102 



MoRAN Process 



This process was used in 1913 on 50 piles dri\-en by the San Francisco-Oakland 

 Terminal Railways. These were treated similarh- to the Paraffine Process piles 

 described above except that Moran's Preservative Compound, made by the Moran 

 Paint & Oil Co. (commercial application for marine construction controlled by the 

 Marine Piling & Preservative Co.), was used and the burlap was omitted, a wire 

 mesh embedded in a heavy coat of the compound being used to hold the coating. 

 Battens were added, however, on account of the rubbing of the piles when rafted. 

 The battens themseh-es were then protected with a final coating. No satisfactory 

 record of the ser\'ice secured from these piles is available. Some of them were pulled 

 after five years, sold and redriven in another region of the Eay; but while they are 



Fig. 39. Battens removed from some of the piles in the wharf shown in figure 38, showing Teredo 

 attack in three years. (5. P. Co. Photo.) 



reported to be still in place, the location of such of them as the Committee could 

 satisfactorily identify is such as to make their performance of little or no value 

 respecting resistance to borer attack. 



In 1921 the Southern Pacific Company drove 120 piles protected by this process 

 in the Georgia Street wharf at Vallejo for e.xperimental purposes, along with those of 

 the Paraffine Process mentioned above. In later installations this process has been 

 considerably modified, the changes including the abandonment of the wire mesh 

 because of its rapid corrosion by sea water and the substitution for it of asbestos 

 fibre in the hydrocarbon mixture as a binder, and the substitution of wire wrap for 

 nailing as a medium for holding the battens in place. The same condition has de- 

 veloped with these piles as with the others, the battens having been bulged by bar- 



