WD-40 or Silicone?

[USMCvet]

Okay, please excuse me if I'm posting this question on the incorrect forum or even on the proper website, but here it is:

I always use WD-40 for most of my lubricating, penetrating and protection requirements (not in a ****** way ), but a friend of mine says silicone spray is better, so I was wondering which is better overall, WD-40 or Silicone (spray)?

The Speed Shop that I've been going to for the last 42 years uses WD-40 exclusively, and said they never use silicone, which tells me that WD-40 is best used for all around applications, i.e. automotive, lawn tools, handguns, rifles, etc..

What is everyone's opinion on the pros and cons of each, OR, is there a significant difference between the two and for it's uses? I am not looking for a sales pitch or a product endorsement here, just what everyone's thoughts about each?

Thanks in advance!

 

[mad57]

ive always thought wd was not really a lub, but more or a anti corosive with water repelling propertys, where silicon is a lub and more of a chance to gum up under certain conditions. we use wd as a cleaner for tar pitch ,gum ect . good luck.mike.

 

[goodfellow]

Since "WD" stand for "Water Displacement" and uses various oil based compounds to achieve that purpose, I would assume it does qualify as a lubricant. I consider it the "swiss army knife" of shop sprays. It cleans, lubricates, prevents rust, and provides a protective shine to painted plastic and metal parts.

http://www.wd40.com/files/pdf/wd-40_2042538679.pdf

Most of the listings on this PDF tout the lubricating qualities of WD-40

 

[CraigFL]

WD = water displacer and -40 = the 40th formula they tried. It used to be a poor lubricant but I suspect they added things to it recently because people assumed it was a lubricant too.

 

[markzrt1]

Use silicone spray on car door weatherstripping, garage door hinges.

 

[jerk_chicken]

WD40 is a lube, but the ability to lube is extremely limited due to low shear strength and other properties. It works best as a cleaner, hardened grease remover, and a hinge lube.

 

[JerseyJim]

The previous posts regarding WD40 are on the money. It was originally developed as a moisture displacement. These olis were developed for the military to help bring vehicles that had been dunked in water back to life. You would just take off the distributor cap, spray the interior, replace the cap, and start the car. Newer higher voltage ignition systems don't seem to suffer this problem all that often. Turned out when these olis were cut with kerosene, they made pretty good penetrating oils. Keep that in mind if you ever need to free a rusty nut and don't have any around... Kerosene will do the trick.

I wouldn't use silicone anywhere in my shop. Silicone becomes airborne and contaminate everything. It causes pinholes and fisheyes in coatings. It ends up on every surface and you'll spread it like a common cold by touching and transferring it to other things. Silicone is also deadly around electronics. It can alter the data path on silicon wafers. If this happens, kiss the circuit goodbye. It can't effectively be cleaned off. I used to formulate products like this. So I'm quite familiar with both types.

A friend's house was flooded a couple years back. We bought a 55 Gal drum of WD40 and very quickly dunked all of his tools and anything with an electric motor. We were able to restore virtually everything.

 

[Torque1st]

WD is mostly Kerosene with a tiny amount of oil mixed in. There are much better spray lubricants around.

Silicone spray contaminates everything.

 

[walrus]

WD 40 would be last on my list for penetrating oil, its ok for a light lube but it washes out of anything used in a harsh enviroment.

 

[nova65ss]

I like WD better just because it is not at all messy. We use it on garage doors all day for that very reason. Nothing like walking by a garage door that has 10 years of silicone spray on it just before dinner and ruining your clothes. Granted WD needs to be done more often because it dries much faster. Plus it gets in the nooks and crannies of a hinge much better to get rid of all the noise. I can't tell you how many times I have been to a home where the homeowner was just fed up with their noisy door and they said "we have been spraying it with silcone and it has not done a bit of good". Couple of squirts of WD and it sounds like new.

With that said I am sure silicone has more than its share of uses so I can't say it is better everywhere.

 

[nissan_crawler]

wd-40 is about the worst lubricant you could use, next to sand.

