WD-40: The Spray That Failed 39 Times Has Two Inventors Named Norman

In short: The name is the lab notebook. WD-40 stands for "Water Displacement, 40th formula" — the first 39 tries failed. And the spray carries a genuine authorship dispute: the company's official story credits its president, chemist Norman Larsen, but in 2014 a San Diego historian argued the actual developer was a different man with an almost identical name — Iver Norman "Norm" Lawson.

A rust problem on a missile

On September 23, 1953, a tiny San Diego company called the Rocket Chemical Company opened with just three employees — founders Norman B. Larsen, Gordon Dawson, and John B. Gregory. Its laboratory made rust-preventing solvents and degreasers for the aerospace industry, and the pressing job was a coating that would displace water from the skin of the Atlas missile so the metal would not rust. Water displacement sounds simple. The notebooks say it took forty attempts.

Thirty-nine failures with a number on them

Most products hide their failures. This one printed its failure count on the label. Formulas 1 through 39 each missed something; formula 40 worked, and the name froze the whole sequence into two letters, two digits, and a hyphen. When employees began taking the spray home for squeaky hinges and stuck bolts, the missile product became a household product, sold to the public in aerosol cans from 1958.

1953	Rocket Chemical Company founded in San Diego (3 employees) — Atlas missile anti-rust coating
Formulas 1–39	Failures — the name keeps the count
Formula 40	Works: WD-40 = Water Displacement, 40th formula; official credit to Norman Larsen
2014	Historian Iris Engstrand argues the developer was Iver Norman "Norm" Lawson

Larsen or Lawson — the two Normans

The company's official record names Norman Larsen, its president and chemist, as the man behind the fortieth formula. In 2014, Iris Engstrand, a historian at the University of San Diego, published research in a regional history journal challenging that narrative: the actual developer, she argued, was Iver Norman Lawson — "Norm" Lawson — a different person with a surname one letter apart. According to his family's accounts, Lawson handed the formula to the company for a five-hundred-dollar bonus and was credited at the time; as the years passed, "Norm Lawson" blurred into President "Norman Larsen," and Lawson's name faded from the record. The video presents Engstrand's claim as a claim — researched, specific, and not the company's version.

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Frequently asked questions

Q. What does WD-40 actually stand for?
A. Water Displacement, 40th formula — the 40th attempt at a water-displacing protective coating, developed in 1953 for missile skins.

Q. Is the formula secret?
A. Yes — it was famously never patented, precisely so the recipe would not have to be disclosed, and it remains a trade secret.

Q. Who really invented WD-40 — Larsen or Lawson?
A. The company credits Norman Larsen. Historian Iris Engstrand's 2014 research argues it was Iver Norman Lawson, whose similar name let the credit drift to the president. The dispute is part of the record, not a settled answer.

Failure, numbered and sold by the can

Every can of WD-40 is a small monument to iteration: thirty-nine documented failures, kept in the name instead of erased from it. And its authorship carries the same lesson in a different key — records, like formulas, only stay true when someone writes down exactly who did what, while it still matters.

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Watch the full video: https://youtu.be/R3d7OhY2pAI

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