Kaylo / Owens · research guide

Follow the Kaylo Historical Evidence

A guided route from the insulation people remember to the records that describe its manufacture, packaging, use and changing history.

Start with the product and the work

Kaylo appeared as rigid block and sectional pipe insulation. Workers may remember carrying blocks, measuring and cutting sections, fitting insulation around equipment, or cleaning up fragments in a boiler room or shipyard. A 1956 product brochure quoted in a Maryland appellate opinion described white, rigid calcium-silicate insulation for high-temperature equipment. Read the historical brochure description in the opinion ↗.

Explore pipe covering, blocks, packaging, and shipyards and boiler rooms.

Follow the timeline

1943: Owens-Illinois commissioned research into Kaylo dust. 1948: Commercial Kaylo production and distribution were underway, and the Saranac laboratory reported concerning findings. 1953: Owens Corning assumed distribution while Owens-Illinois continued manufacturing. 1958: Owens Corning acquired the Kaylo business. 1972: Owens Corning identified a replacement for asbestos in Kaylo. These milestones are documented in McClure. See our expanded company timeline.

Original records and court-reported evidence

The collection below deliberately distinguishes contemporaneous discovery materials and testimony preserved by ToxicDocs from later judicial summaries. Court opinions are valuable guides to underlying exhibits, but they are not themselves the original 1940s or 1950s correspondence. Records are selected for historical usefulness rather than to reach an arbitrary count.

1996 · ToxicDocs · discovery response