It seems like something in a science fiction film rather than on property in rural Rogersville.
Inside a homemade steel chamber, the temperature sits at a frigid 300 degrees below zero. Boxes of metal items, such as lawn mower blades and chainsaw chains, are at the center of the freeze, where they reside for at least 24 hours, aided by plenty of liquid nitrogen.
This is David Hutchison’s world of cryogenic treatment.
The organizer of Cryopro LLC uses physics to increase the durability of metals. It’s something he started in 1996 on a hunch of curiosity after watching a Discovery Channel episode of “The Next Step.” The show on emerging technologies indicated cryo treatment increased the life of shaving razors by six months.
“That got me to thinking, if you can increase the life of a shaving razor, what else can it be used on?” Hutchison recalls.
Following his hunch of curiosity, Hutchison quit his job as a purchasing agent for Craftsman Limousine in Ozark, bought some equipment and set out for his first cryo experiment: a large stamping die.
With the process most effective on high carbon steel, the die material was an ideal fit.
“Right off the bat, I was doing expensive tooling,” he says of the roughly $50,000 equipment pieces.
The work led to a multiyear contract to cryo temper golf club heads for Jack Nicklaus Golf, but the shaving razor market beckoned. In recent years, Hutchison has developed a niche market online with the razors, to the tune of $180,000 in annual company revenue, and the next step is wholesale.
In the last month, he’s delivered cryo-tempered razors to Hy-Vee and Thomas & Sons RV Supply stores in Springfield. A few cases of multiple brands at each store retail for $4 for three razors and $12 for a four-pack.
“I’ve never had any experience in wholesaling. It’s trial by fire,” he says.
Big hitThe golf club heads were Hutchison’s revenue leader until 2002. For three years, he put Nicklaus Golf cast stainless driver heads through the cryo process for titanium sound and improved performance.
“They were sending me club heads by the truckload,” he says of the days when golf revenue reached $60,000 and he was pursuing a patent for the process. “I used it as a way to introduce the concept of cryogenic tempering. Almost no one knew about the technology.”
The run came to an abrupt end when Hutchison was asked to lower his pricing.
“I chose not to, and I did not get the patent. I lost the Nicklaus company to China,” he says. “Of course, they were my largest customer.”
He turned to razors and built the business on eBay. Then, the post-manufacturing cryo-tempered razors got an unexpected break.
Hutchison says he sent samples to national radio show host Mike Evans, who mentioned the product and Hutchison’s new website,
GreatRazors.com, during a broadcast on some 50 stations.
“It just so happened he mentioned my website on Cyber Monday,” Hutchison says, noting he sold $45,000 of cryo-tempered razors during the holidays that year. “At the time, I didn’t expect the revenue from the razors to be more than what I was getting from Jack Nicklaus. It was quite a jolt to my business.”
Today, he says the website has 14,000 registered customers. With the demand online, he’s testing the retail shelf market.
Low-tech controversyThough he’s operating in a superniche market, Hutchison does have company.
The Cryogenic Society of America Inc. claims some 500 individual paid members and 120 corporate members. Executive Director Laurie Huget says post-manufacturing cryo treatment has its place, but the association considers it a low-tech use compared to other applications in astronomy, nuclear physics and superconductivity.
“It’s a little bit of a controversial application,” she says. “We’re trying to establish it more on a scientific basis. There are many good and valuable results when it’s done right, especially in making metal last longer and work better.”
Common commercial uses are with racing car engine parts, knives and dental equipment. One problem, manufacturers aren’t keen on the treatment.
“The razor companies aren’t going to like him,” Huget says of Hutchison’s Cryopro, which is not a member of the 50-year old Cryogenic Society. “They don’t want the products to last longer.”
She says consumers should be leery of widespread cryo treatment claims.
“I would definitely ask for references and satisfied customers,” Huget says.
At Thomas & Sons RV Supply, sales representative Dan Wallis says the owners tested Cryopro’s shaving razors before agreeing to carry them in their North Glenstone Avenue camping store.
“She was amazed at how long they stayed sharp,” he says of co-owner Carol Gaddie. “It’s not our forte to sell that type of product. We thought we’d give them a try.”
With the Super-Max brand razors displayed on an end cap near the registers, Wallis says customers have been inquisitive and have purchased a handful of the $4 to $12 packages. He says the razors haven’t been available long enough to know if customers say they’re meeting claims of lasting three to four times longer. But he understands the physics behind the process.
“It does change the molecular structure of the product to harden it,” Wallis says.
On his Rogersville property, Hutchison keeps 30 to 50 cases of razors on hand, and he performs the process every two weeks. It takes three to seven days for a batch, with a slow descent to the subzero temps and slowly back up again before preparing to ship.
He also performs cryo treatments on diesel engine blocks, gun barrels, CDs and audio equipment. “One of the odder things I do is pantyhose. It works on metal, but also it works on plastics,” Hutchison says. “It makes it harder to get a run in them.”
