Philplug Screwfix

[T42]

Rooting around the shelves in my workshop I came across this again - hadn't seen it for years:







The code on the left in the second pic looks a bit like a date - maybe when it came into stock - and 13p is about what it would have cost back then.  Either it came to France with us in 1972, or the Inlaw Paw sent it on to us when we moved into our first French flat and didn't know the French for Rawlplug.

What I'm wondering is, is that asbestos ?

[tatanab]

Yes https://www.aic.org.uk/asbestos-trade-names/

[T42]

Hah! At this point it may be instructive to show how the plug was to be prepared:



Dunno what to do with it now - flog it on eBay, maybe.

[hellymedic]

rabbit otp is an asbestos expert.

[rr]

Hah! At this point it may be instructive to show how the plug was to be prepared:



Dunno what to do with it now - flog it on eBay, maybe.

It's illegal to buy, sell or use asbestos (REACH Regulations direct acting EU regs) your legal options are to dispose of it or keep it a safely.

Sent from my XT1562 using Tapatalk

[Jaded]

Once we are out of the nonsense EU you’ll be a able to flog it like a proper BRITISH shopkeeper.

[hellymedic]

and die of proper BRITISH mesothelioma, which is a truly horrible way to go.

[T42]

Good thing I'll never be out of the EU, then.

"Flog it on eBay" was, of course, a joke. I shall keep it as a future family heirloom, along with The Walls of Derry and my maternal grandfather's ivory slide-rule, encased in scrap steel purloined from Slipway N° 3.*


*lie, but it came from the same yard and period

[mrcharly-YHT]

Looks like white asbestos, which is not as bad as the blue stuff. Still not something I would fancy using, there are modern alternatives that are just as good and safer.

I've been around the mining village in Australia (Wittenoom); the roads and buildings are built on mine tailings and people still live there!

[Canardly]

They used to spray swimming pool walls with asbestos reinforced cement in SA, shiver.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Wet asbestos isn't too bad. I'm not so keen on the dry stuff.

[T42]

When I made wine in the early 70s I had a Harris filter that used white asbestos powder.

[hellymedic]

Anyone over 50 will have had some exposure to asbestos. I can certainly recall:
Asbestos rests for the iron at the end of the ironing board
Making 'crucibles from asbestos paper in Chemistry lessons
Fibrous linings for ovens

The asbestos roofing for our last garage was removed by certified contractors.

I have seen both patients and friends die of mesothelioma. It is seldom curable, very painful and symptoms usually arise several decades after exposure.

I don't think there is any place for willy-waving about this.

I still miss Bob Kynaston.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Australia still has houses with walls made from asbestos sheeting. My brother was idiotic enough to cut holes in the walls with a saw a few years back  , despite Dad telling him to score through with a stanley knife.

I'd forgotten about the asbestos bits on ironing boards.

[T42]

Some models of postwar prefab used asbestos cement panels. It was probably used for military housing as well - when we saw the housing estates here left by departing US forces when De Gaulle got hissy, they looked very like the prefabs we had in Belfast.

In the early 90s I heard an R4 programme about Turner & Newall and their methods of dealing with claims from mesothelioma sufferers. Memos obtained by the Chase Manhattan bank as part of a court case contained sentiments such as "he can't possibly last more than 18 more months so try to spin negotiations out until then".