Uncle Peter wrote:
"Chuck Harris" wrote in message

Carborundum was the initial product mined by the company we now know as
3M. Back
then the company was known as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. They
were the
first to find a reliable way of putting carefully graded and sized
carborundum
granules on a piece of waterproof paper. In essence, they invented
"sandpaper".

-Chuck

Most vintage radio resources credit the Carborundum Company, in Niagra
Falls, NY
with the product. Here is a link:

http://www.chemheritage.org/classroo...m/acheson.html

I'm pretty sure my detector assemblies are labeled as being made by the
same company.

Some further checking revealed:

http://multimedia.mmm.com/mws/mediaw...6IMhCOrrrr Q-

It would seem that 3M was looking for a carborundum, and found a mine in
3 rivers Minnesota, and thought they were mining carborundum, but were wrong.
In the end, that mistake caused them to go into the sandpaper business using
imported garnet abrasive. The rest is history, as they say.

-Chuck