD-40 is that it eats petroleum based things like some kinds of plastic and rubber. Like I said, it’s a bit of a solvent and it kills water. It’s not really meant to grease everything under the sun, tough guy. So before you douse your [whatever] with the yellow and blue can, remember that in two days your orings, seals, and plastic bushings may have turned to gum.

So what to do...how about this: If you own a hammer, a pipe wrench, and a tape measure and try to get everything done using only those tools, go ahead and WD-40 this hell out of everything. It's not really going to make it worse. If you own calipers, torx wrenches, a torque wrench, or gaskets of any sort, consult the goddam manual.

Gratuitous video of guy smashing WD-40 can: