Today’s beautiful homes and attractive commercial and industrial buildings result from the development of high-quality, durable components manufactured by the building products industry.

Limestone, or ground calcium carbonate, is one of the most commonly used minerals in building products and construction applications, along with a related mineral, dolomite, a calcium magnesium carbonate.  As fillers and extenders, these materials provide improved performance and cost benefits to a broad range of industrial, environmental, and agriculture applications that impact our daily lives. Building product applications include asphalt roofing shingles, vinyl floor tile and sheeting, tape joint compounds, glass, stucco, concrete, masonry, and swimming pool plasters. Talcs are also used, generally in joint compounds.

Chemical purity, as well as optical brightness and color, which vary with each deposit, play a major role in the end value for the application. Combining extensive Research and Development with Application Technology and support to customer trials, Specialty Minerals is well positioned to supply you with high-performance  products or to work with you to develop new grades tailored to your building product application.

Building Products With SMI Minerals
Specialty Minerals ground limestones, dolomites, and talcs play functional roles in a variety of components used in residential and commercial construction, such as:

• Roofing including TPO and EPDM systems
• Block and Stone
• Stucco
• Flooring and Tile including vinyl composite tile (VCT), vinyl sheet flooring, cove molding and carpet backing.
• Joint Compound
• Pool Plaster

Specialty Minerals Products for Building Components
Specialty Minerals supplies crushed, screened, ground, and pulverized limestone and dolomite products direct from our quarries in Adams, Massachusetts, Canaan, Connecticut, and Lucerne Valley, California. Talc is mined and ground in Barretts, Montana.

Manufacturers of building products in the Eastern U.S. can select from a wide range of ground calcium carbonates (GCCs) produced at the Adams, Massachusetts, plant of Specialty Minerals Inc. (SMI). The large Adams deposit of high-brightness calcite, or crystal calcium carbonate, has been mined since 1848—a long history of service to regional producers of building products.

SMI’s Adams plant produces limestone from 1” landscape chips down to 3 micron industrial grades. Adams manufactures fine-ground GCC for paint, plastics, and other building product applications, sold under the Vicron^® GCC and Marblewhite^® GCC trademarks. Coarse-ground and screened-stone limestone products, Vical^®, ATF™ and Eco-Cal^® GCCs, provide excellent value in roofing, masonry, joint compounds, and other building product applications, as well as in agricultural and environmental uses. High-calcium chemical and metallurgical limes are also produced at Adams.

Like all Specialty Minerals-Performance Minerals plants, Adams is certified ISO 9001 and uses rigorous quality monitoring and continuous-improvements processes to provide customers with uniform, high-quality products.

Specialty Minerals Ground Calcium Carbonates For Building Products
Choose from the following families of high-quality ground calcium carbonates produced at Adams for roofing, flooring, joint compounds, and other building product manufacture:

Vicron® GCCs – 3.5 to 10 micron high brightness ground calcium carbonates

Marblewhite® GCCs – high brightness ground limestones, 200 and 325 mesh.

Vical® GCCs – 16 to 100 mesh, dedusted limestones with moderate brightness

ATF™ GCCs -  bright screened limestones, in 10 to 40 mesh grades.

Some building product applications may require a grade with a customized particle size and/or particle size distribution. We are happy to work with you to provide the right limestone grade for your building product. Contact Us to discuss your needs.

Ground dolomites for building product manufacture are produced in the Specialty Minerals Inc. (SMI) plant at Canaan, Connecticut. The dolomite deposit in Canaan is a true dolomite—calcium magnesium carbonate—not just a magnesium carbonate—containing dolomitic limestone.

The ground and screened dolomite products are used for filling and extending cast polymers, asphalt roofing, vinyl composite tiles, stucco, joint compounds, masonry products, sealants, and pool plastering. Coarse-ground grades, CCA™, FCA™ and MS-4™, provide a source of extremely white aggregate for manufacturing white split-faced blocks and precast shapes. Bright white Marblemix^® dolomitic pool sands are ideally suited for plastering swimming pools and spas. For joint compound, sealants, putties, caulks, and other building products, Dolocron^® dolomite fillers provide high brightness and low oil absorption. The DF™ series of dolomites offer a wide variety of performance options for vinyl composite tile, stucco, and grout manufacturers.

