Vimasco Corporation

Vimasco Corporation of Nitro, West Virginia made mastics, coatings, sealers and adhesives used over industrial insulation, including the WC-1 weather-barrier mastic, and bought Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos to make them. Union Carbide's sales reports show the company trying to take asbestos out of its formulas in 1979. The library has no record of a bankruptcy or trust; Vimasco was still defending asbestos suits in West Virginia in 2020.

Draft. The history on this page was written from the documents in our library and has not yet been reviewed by a person.

History

In August 1953 Asbestos reported that Ray Thomas had joined the board of "the Vimasco Corporation, Charleston and Nitro, West Virginia," as executive vice-president and general manager.⁴ Asbestos listed Vimasco staff as speakers at joint meetings with the Kanawha Coatings Society, on insulation coatings and weather barriers in 1957 and on fire tests of fire-retardant paints in 1960.^5,6

Union Carbide was both a customer of Vimasco and a supplier to it. Union Carbide's insulation specifications for its South Charleston plant, from 1957 on, call for Vimasco WC-1 or a Benjamin Foster product as the weather coating over insulation.^1,7 Union Carbide's purchasing cards record orders for #500 vinyl anti-abrasion coating from a vendor card naming Allied Services, Inc. and Vimasco Corporation, from 1956 to 1959, and for Vimasco WC-1 mastics and coatings from 1956 to 1969.^8,9 In 1979 a Union Carbide safety survey recommended painting reactor lids with Vimasco after covering them with asbestos paper, saying this reduced abrading and the spread of asbestos fibers into the workplace.¹⁰ Later Union Carbide specifications, from 1980 to 1992, list Vimasco's WC-5 mastic as a weather barrier for perlite insulation.^11,12 In 1974 Union Carbide ran fire and smoke tests on samples of Vimasco's WC-1-FR mastic.¹³

Asbestos products

Our product record for Vimasco's No. 702 joint sealer, drawn from Union Carbide's 1962 insulation manual, describes it as a polyvinyl acetate caulking compound with asbestos fibers.¹⁴ The WC-1 mastic contained asbestos according to Union Carbide's 1976 call report, which called it the company's "big seller containing SG-210," one of Union Carbide's Calidria grades.² The same report said a cable coating and a sodium silicate adhesive had a larger asbestos content.²

What the documents show

Union Carbide's Calidria sales records list Vimasco as a customer in 1971, 1977 and 1980.^15,16,17 Vimasco also appears on North American Asbestos Corporation's list of fiber customers for 1960 through 1968.¹⁸

Union Carbide's call reports on Vimasco, from 1973 to 1979, follow the company through the new federal dust rules.² In August 1973 Vimasco was looking for another source of asbestos because of the OSHA regulations, and wanted fiber packed in polyethylene bags.² By March 1974 it was trying a Calidria pellet grade "as a replacement for Canadian asbestos because of OSHA dust regulations," and was having trouble dispersing it.²

In January 1976 Vimasco told Union Carbide it had been inspected by OSHA. On a visit that month the salesman wrote that the plant had never had dust monitoring, and he took dust samples while two batches of WC-1 were mixed.² In August 1976 he took more samples and wrote that "it is fairly certain that the dust counts on several will be extremely high."² Union Carbide's own list of dust-count services that year includes Vimasco.¹⁹

The last call report, in September 1979, says Vimasco was working hard to get asbestos out of its formulas. It says complaints from some customers were the company's main concern, and that it expected a new formula by the first of the year.² The salesman's note on the follow-up line reads: "Another loss to adverse publicity."² The same year Vimasco was on the mailing list for the Asbestos Information Association's health information.²⁰

Lawsuits

Vimasco was a defendant in Holmes v. ACandS, Inc. (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1999), a wrongful death case decided on the statute of limitations.²¹ In Swiger v. AR Wilfley & Sons (U.S. District Court, Southern District of West Virginia, 2020), the court described Vimasco as a West Virginia corporation. Vimasco had asked the state court for summary judgment, arguing that the plaintiff had not shown the exposure was related to its products. The federal court sent the case back to state court without deciding that question.³

