At the edge of the Johns Manville (www.JM.com) area (the standard term booth does not do many of these exhibitor spaces justice), comes the gentle blowing sound of a demonstration of their formaldehyde-free Spider Custom Insulation System, while inside a mellifluous voice floats over a PA system, telling about the upcoming iPod Nano give-away.

They're not debuting Spider, and certainly not Apple's Nano. They’re debuting Gorilla Wrap and DuraBase. Beside the fact that for a brief interlude your new home could be covered with pictures of a snarling gorilla, apparently intent on keeping bad elements from entering your structure, this stuff has the benefit of being mold resistant, strong (it better be if you’re playing off King Kong), and energy efficient.

DuraBase is a new roofing underlayerment that offers the benefit of felt with the performance of synthetic. That is a quote from marketing materials, and I have every reason to believe them. It unrolls flat, doesn’t weigh much, and provides better coverage per roll, as well as various other attributes.

I have to admit that I am mentioning this because the Johns Manville people were very pleasant. However, no one offered to give me an iPod Nano.

I was moving along not too far away when I heard an explosion, a controlled explosion, thankfully. That was the sound of the Bostitch (www.bostitch.com) folks introducing their new product, the HurriQuake nail. On a flat table-like thing about 6 feet by 5 feet was a section of roof decking nailed to studs with the HurriQuake nail.

The explosion was the decking finally pulling free from the studs. Well, it took the equivalent strength of twice a Category 5 hurricane to do it. Living 200 yards from the Atlantic Ocean in Northeast Florida, I am acutely interested in things that resist hurricanes.

The HurriQuake is kind of the Frankenstein of nails: it has a larger head, heavier shank, ring shank on the bottom, and screw twist up top. This engineering helps eliminate the hurricane problem of roof decks being pulled off. All it takes is one sheet and the house is toast, very soggy toast. I did not meet Bostitch’s Dr. Frankenstein, but the inventor of the HurriQuake was there. He is Dr. Ed Stutt, who has a PhD in nail technology. Way to go Ed.