Like all Specialty Minerals-Performance Minerals plants, Canaan is certified ISO 9001 and uses rigorous quality monitoring and continuous improvement processes to provide customers with uniform, high-quality products.

Specialty Minerals Dolomites For Building Products
Building product manufacturers can choose among the following families of high-quality ground dolomites produced at Canaan for roofing, flooring, joint compounds, cast polymers, concrete, masonry, and other construction components:

• Dolocron^® dolomites – finer, 200 mesh, high-brightness grades
• Dolofil^® dolomites – 20 and 40 mesh grades of high brightness
• DF™ dolomites – 30 and 50 mesh products with good brightness
• Marblemix^® dolomites – 16 mesh dolomite with good brightness
• MS-4™ dolomite – 4 mesh masonry sand
• Concrete Aggregates – Fine 4 x 0 mesh (FCA™ dolomite) and Coarse  ¼ x 4 mesh (CCA™ dolomite) with good brightness and uniformity.
   

Some building product applications may require a grade with a customized particle size and/or particle size distribution. We are happy to work with you to provide the right limestone grade for your building product. Contact Us to discuss your needs.

A broad range of ground calcium carbonates (GCCs) are produced for the building products industry in the Western U.S. by Specialty Minerals Inc. (SMI) at its plant in Lucerne Valley, California. The high-quality limestone deposit there has been mined since the mid-1800s, with finely ground industrial products manufactured since 1961.

The high-brightness and high-purity limestones from Lucerne Valley are used in many building products, such as roofing, flooring, tape joint compounds, cast polymers or cultured marbles, stucco, and cement and masonry, as well as in such other applications as plastics, coatings, rubber, caulk and sealants and gel coats.

Lucerne Valley’s fine-ground, bright-white Vicron^® GCC family of 2 to 13 micron products and Marblewhite^® GCC family of 30 to 325 mesh products provide options for formulators in the plastics, joint compound, and caulk and sealant industries. Coarser Vical^® GCC products are excellent raw materials for glass, vinyl composite floor tile, asphalt shingles and other roofing materials, while Marblemix^® GCCs are manufactured especially for swimming pool and spa plastering. 

Like all Specialty Minerals-Performance Minerals plants, Lucerne Valley is certified ISO 9001 and uses rigorous quality monitoring and continuous improvement processes to provide customers with uniform, high-quality products.

Specialty Minerals Ground Calcium Carbonates For Building Products
The following families of high-quality ground calcium carbonates are produced at Lucerne Valley for roofing, flooring, cast polymers, joint compounds, and other building-product manufacture:

• Vicron^® GCCs – 2 to 13 micron high-brightness ground calcium carbonates
• Marblewhite^® GCCs – high-brightness ground limestones, 30 to 80 mesh.
• Marblewhite^® GCCs – finer high-brightness ground limestones, 125 to 325 mesh.
• Marblemix^® GCCs – 10 mesh bright screened limestones
• Vical^® GCCs – 16 to 100 mesh, dedusted limestones with moderate brightness
• Marble-Pfill^® GCC - good brightness screened limestone, with excellent particle packing
• Viroc^® GCC – bright, decorative limestone granules, 3” to ½”
   

Some building-product applications may require a grade with a customized particle size and/ or particle size distribution. We are happy to work with you to provide the right limestone grade for your building product. Contact Us to discuss your needs.

Specialty Minerals Inc. (SMI) has been producing talcs from its two mines in Barretts, Montana, since the 1950s. These bright, high-quality talcs are used in the building products industry, primarily in tape joint compounds and paints. In joint compounds, talcs add trowelability, crack resistance and good surfaces after sanding.

The Barretts Specialty Minerals-Performance Minerals plant is quality certified under ISO 9001 and uses rigorous quality monitoring and continuous process improvement to satisfy customer needs for performance and consistency.

Specialty Minerals Talcs for Building Products
The grades of talc recommended for use in tape joint compounds are:

• Sericron^® 2M and 3M talcs – 8 micron talcs, with 200 and 325 mesh topsizes.  Careful color control for color consistency.  
• MicroTalc^® MP 70-22 and MP 50-26 talcs – 7 and 8 micron, 200 and 325 mesh topsize general-purpose grades