Product Description
United States Rubber Company — later reorganized as Uniroyal — was one of the earliest and largest American rubber-goods manufacturers, and through the mid-twentieth century distributed an industrial product line of compressed asbestos sheet packing and gasket stock: chrysotile-fiber sheet bonded with a rubber (elastomeric) binder and rolled to standardized thicknesses for cut-to-shape installation as flange, valve-bonnet, pump-casing, and shipboard gaskets and sheet packing.
US Rubber compressed sheet packing was supplied in roll and sheet form and stocked in industrial and marine storerooms as a general-purpose sealing material for industrial flanged piping, valve bonnets, pump casings, heat-exchanger covers, and U.S. Navy and merchant-marine shipboard piping and equipment service. The rubber-bonded fiber composition gave the sheet a service range suitable for hot-water, low-pressure steam, oil, and general process fluid duty across the era.
Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that US Rubber compressed sheet packing was manufactured with chrysotile asbestos fiber as the reinforcing filler in the rubber matrix, with fiber content sufficient to give the sheet its characteristic tensile strength and heat resistance. Mechanics cut, punched, or stamped the sheet to specific flange or joint dimensions at the point of installation, and scraped out the spent material at the next maintenance cycle.
Workers Exposed
Pipefitters, millwrights, boilermakers, refinery operators, industrial maintenance mechanics, and Navy pipefitters and machinist mates who fabricated and installed US Rubber compressed sheet packing allegedly generated asbestos-fiber release throughout the service life of every joint. Cutting the sheet to shape — whether by knife, hollow-die punch, or gasket-cutting stamp — released chrysotile fibers into the immediate breathing zone. Installing the fresh gasket and torquing the flange bolts deformed the sheet into its seated shape, with additional fiber shedding at the edges. Removing spent US Rubber sheet packing at the next turnaround required scraping the heat-bonded, chemically deteriorated residue from the flange face with a knife, chisel, or wire brush — plaintiffs alleged this scrape-out step consistently generated the highest fiber release in the service cycle. Navy shipboard workers performed these cut-and-scrape tasks throughout engineering spaces on underway and pierside maintenance.