Durabla

Durabla Manufacturing Company was a Pennsylvania maker of compressed asbestos sheet gasket material and packing, founded in 1911, with a Canadian affiliate, Durabla Canada Ltd. In 1986 its president and a vice president took part in a valve-industry seminar on asbestos-free gasket materials. Durabla filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009, and the Durabla asbestos trust took effect in 2012 but has not yet begun paying claims.

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

History and products

The library's evidence on Durabla is thin, but it spans most of the company's life. In September 1921 the U.S. Navy's Bureau of Engineering called a conference of asbestos packing manufacturers in Washington, and Asbestos listed Durabla Manufacturing Co., represented by N. P. Hill, among the companies attending, alongside Garlock, Johns-Manville and others.⁴

In 1978 Asbestos reported that Durabla, then of Strafford-Wayne, Pennsylvania, had issued a brochure on its compressed asbestos gasket material.² The journal said Durabla had been "in the business over 65 years" and described the material as "a homogeneous combination of asbestos and rubber," made "to one formula" for a wide range of temperatures, pressures and corrosive media.² A January 1979 item repeated that Durabla described the material as a universal high-pressure, high-temperature sealing product.⁵ From 1975 to 1980 the journal's birthday notices named M. S. Moser as president of Durabla Manufacturing Company in Wayne, Pennsylvania.⁶

The library's product records hold one Durabla product, Penpak, a compressed gasket sheet from Durabla Canada Limited; the trademark file gives first use in September 1980.⁷

What the documents show

Durabla gasket material turns up in Union Carbide's plant records. In July 1977 O. L. Loomis, production superintendent at the Pittsburg, California, plant of Union Carbide's Linde Division, sent a Cal-OSHA carcinogen registration form to L. L. Vroman in San Francisco and wrote that it "also brings up the asbestos content of Durabla gasket materials and the questions of handling per OSHA and Cal-OSHA."⁸ In June 1985 an industrial hygiene report from Union Carbide's Institute, West Virginia, plant recorded air sampling while a worker cut gaskets from Garlock and Durabla material; it reported both samples well below the permissible exposure limit.⁹ A July 1986 Union Carbide record of a telephone conversation on the future supply of asbestos gaskets and packing named Durabla, with Garlock, among the gasket suppliers expected to keep supplying asbestos gaskets.¹⁰

The industry was by then preparing for asbestos-free sealing. At an August 1986 Valve Manufacturers Association seminar in Houston on asbestos substitutes, David Moser, president of Durabla Manufacturing Company of Lionville, Pennsylvania, moderated a session on gasket test data, and Jack Harris, a Durabla vice president, was to present data on compressed non-asbestos gasket material compared with compressed asbestos.³

Durabla was also an asbestos defendant before its bankruptcy: a 1989 filing in Bank of Alton v. A. P. Green Refractories, a Madison County, Illinois, case, lists lawyers for Durabla Manufacturing Co. among those served with it.¹¹

Bankruptcy and trust

According to our trust page, Durabla Manufacturing filed for Chapter 11 in December 2009 and Durabla Canada followed in 2010.¹ The plan was confirmed in 2012 and the trust took effect that September under Section 524(g) of the Bankruptcy Code.¹ The trust began accepting claims in 2020; as of October 2026 it had not set its payment percentage or begun paying claims, and its 2025 annual report showed net assets of $18.1 million.¹

References

1. Durabla asbestos trust claims
2. Asbestos, October 1978, p. 14
3. UC-4046: Valve Manufacturers Association Program for the Asbestos Substitute Gasket & Packing Materials Seminar, Houston (1986), p. 2
4. Asbestos, October 1921, p. 28
5. Asbestos, January 1979, p. 32
6. Asbestos, July 1975, p. 46; July 1980, p. 34
7. Penpak (Durabla), product record
8. UC-4193: O. L. Loomis to L. L. Vroman on Carcinogen Registration Form and Handling of Asbestos Under Cal-OSHA (1977)
9. UC-3492: Industrial Hygiene Sampling Results for Asbestos in Gasket Cutting, Institute Plant, Building 325 (1985)
10. UC-3157: G. B. Elder Record of Telephone Conversation with Sherry Murphy on Anticipated Supply of Asbestos Gaskets and Packing (1986)
11. North American Refractories Company's Supplemental Rule 220 Compliance in Bank of Alton v. A. P. Green Refractories (1989), p. 3

Asbestos trust

If you or a family member worked with or around Durabla's asbestos products and later developed mesothelioma or another asbestos disease, a claim may be paid by Durabla Asbestos Trust Claims. Free case review.

Asbestos products

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

• Penpak (Durabla)

In the Union Carbide documents

Durabla is named in 2 Union Carbide documents dated 1985 to 1986 (2 mentioned), from asbestos lawsuits over Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos. All are published in our collection.

• Industrial Hygiene Sampling Results for Asbestos in Gasket Cutting, Institute Plant, Building 325, with Attached Results Table (1985) UC-3492 (mentioned)
• G. B. Elder Record of Telephone Conversation with Sherry Murphy on Anticipated Supply of Asbestos Gaskets and Packing (1986) UC-3157 (mentioned)

Where this comes from

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