 Which is *not* a competitor to the Piltdon Can Opener?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1958. "The Piltdon Can-Opener is trailing the competition. "For two years there hasn't been one lousy improvement in the Piltdon Can-Opener!" The International rips apart cans in three and three-tenths seconds. Our own Piltdon opener barely manages to open a can in eight point nine without chimes. "But Mr. Piltdon, our opener still has stability, solidity. He had always wanted to devote all his time to research, but Piltdon Opener had not given him that opportunity. "We must work along classical can-opener lines. They began testing, Hanson operating the openers and Feetch clocking. Can-top resistance, internal resistance, cutting tooth performance, handle size and moment, the minimum strength of a woman's hand were some of the variables that had to be balanced within rigid limits. Sector type cutters, traversing several arcs at the same time, had seemed to offer the answer for a while, but the adjusting mechanism necessary to compensate for variable can sizes had been too complex to be practical. Twenty-five years of your life you put in with Piltdon, and he'd fire you just like that if you don't do the impossible. The machinist departed and Hanson locked the opener on a can. Likewise several corn cans, sweet potato cans and corned-beef hash cans, leaving their contents intact. I designed this opener with sixteen degree, twenty-two minute pressure angle modified involute gear teeth, seven degree, nineteen minute front clearance cutter angle and thirty-six degree, twelve minute back rake angle. Several days later, however, Piltdon himself charged into the drawing room and slapped Feetch heartily on the back, causing him to break a pencil point. "This," he exulted, "will make can-opener history. The Piltdon Super-Opener we'll call it." There's more here than just a new type can-opener, sir. The first tentative shipments of Piltdon Super-Openers had gone to distributors along the Eastern seaboard. Piltdon Opener went into peak production in three shifts, but was still unable to keep up with the demand. Department stores, lucky enough to have Super-Openers on hand, limited sales to one to a customer. Newspapers, magazines, radio, television and word-of-mouth spread the fame of the opener so that advertising was unnecessary. Receiving no satisfactory explanation from Piltdon, they set up their own research.
 Super-Opener
 International  Minerva Mighty Midget  Universal  Super-Opener