Product Description
International Paint (International Paint Company, later Akzo Nobel’s International Paint / Interfine / Intertuf line) was allegedly one of the dominant global suppliers of marine coating systems to Navy, merchant, and shipyard buyers. Plaintiffs have alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that certain International Paint anti-corrosive primers and undercoats allegedly incorporated chrysotile asbestos fiber as a reinforcing additive to improve hold-out over sandblasted steel and to build film thickness on hull plating, ballast-tank interiors, and cargo-hold bulkheads.
According to publicly filed asbestos litigation records, asbestos-fibered International Paint primer was allegedly applied at U.S. shipyards on Navy combatants, tankers, cargo vessels, and Great Lakes bulk carriers from the 1950s through the 1970s.
Workers Exposed
- Shipyard painters spray-applying International Paint primer in blast-and-paint sequences
- Sandblasters removing weathered primer during dry-dock recoat cycles
- Merchant mariners and Navy ratings performing underway hull and superstructure touch-up
- Boilermakers and welders burning through painted plating in repair yards
- Painters’ laborers mixing and thinning primer in enclosed shipyard paint shops