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Randy Orrat the 3M Brockville plant prepares paper to be coated with adhesive. The paper will become automotive masking tape.

If you have any familiarity with 3M 233+, then, I'm sorry. I hope you had good insurance. If you've never heard of 233+, then ask any auto body shop. They'll tell you that the Ontario-produced tape is the world's go-to masking tape for returning dinged cars to former glory. Its history goes back more than 100 years to when the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co. was a modest manufacturer of sandpaper. When the inventor Richard Drew joined its ranks in 1921, he began watching the company's products in action at auto body shops. The sandpaper worked fine, but painters were having fits trying to prevent the two-tone paint jobs popular during Gatsby-era America from bleeding together. After two years of testing, Drew introduced masking tape. The product would find millions of customers beyond body shops, forming the bedrock of the company's global emergence under a catchier name: 3M. Today, 3M is ranked 101st on the Fortune 500 and produces all its auto body tape at its Brockville plant, which employs 180 people. It's a product that plant manager Rich Muir is proud to produce, but loath to use. "I'm fortunate enough I've never had to," he says. And he hopes to keep it that way.

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Tickers mentioned in this story

Study and track financial data on any traded entity: click to open the full quote page. Data updated as of 27/03/24 6:40pm EDT.

SymbolName% changeLast
MMM-N
3M Company
+1.91%104.59

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