Historical primary record
Johns-Manville industrial-board fabrication manual (1958)
Original historical instructions covering board families, equipment, fabrication activities and dust control.
Historical fabrication and trades
Johns-Manville industrial boards
Workers may remember a black board, a gray sheet, a white rigid panel, the shop where it was cut, or the equipment used to shape it. Historical manuals provide a way to investigate those clues.
Names appearing in the 1958 fabrication manual
Ebony and Ohmstone
Listed among rigid products handled by fabrication equipment. The manual describes them as impregnated with organic compounds, affecting dry cutting behavior.
Chemstone and Colorlith
Named in the manual's machining and special-job sections. Historical records can help trace the relevant date and formulation.
Marinite 23, 36 and 65
The manual identifies multiple Marinite grades, rather than one uniform product. The grade and time period provide useful clues for further research.
Transite and Asbestocite
The manual treats these as distinct named materials used in some overlapping cutting operations.
The work itself is part of the history
Sawing and abrasive cutting
Portable saws, bench saws, planer saws, abrasive wheels and wet cutting appear in the source.
Drilling and counterboring
Drill presses, twist drills, counterbores, trepanning tools and large holes are described in detail.
Machining and finishing
Lathes, band saws, jig saws, milling, edge finishing and sanding provide task-specific memory clues.
Dust and cleanup
The manual explicitly addresses airborne dust during dry fabrication and recommends exhaust collection.
What about the color?
Historical distributor statements describe some board products by appearance. Color and texture can become more useful memory clues when combined with where the material was, how it was worked and approximately when.
The 1958 manual is especially valuable because it names products and describes specific tasks in one contemporaneous source. Those names and tasks can be followed into workplace records, photographs, contractor records and other historical sources.
New York clues in the historical record
The manual names equipment suppliers in several locations, including a Niagara Falls, New York abrasive-wheel manufacturer and a Brooklyn blade supplier. Details like these can help reconstruct the industrial network surrounding fabrication work and suggest additional records to investigate.
Johns-Manville research → New York Exposure Atlas → Start with what you remember →
Related historical research
Johns-Manville Millboard, Paper and Felt History → Johns-Manville Manufacturing Plants and Product History →
Johns-Manville historical research
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