 

[USMCvet]

The previous posts regarding WD40 are on the money. It was originally developed as a moisture displacement. These olis were developed for the military to help bring vehicles that had been dunked in water back to life. You would just take off the distributor cap, spray the interior, replace the cap, and start the car. Newer higher voltage ignition systems don't seem to suffer this problem all that often. Turned out when these olis were cut with kerosene, they made pretty good penetrating oils. Keep that in mind if you ever need to free a rusty nut and don't have any around... Kerosene will do the trick.

I wouldn't use silicone anywhere in my shop. Silicone becomes airborne and contaminate everything. It causes pinholes and fisheyes in coatings. It ends up on every surface and you'll spread it like a common cold by touching and transferring it to other things. Silicone is also deadly around electronics. It can alter the data path on silicon wafers. If this happens, kiss the circuit goodbye. It can't effectively be cleaned off. I used to formulate products like this. So I'm quite familiar with both types.

A friend's house was flooded a couple years back. We bought a 55 Gal drum of WD40 and very quickly dunked all of his tools and anything with an electric motor. We were able to restore virtually everything.

I was fully aware of the "WD" and "40" thing and receive monthly e-mail tips from the WD-40 fan club. I was unaware of the hazards of silicone and it's affect on electronics however, and at least now I have a bead on their differences.

 

[JerseyJim]

I wouldn't think of penetrating oils as lubricants per se. They are extremely light oils at best. But they can get things apart so that you can apply an appropriate lubricant later on.

Yes it will wash off. You can formulate these oils to do different things. With the right additives,they can be formulated to build up a heavier, more water-resistant coating. But that would be at the expense of the electrical properties as well as their ability to penetrate. A company in Philadelphia Zurn Oil made the base materials used in most of these products.

I have an old Mercury Mountaineer. At one point the keys suddenly stopped working in all four door locks. To get in, we had to open the tail gate and unlock the doors from there. First I thought it was the key. Then I tried my wife's key and it wouldn't turn either. Turned out to be corrosion. Hard to believe it would happen to all the doors simultaneously. But a quirt of WD40 in all and a little bit of key twisting freed all of the locks. I then used a little Lock-Ease in all of them. Graphite is a terrific lubricant for locks.

 

[Spookrider]

Slick-50 spray lube is what I use alot for around the shop and for gun for civil war reenactments for lube and such.
One member swear by it since he use it at work place is a Steel mill.

 

[Charles (in GA)]

WD-40 is a waste of money. Silicone is good for many things.

Charles

 

[Pritch]

With that said I am sure silicone has more than its share of uses so I can't say it is better everywhere.[/QUOTE]

When we were much younger, in the late '70's, my friends and I were Foosball hustlers. If there was a foosball table in a bar, we drank for free. And we never went anywhere without a can of silicone spray. best thing ever for foosball rods!

 

[Shocker]

Man, poor WD40. Gets no respect.

It all depends on what you are doing with it. WD40 works well in some areas and not in others.

Technically, WD40 is 50% Stoddard Solvent (White spirit or mineral spirit) sort of like kerosene but not. 15% mineral oils. The rest is inert and propellant.

 

[JerseyJim]

Even silicone brake fluid should be handled very carefully. Here is an excellent article on the subject (http://www.adlersantiqueautos.com/articles/brake1.html). The problem with silicones is that they are forever! They simply will not go away. Vapor deposition tests show that even minute amounts will be deposited on surfaces far away from the original point of contamination.

Back in the 80's, a lot of car polishes contained silicone. Car dealers used the stuff during delivery prep and then in some cases pinstriped the cars. The customer took delivery of the cars and in short order, the pinstripes started coming off. The dealers tried more aggressive cleaning and the problem still persisted. Point was you simply couldn't get it completely off.

Look up silicone contamination and you'll get an idea how much of a problem this stuff can be. In the clean room environment of a microchip fab plant, everything is tested. That includes hand creams or hair sprays. This stuff in any form tends to become airborne. True none of us are making micro processors in our garages. But many of us do paint occasionally.

