Thread: Home-made furnace for hardening

Now they use crystalline silica instead. Does all the same damage to lungs except it is not cancerous. Breathing anything besides air is not a good idea.
And that is a darn nice little heater ! Somebody needs to draw up some plans and a how too. If I knew anything I would :<0)

Asbestos presents one of the great contradictions between Canadian domestic and foreign policy. It is effectively banned for all domestic use because it is so incredibly dangerous. And no, that isn't just alarmist. The rates of disease and death amongst former asbestos workers is shocking. But the truly scary thing is the very high rates amongst those workers' families. The workers would come home with the fibres on their clothes, etc., and then their families would in turn be exposed. Many people who never set foot in an asbestos mine or processing facility have died, are dying, and will die from mesothelioma from very minimal exposure.

Because of this, a decision was made in Canada that the material was simply too dangerous for consumer use, and so it was banned. But we apparently have no problem exporting tons and tons of the stuff to other countries. This was done largely to protect the economies of a number of single-industry towns where it is mined. Not something I'm particularly proud of.

And we have the same issue with older houses here too. There are legal requirements when selling a home to disclose whether the house contains asbestos insulation, and there is an entire industry that has developed to remove the stuff. When left undisturbed it is relatively harmless. But if anything is done to disturb it and release fibres to the air, look out. So if you discover your attic is filled with asbestos insulation, whatever you do, DO NOT try to deal with it yourself or otherwise disturb it!

So yes, please be careful with it! And thanks to GVIKzn for showing us the furnace.

Asbestos may be very bad for your health, but it is an excellent insulator as GVIKzn has shown. Looks like he scrapped together a very workable electric oven, I only WISH I had the skills to put together something that nice. Thank you for sharing kind sir!

When I was a Boiler Tech. in the Navy we used asbestos as insulation & also had asbestos gloves we used to pull burners out of the boiler. After we went in the yards & they removed all the asbestos & replaced all our asbestos gloves with some "OTHER" kind they didn't work for crap. People were getting burns with these new gloves & also dropping the burners because of the heat.
My job while we were in the yards was to get things we needed with coffee as a trade item. you would be surprised what 5 Lbs of coffee can get you in the yards! Anyway I told a friend in the yards I sure would like to get a couple of pair of asbestos gloves. Five pounds of coffee & I found two pair of asbestos gloves in a drawer of my work bench. We used masks from then on when we were using the gloves so the chance of getting it in our lungs was very small.
Most of the people having problems were car mechanics that did brake work. There are many different types of asbestos & I have read that the asbestos in brake shoes & pads were the worst kind being very sharp fibers.
Don't get me wrong, it is very dangerous stuff but used safely it is still one of the best tools for the job at hand.

Slawman