Product Description
Crane Co. is alleged in publicly filed asbestos litigation records to have sold flange gaskets — including the well-known Cranite compressed asbestos sheet line — cut and stamped for use on Crane valves, Crane pumps, and general industrial piping. From the early 1900s into the 1980s, Cranite and companion Crane-branded gaskets were allegedly composed of chrysotile asbestos fiber bonded with elastomeric binders, packaged as sheet stock and die-cut ring gaskets shipped with Crane products or supplied through Crane’s supply-house distribution network to refineries, chemical plants, power plants, shipyards, and municipal water and steam utilities.
Workers Exposed
Litigation records allegedly describe exposure among industrial engine mechanics and pipefitters cutting Cranite sheet on the bench with knives and templates, engine rebuilders and millwrights breaking Crane valve bonnet and body flange gaskets, machine shop workers dry-scraping flange faces after gasket failure, marine engine mechanics servicing Crane valves and piping shipboard in engine rooms, and gasket-set assemblers at Crane distribution branches who cut and packaged Cranite blanks.