During the lockdown, I ordered some groceries online and had a pickup slot at the local supermarket a couple of days later between eight and six. I arrived at the supermarket, picked up my groceries and drove home. Obviously, I was distracted by the task of transporting the groceries into the house, because I forgot to turn off my lights.
Now, I have an old car (in fact it’s not even mine, it’s a permanent loan from a family member), for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it is solid as a rock and I don’t get the whole consumerist thing of buying the latest model. The battery has served well, but on this occasion, it decided the abuse meted out to it over the years was enough. Once fully discharged, it would not retain sufficient charge to start the car. Buying a new battery was surprisingly easy and I give credit to Tanya Batteries of Abergele, who delivered the right battery in a couple of days, fully charged and with good instructions on fitting it.
Removing the old battery was a problem and I knew it would be. The terminals and the clamp were pretty firmly locked in place. So I rang a friend, who happens to run a garage and asked for advice. He asked if I had any WD-40, which I did, and suggested I spray some around the nuts and bolts securing the battery and terminals, leave it for 24 hours, then try again. I admit I was sceptical, but lacking an alternative plan, I gave it a bash. Sure enough, the next day, the nuts moved freely and I was able to hoist the old battery out and put the new battery in. This was entirely down to that magical compound WD-40.
That prompted me to think about the product, which has been around forever and seek out information about it.
It turns out WD-40 was first made by a group of engineers in San Diego, California, in 1953. The WD bit refers to “Water Displacement” and it was the fortieth attempt at formulating a suitable product, so it became WD-40. Originally it was designed to be an anti-corrosive on aerospace components and it first found commercial success protecting the exterior of Atlas missiles. It seems it worked well enough for employees to start taking it home.
A few years later, they had the bright idea of bottling it in aerosol cans and selling it to the public. The rust (!) as they say, was history.
In the long history of WD-40, no other company has managed to develop, or reverse engineer it, simply because the original makers decided not to patent it, preferring instead to keep the formula secret.
So, here’s to WD-40, a great product that actually works like no other.
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