Product Description
Black Clawson Company, headquartered in Middletown, Ohio, was a leading U.S. supplier of stock-preparation and paper-machine equipment, best known for the Hydrapulper — a large-diameter open-tank pulper used to slush wood pulp, secondary fiber, and broke back into stock. Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that Black Clawson Hydrapulpers were originally supplied with, and serviced using, chrysotile braided asbestos packing rope in the agitator shaft stuffing boxes, and that Black Clawson drum-couch and forming sections on paper-machine wet ends were fitted with asbestos-fabric lagging around the couch-roll housing.
According to publicly filed allegations, this asbestos configuration was carried forward across Black Clawson’s stock-prep and paper-machine product lines from the 1940s through the early 1980s and appeared in tissue, kraft, and secondary-fiber mills across the U.S.
Workers Exposed
Publicly filed asbestos complaints have allegedly identified the following trades as exposed to Black Clawson Hydrapulper and drum-couch materials:
- Pulp mill stock-prep operators charging, running, and packing Hydrapulper tanks
- Paper mill millwrights repacking Hydrapulper agitator shaft stuffing boxes
- Paper machine tenders working the wet end around the drum-couch housing
- Pulp mill maintenance mechanics tearing off and rewrapping asbestos-fabric couch-roll lagging
- Paper mill electricians pulling agitator motor leads adjacent to shaft packing
- Insulators wrapping stock-prep tanks and adjacent hot lines