Word: stainless
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...battle of the blades is raging among major U.S. razor manufacturers, all of whom have introduced a long-lasting but costly stainless steel product. No matter which razor gets the edge, the steelmakers of Sweden stand to benefit, for they supply the stainless steel used in 90% of the blades...
...Stainless is created by blending the high-grade steel with chromium carbides, which toughen it, make it resistant to rust, corrosion and great heat. Sweden's steelmakers cold-roll the stainless steel to 4/1,000 in., then grind, polish and cut it into blade-wide coils before shipping it to the blademakers, who stamp and sharpen the final blade. Stainless is also indispensable in making nuclear reactors, missiles, jet engines and supersonic plane wings, as well as surgical instruments and food-processing equipment...
Prized Order. Of Sweden's 30 steelmakers, two dominate the stainless blade market. One is Sandvik Steel Works, a $100 million-a-year company that sells more than half of the world's regular razor-blade steel. Its far-traveling president, Engineer Wilhelm Haglund, 60, made several flying trips to Boston in the past year to win the prized order to become Gillette's prime supplier for stainless...
...biggest by far is the Uddeholm Co., which originally solved the one problem besetting ordinary stainless steel: sharpening it. An Uddeholm scientist 40 years ago devised a method for aligning the chromium particles into an even pattern so that the stainless blade could be honed as keenly as carbon steel. Uddeholm sold batches of that steel to Gillette in the 1930s, but stainless blades did not catch on because shavers found them irregular in quality. A sudden and tremendous demand began a year ago, after Britain's Wilkinson Sword Ltd. brought out a blade coated with silicon plastic...
Worse yet, if the stainless blade lasts for too many shaves (some Wilkinson shavers boast up to 20), it could mean a cut in Gillette's total sales. Says Mark Litchfield, Gillette's assistant treasurer: "If the stainless steel blade gives twelve shaves or more, we could have some real problems...