References

1. Union Carbide trial exhibit UC-4851, Specifications for Thermal Insulation Material and Application (1958 edition), p. 80
2. Union Carbide trial exhibit UC-324, Union Carbide Call Reports on Vimasco Corporation, Nitro, West Virginia (1973–1979)
3. Swiger v. AR Wilfley & Sons, Inc. (S.D. W. Va. 2020)
4. Asbestos magazine, August 1953, p. 30
5. Asbestos magazine, February 1957, p. 8
6. Asbestos magazine, February 1960, p. 12
7. Union Carbide trial exhibit UC-2366, Specifications for Thermal Insulation, South Charleston Plant (1957), p. 10
8. Union Carbide trial exhibit UC-3089, Purchase Requisition and Commodity Card for Vimasco #500 Vinyl Anti-Abrasion Coating (1956–1959)
9. Union Carbide trial exhibit UC-3091, Purchase Requisition and Commodity Cards for Vimasco WC-1 Mastics and Coatings (1956–1969)
10. Union Carbide trial exhibit UC-2487, G. W. Bott to W. T. Shelton on Asbestos Exposure Survey of Reactor Lids (1979), p. 1
11. Union Carbide trial exhibit UC-3253, D. T. Watters memo with attached December 1980 perlite insulation specification (1981), p. 3
12. Union Carbide trial exhibit UC-1056, Engineering Practice Specification for Expanded Perlite Thermal Insulation (1992), p. 2
13. Union Carbide trial exhibit UC-995, Hammack and Hilado on Radiant Panel and Smoke Density Tests of Vimasco Mastics (1974), p. 1
14. No. 702 (Vimasco)
15. Union Carbide trial exhibit Union Carbide 191, 1971 Calidria Sales Report, p. 25
16. Union Carbide trial exhibit Union Carbide 17, 1977 Customer/Application List by Product Grade, p. 10
17. Union Carbide trial exhibit UC-245, Calidria Shipments to UCC Facilities and Customer Ship-To List (1980), p. 67
18. Union Carbide trial exhibit UC-1118, North American Asbestos Corporation Textile and Fiber Customer Lists, 1954–1975, p. 13
19. Union Carbide trial exhibit UC-2202, Technical Service and Dust Count Services Summary (1976), p. 5
20. Union Carbide trial exhibit UC-1600, Mailing List for the August 1979 AIA/NA Health Information Mailing, p. 7
21. Holmes v. ACandS, Inc. (Ind. Ct. App. 1999)

Asbestos products

1 product our documents name Vimasco Corporation as making or selling. Each product's page says what the documents say about it, including its asbestos content.

• No. 702 (Vimasco)

Court cases

2 court decisions in our case-law library name Vimasco Corporation as a defendant, newest first.

• Swiger v. AR Wilfley & Sons, Inc. (2020)
• Holmes v. ACandS, Inc. (1999)

In the Union Carbide documents

Vimasco Corporation is named in 12 Union Carbide documents dated 1974 to 1992 (12 mentioned), from asbestos lawsuits over Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos. All are published in our collection.

• E. S. Hammack and C. J. Hilado on ASTM E162 Radiant Panel and NBS Smoke Density Tests of Vimasco Mastics, with a Related Mastic Coatings Report (1974) UC-995 (mentioned)
• R. E. Byrne, Jr. to F. H. Larrison on December Production and Shipping Schedules for Calidria Asbestos (1975) UC-2864 (mentioned)
• Technical Service Developmental Programs, Plant Assistance, Customer Technical Service and Dust Count Services Summary (1976) UC-2202 (mentioned)
• B. L. Ingalls to H. B. Rhodes on Calidria Asbestos Marketing Services Work Assignments, January-October 1976, with Attached Service Lists (1976) UC-5111 (mentioned)
• Union Carbide Chemicals/Plastics Insulation Standard, Material Specification 4M:4M-B / 4A:4A-B / 4SS:4SS-B for Perlite Insulation (1980) UC-3721 (mentioned)
• D. T. Watters to I. P. Blackwood et al. on Potential Health Risks of Insulation Materials (Perlite Insulation Specification 4) (1981) UC-3253 (mentioned)
• Methyls Columns Upgrade Work Package for Removal of Deteriorated Asbestos Insulation at the Sistersville, WV Plant, with Plant Asbestos Handling Procedure (1986) UC-2959 (mentioned)
• Union Carbide Engineering Practice Specification for Expanded Perlite Thermal Insulation, Specs 5M, 5A, 5P, 5SS (1992) UC-1056 (mentioned)
• Union Carbide Call Reports on Vimasco Corporation, Nitro, West Virginia (1973-1979) UC-324 (mentioned)
• Tom Buell, 'Asbestos handling is made easier by Nitro company' (Charleston Gazette newspaper article) UC-2088 (mentioned)
• Purchase Requisition and Commodity Card for Vimasco #500 Vinyl Anti-Abrasion Coating, Nitro, W. Va. (entries 1956-1959) UC-3089 (mentioned)
• Union Carbide Purchase Requisition and Commodity Cards for Vimasco WC-1 Mastics and Coatings (undated, entries 1956-1969) UC-3091 (mentioned)

Names in the documents

The spellings documents use for Vimasco Corporation, OCR misreadings included, so a search for any of them finds this page: Vimasco Corp · Vimasco.

Where this comes from

This page brings together every document in our library that names Vimasco Corporation, across collections. Titles and affiliations are taken from the documents themselves, and units and subsidiaries are grouped under the company they belong to.