Most of us have a can of WD-40 sitting around the house. Got a squeak? Give it a spray. Tight bolt? Squirt, squirt. But it might surprise you to see how many other uses it has (one of my favorites is the removal of adhesive goo).
I once worked for a very small company whose owner was, um, a bit peculiar. Shortly after moving into the new office, we were having a little house-warming party in the conference room. There was a huge white board on one wall.
During a particularly inspirational moment, the owner went over and wrote her name on the white board in five foot tall letters. The problem? She used a permanent marker. The solution? WD-40, a rag, and elbow grease.
But the uses of WD-40 don't stop there...
- Keep snow from messing up your satellite dish: spray the dish and the snow will slide off.
- Got a snow plow? Spray a coating on the blade and the snow won't pack up on it.
- Make it easier to remove light bulbs: spray the threads lightly before you install the bulb.
- Roofing tar on your hands from fixing a leak? WD-40 will get the tar off!
- Use WD-40 to remove grease and road crud from your car's fenders.
- Bug splats on your car's grill and fenders? WD-40 works better than expensive sprays.
- It kills weeds too!
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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)
Just me, but I would keep the stuff away from any electrical appliances (like light bulbs). That stuff does have a tendancy to burn...
ReplyI thought swiss army knives were the WD-40 of knives??
ReplySpraying WD40 on your car's painted finish is a bad idea and will strip any and all protectants on that finish at that spot. Only use plastics/rubber on your car.
I really wish this site would research their findings a bit more before posting. Unless this is one of those "can't believe everything you read on the net"-type sites. :-(
ReplyA call to the manufacturer, or an auto-paint shop could have checked for problems with use on car paint/chrome.
Also, you shouldn't spray WD40 in live electrical areas. This should be corrected to say to spray WD-40 in stuck bulb sockets AFTER the power has been disconnected (unplug or turn off the breaker). Then wipe the socket dry.
Sorry Andy, but if you look you'll see that I sourced all these tips directly from the manufacturer's site. What more credible site should I research? If you have a site more credible than the manufacturer please let me know. Thanks, Kelly
Not to get picky, but:
Reply1. At the time of this comment, there is no reference stated in this article.
2. This looks to be a re-hash of Dan's article from last year (http://www.diylife.com/2007/07/30/1-997-useful-and-weird-uses-for-wd-40/), did they update their site with more uses since then?
3. Most new vehicles have painted plastic bumpers, so using WD-40 could possibly result in the loss of protectant coatings.
My intent is not to attack this article in particular for the purpose of saying you're wrong, I just think that the site should post good and relevant information. If WD-40's site is the reference, then state it. If this is just a repost of the other article DIYLife has already published, then please state that as well. Also, if these issues get resolved, feel free to delete these comments.
This is not a repost of any article; I believe Kelly (who is a newer writer here) was unaware that anything on the topic had been posted before. Nobody "made a decision" to recycle the information; it's accidental. We actually do try to avoid duplicate posts, but they can happen sometimes.
Every writer is responsible for their own posts; they are only lightly edited. There is no central brain saying "OK I THINK IT IS TIME TO RECYCLE TOPIC X NOW" (as there would be at a magazine -- and when a magazine does it, you probably won't notice, because it's standard practice in that business and they don't necessarily have a searchable online archive).
I agree that a reference should be added to the article, and will ask Kelly to do so. However, that doesn't mean that he didn't believe his information to be correct and well-researched at the time that he posted it.
I really don't know enough about your other concerns to address them any other way, except to agree that it is useful to share reports of paint loss on cars due to WD-40. :)