It also has interests in specialty metals, such as tungsten and titanium, industrial products and the Water-Pik line of bathroom hardware.

Teledyne's aviation, electronics, specialty metals and industrial and consumer products are not the driving force behind WHX's desire to acquire the company.

The company's specialty metals, industrial and consumer products businesses - which include shower massagers, water filters and heaters - have suffered from the recession.

It would also become more difficult to purchase certain specialty metals - mainly titanium - from foreign suppliers, particularly Russia.

The cause was cancer, said a spokesman for the company, which produces specialty metals used in aircraft, aerospace and weapon system components.

OM produces specialty metals used in the auto, electrical and other industries.

By the 1920s, Carpenter devoted research to a new realm of specialty metals: stainless steels.

Allegheny Ludlum is acquiring Teledyne, an even larger producer of high-end specialty metals, predominantly for the aerospace industry.

This steel maker, based in Pittsburgh, focuses on specialty metals for the aerospace market.

County emergency management officials on the scene said the man who was killed had been running a specialty metal, tantalum, through a series of caustic baths to strip contaminants.