I read an article written about a furniture company having problems with it. They checked everything in the place and couldn't find it. Turned out to be a shoe manufacturing plant a half a mile away. It was being pulled in through fresh air ventilators in their paint booth.

I'm not saying don't use it (although I would avoid it). But if you must, use it outside your shop.

 

[kwright]

I work in a manufacturing facility that's about 750K sq feel (3/4 of a million sq ft). We have a large wood finishing line at one end of the site.

Silicone can be such a problem around wood finishing - the contamination causes "fish eyes" that any product containing silicone is not allowed in the building... period. Even things like hand lotions, personal care products, etc may contain silicone and once they are in your system, the can be a nightmare to remove.

 

[krooser]

I wonder what Pamela Anderson would look like with WD-40 implants?

 

[LoRollinLS]

like others have said already, WD is a lube, but it is very light and will dry quickly, it does penetrate well, i swear by it, if you need to lube something that you want it to last on, try 3 in 1 oil, much thicker and will last. if you need an extreme penetrator pb blaster is good stuff, but is not as safe as wd-40, it can eat through a cup like gasoline. i to this day have not found anything to use silicone lube on except rubber parts that rub together, its just not needed much in the auto world. i swear by wd because its not so harsh yet it gets the job done, i use it for everything, i soak my dirtbike in it and let it set all winter covered in it in the garage to keep it from corroding and dry rotting, i also spray my stored trucks rubber and plastic and sometimes undercarriage in it to keep it from drying out during winter storage......just my $.02

 

[jerk_chicken]

I use silicone on rubber seals for suspension devices, for instance. That's what is recommended, though I more often use suspension oil.

 

[USMCvet]

I wonder what Pamela Anderson would look like with WD-40 implants?

It was only a matter of time before the jokes began. I wonder what took so long?

 

[USMCvet]

like others have said already, WD is a lube, but it is very light and will dry quickly, it does penetrate well, i swear by it, if you need to lube something that you want it to last on, try 3 in 1 oil, much thicker and will last. if you need an extreme penetrator pb blaster is good stuff, but is not as safe as wd-40, it can eat through a cup like gasoline. i to this day have not found anything to use silicone lube on except rubber parts that rub together, its just not needed much in the auto world. i swear by wd because its not so harsh yet it gets the job done, i use it for everything, i soak my dirtbike in it and let it set all winter covered in it in the garage to keep it from corroding and dry rotting, i also spray my stored trucks rubber and plastic and sometimes undercarriage in it to keep it from drying out during winter storage......just my $.02

My friend swears by silicone to protect all of his weapons, and says that WD-40 attracts dirt, so he doesn't use it.

 

[nova65ss]

My friend swears by silicone to protect all of his weapons, and says that WD-40 attracts dirt, so he doesn't use it.

Sounds like he has dislexia

 

[USMCvet]

Sounds like he has dislexia

And he's germaphobic! No joke!

 

[thdewey]

I was fully aware of the "WD" and "40" thing and receive monthly e-mail tips from the WD-40 fan club.

UH, WD-40 fanclub?!?!?

 

[USMCvet]

UH, WD-40 fanclub?!?!?

Yes, a fanclub. These days, there's just about a club and website for everything.

http://fanclub.wd40.com/

 

[v8garage]

wd-40 is about the worst lubricant you could use, next to sand.

I agree. It's not much good for protecting tools either.
V/8

 

[Bull]

I love WD-40, and always have some on hand. Someone on here recently posted the results of a magazine test of lubricants, giving the amount of force required to remove a stuck fastener with no lube, then WD, then a bunch of other lubes. While there were many vastly superior to WD, it did still reduce significantly the amount of force needed to free the fastener.

I rebuilt a few Pontiac engines over the years. Some were longer projects. Once I had my block back from machining, I bolted it to my engine stand, hosed down the bores with WD-40, and wrapped it all in a trash bag. The engine stayed in the garage all winter, with a couple reapplications of the WD. When I pulled the engine out of the bag in the summer for the rebuild, the bores were still shiny and rust free.

