Products & Services

As with the rest of the 3M Cottage Grove site, the Abrasives Systems Division operation represents an important part of the core of 3M’s global business operations. 3M  Abrasives, though, is unique – it is the only 3M business to span more than 100 years.

The beginning of 3M Abrasives dates back to 1902, when the company’s founders started mining abrasive materials and manufacturing sandpaper near Two Harbors, Minnesota. Since then, 3M has become a multinational company with well over 50,000 products and operations in over 60 countries.

3M is known to combine technologies to create state-of-the-art products in many of its businesses, and, in fact, many of 3M’s products today stem from the methods used to produce sandpaper. In 1925, for example, masking tape became 3M’s first product outside Abrasives. A close look at automotive manufacturing helped 3M identify a need for masking tapes when painting cars. As different as abrasives and tapes may seem at first sight, they are both based on the same technology: coating. 3M used some of the coating technologies developed for producing sandpaper to meet a critical customer need in the automotive industry.

The 3M Abrasives business today is one of the largest in the company and is consistently regarded as one of the best in the world in all of the abrasives markets. 3M offers a full range of coated abrasives, surface conditioning, microabrasive and superabrasive products for almost any dimensioning, finishing, polishing or deburring application.

3M recently announced the newest addition to the Abrasives businesses with the launch of a full line of air-powered tools. These products, along with 3M coated abrasives technologies developed in St. Paul and Cottage Grove, have quickly caught on in the industrial marketplace. Bring together the new tools, 3M’s new dust-free technology and Cubitron™ grain, and you have the best available industrial finishing solution.

Ceramic Abrasive Products

In ceramics, 3M has revolutionized grinding efficiency with the invention of CubitronTM abrasive grain and the 3M RegalTM and RegaliteTM product lines. The company holds numerous patents in these technologies and is continually developing new and improved abrasive minerals.

It was the invention of Cubitron™ grain that first brought today’s abrasive products to 3M Cottage Grove more than twenty-five years ago. Many of 3M’s highest performing products contain Cubitron™ abrasive grain that was born right here. During your next visit to a local home improvement store, stop in the sandpaper aisle and look for a purple 3M product. Not only will you know that you’re looking at one of the best abrasive products in the world, but one that started right at our location.

After more than one-hundred years, 3M Abrasives continues to deliver state-of-the-art solutions to a broad range of industrial and consumer needs. These products now touch our lives in ways the 3M founders could never have imagined.

• The cabinets in your home were likely produced with traditional coated abrasive products.
• The golf club you swing may have been shaped by a 3M coated abrasives product, and then finished using a 3M surface conditioning belt.
• Your automobile’s crank shaft and even the paint clear coat may have been polished with 3M sandpaper.