Marine Pipe Covering (1942)

Out-of-print, hardcover book with over 140 pages, from the Cornell Maritime Press, NY. 

Asbestos References:

On the inside of the dust jacket cover, "This is the first handbook written for practicing marine pipe coverers and for those who are learning the trade."  From the Foreword it mentions the construction of ships of the U.S. Maritime Commission Emergency Fleet.  

Asbestos is mentioned several times in this book since asbestos containing materials such as rope, 85% magnesia, cement, canvas, etc. was used aboard ships of the US Navy and Merchant Marine as part of the Emergency Fleet Program.  In fact by the end of the war, U.S. shipyards working under Maritime Commission contracts had built a total of 5,777 oceangoing merchant and naval ships.

High temperature covering  for steam pipes with temperatures up to 600° F were covered with 85% Magnesia, which contained 15% or less of asbestos rock fiber.

Diatomaceous Earth was blended with asbestos fibers to form another High-Temperature covering.

The use of asbestos cement is mentioned several times and is described in detail. In fact, asbestos cement was the most commonly used of the various plastic cements.

It was applied over cork covering as a finish, added to water to form a mud for application as a pipe covering, used for pointing-up molded pipe covering, applied to the joints and seams of inner layers of insulation and applied over hot surfaces to create a base over which to apply additional pipe covering (just to name a few).

A sand, Portland cement and asbestos cement mixture was used as a hard finish in passageways expected to have mechanical abuse.

The section on asbestos rope insulation, states it was used to insulate flexible corrugated exhaust pipe from Diesel engines aboard ship.  The asbestos rope is wound around the pipe of one or more closely wound turns.

85% Magnesia blocking in the boiler shell and head of the boiler was the most commonly used material.  Scraps of 85% Magnesia were used to fill the crevices in pipe covering by pounding them in with a mallet.

See photos for further reading and more info!

Book Condition:

The book is in GOOD condition!!  The book has moderate wear from use.  There are no locations of writing or highlighting of the text that I could find from a cursory review.  It's a used book with plenty of life left in it!!