I had a greasy, nasty trans inspection cover that I wanted to reinstall last night. Being cold out in my garage, I was not going to involve water. I also was not going to take an oily car part to the basement laundry tub to clean. So, I hosed it down a few times with WD-40 and rubbed it with a microfiber cloth. When I was done, it looked like new!

Now that I know there is a fan club, I'm joining!

 

[porschedude996TT]

WD-40 was formulated for the Atlas ICBM Missile made by Convair, later General Dynamics, and now Lockheed Martin. The missile is now part of the EELV era launch vehicle for the US and its many space programs. The problem they were trying to fix was corrosion on the thin stainless steel skin of the tanks. These missiles were in buildings that didn't have temperature and humidity control and the stainless steel would start to corrode on the outside. WD stood for Water Displacement and it was the 40th formula that they developed, as it was said above.

I have always felt that WD-40 seemed to wash out any residual lubricant that was previous on the surface, thus making the spray a short term fix. While the proper lubricant was being ignored.

Good Uses for WD-40:
Light Surface protection of metals
Helps remove adhesives from surfaces
Light Lubricant

 

[Identaltech]

I use silicone on o-rings and rubber gaskets
Tri-flow on every thing else.
last way longer that wd-40

 

[russlaferrera]

WD is mostly Kerosene with a tiny amount of oil mixed in. There are much better spray lubricants around.

Silicone spray contaminates everything.

I received an E-mail the other day about WD40. It stated the main ingredient was...FISH OIL. Is that true?

 

[volvo]

.
Never use sillycone to lubricate your telscoping antina mast, it acts more as a insulator than lubrcation. Also, it tends to stay were it is put, like using it to put on hoses or door seals ans things may slip back apart later.

 

[Torque1st]

I received an E-mail the other day about WD40. It stated the main ingredient was...FISH OIL. Is that true?

You can read the MSDS for WD-40 on their website. A little chemistry knowledge is needed to decipher it tho. They do not give away their secret ingredients tho.

If WD was fish oil you would know it from the horrible smell, so as far as I can tell that would be no to the fish oil.

BTW- you can sign up for the WD fan club on their website.

 

[Shocker]

The fish oil thing is a urban myth.

 

[JerseyJim]

WD-40 is not the first of these types of products. As I mentioned in a previous post there were in general terms, two formulas in use. One was aimed at displacing moisture and offering a higher degree of corrosion or oxidation protection. It is entirely possible that at one time, these formulas actually included whale oil.

Where the military required a light coating for very temporary protection of steel, a whale oil formula would have actually worked quite well. The concern was that it wasn't always possible to guarantee that the metal was completely dry as the protection was applied. Whale oil could lift the moisture. The reason the thin coating was used was because of the need to be able to wipe off the protection rather than have to put the parts through extensive cleaning like you would with heavier greases.

WD 40 represents what we would have referred to as an electrical grade. You would not want a heavy residual coating for this type of coating.

There used to be a ton of small regional chemical companies around that had stock formulas for these things. The company I worked for sold this type of product in bulk at first and then started packaging an electrical grade in aerosol cans in 1960. Among a small number of customers, Pennsylvania State Police used to buy it from us. It was never really promoted for use by the general public.

The real magic about WD-40 is not the product but the marketing. They simply did a better job of promoting awareness. CRC sold a similar product in a bigger can. You actually got more product for the money. But the big can was tough to use in tight places. WD-40 also started packing the straw with the can and made it easier to use. These two relatively small things to me made the big difference.

 

[ripsnortMN]

I had some squeaky door hinges on my truck a few years back. All I had was a can of silicone and I swear I sprayed a quarter of that can on there and I still couldnt get the squeak out of the hing. So then I went in the house to look for another lube and I found a can o WD-40. I sprayed it on the door hinge (over the pile of silicone i have previously sprayed) and within a spray or two the squeak went away. WD seams to get in the tight areas very well.