Johns-Manville, "You Can Build and Insulate with Marinite" (1954)

A 16-page color brochure from Johns-Manville selling Marinite to industry "For Constructing driers, ovens, breechings, housings." Its form code, IN-153A 12-54, dates it to December 1954. It carries no copyright notice.

What it shows

The brochure describes Marinite as "composed of asbestos fiber, diatomaceous silica and an inorganic binder," in three densities (23, 36 and 65 pounds per cubic foot). Its size table lists 2-inch sheets only for Marinite-23. It traces the product to the Morro Castle fire of 1934 and says that, "commencing with the construction of the SS America," Marinite had gone into every American-flag passenger vessel built since the early 1940s.

Its selling point was that customers could work the board themselves. It says Marinite "can be cut or machined to any desired shape, and will take screws and nails like lumber," that it "can be handled and applied by your own construction staff without special training," and that it "can be cut with an ordinary carpenter's hand saw, or power saws." It tells readers that "Marinite should always be dry-cut" and quotes power-saw rates of 300 to 500 linear feet of 1-inch board an hour.

The brochure has no health warning. It says some means of removing dust from cutting "should be provided." Only for portable power saws on small jobs does it suggest "that a respirator be worn by the operator, and that an air hose be attached to the frame to blow dust away from the operator."

About this copy

Bates MT-006463 to MT-006478, from a litigation production. The highlighting and red underlining were added by a later reader.

Related

• Marinite and the SS Morro Castle disaster, our guide to the product