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Parmlee's hollow vulcanized rubber object production method described vulcanizing  - cited & discussed at Inspectapedia.comVulcanized Rubber & Asbestos or Other Fabrics
History, uses, safety, patents

This article describes vulcanized asbestos and vulcanized rubber-asbestos along with other vulcanized rubber products, giving a definition vulcanization or vulcanized products and by example listing common ingredients, vulcanized rubber end products, and their uses.

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Vulcanized Rubber & Asbestos Products: ID Tags, Tires, Hoses & Other Products

Vulcanized asbestos ID tags (C) InspectApedia.com John D included an ID number and the designation "Jewish" or religionVulcanized asbestos products are made from combining asbestos fiber and rubber, or in modern versions (still produced in China, Aug 2022) a combination of asbestos fiber and synthetic rubber, using a combination of heat and compression.

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Definition: The vulcanizing process, as we define it here from historical references, involves combining crude or raw rubber with sulphur and asbestos, mixing the ingredients by running the mass through heated rollers, inserting the mass into a mould, and heating and pressurizing the mold, often using high pressure steam. (Calvert 1858)

The result is a hardened, flexible rubber material whose history is traced to pre-historic inventors, the Mayans whose hard rubber soccer ball, made of rubber, possibly mixed with the cremated remains of ancestors, combined religious observance with a game that is the precursor to modern football (soccer).

History & Safety of Vulcanized Asbestos Identification Discs

Reader John D. asked about the safety of handling vulcanized asbestos ID tags. These identity discs, first used in by the British in 1907 as an aluminum tag, were widely used in WWI and later, in a variety of forms or materials.

The Vulcanized (rubber & asbestos) ID tags shown above and a Q&A discussing any possible asbestos exposure hazard from such discs were posted originally

at ASBESTOS OTHER PRODUCTS

The earliest ID-tags were issued by Prussia during the Franco-German war (1870-1871, possibly as late as 1878) in the form of a stamped steel rectangular tag with rolled edges. (U.S. stainless steel dog tags made much later were also of stainless steel with rolled edges).

Similar identification discs were used by Canada (1914), Australia (1907 - 1917 or later), India, New Zealand, and South Africa. In other literature these discs are referred to as "vulcanized fibre discs" without necessarily mentioning asbestos. Bulgaria, Turkey, France, Belgium, Russia, Italy, Japan, Turkey and other nations issued similar tags to their soldiers.

The "vulcanized rubber-asbestos" identity tags shown here are a hardened asbestos product that may have combined a sealant or coating and a colouring agent to form a durable, lightweight identification tag.

These identification discs or "tags" were made of a mix of rubber and asbestos to create a tag, if made of simple asbestos would have been too soft, and if made of asbestos cement would have been too brittle, easily broken.

In their British use there were three such tags, two worn by the individual and a third attached to the gas mask or "respirator" haversack that identified its owner. The first two tags identified the individual and the third helped assure that the gas mask, fitted to the individual, would be in fact quickly identified for use by that person. A bit of history and research on vulcanized asbestos identity discs and other similar products is given below.

Illustration: Vtg National Vulcanized Fibre Catalog~Asbestos~Phenolite Sheets&Tubing for sale on eBay in August 2022.

In the UK, British HSE has been quoted as follows:

Such tags remaining in the hands of collectors are not normally involved in work activities and so are not subject to HSE’s health and safety requirements.

It is foreseeable that the rubber may perish and fragment over time, but HSE has no information as to the likely degree of fibre release or when this may occur.

Given that such tags are rarely handled, and most fibres will remain bonded in, the risk is thought to be low.

We would recommend placing them in sealed transparent containers or sealed polythene bags. We suggest you may wish to discuss with the Imperial War Museum
. - source: "WW1 Identity Discs/ Dog tags" at WW2Talk, retrieved 2022/08/18, original source: http://ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/ww1-identity-discs-dog-tags.22417/#post-766190

History of Vulcanized Rubber + Asbestos or Other Fabrics

Vulcanized Asbestos Product Catalog, National Vulcanized Fibre Co, Wilmington DE, USA catalog (C) InspectApedia.comThe earliest U.S. patents using vulcanization to produce molded or other flexible objects from a mix of rubber, sulphur and asbestos (that we have found) are described here.

The discovery that combining rubber with sulphur and applying heat (vulcanizing rubber) is attributed to Goodyear who, it's said, in 1839 accidentally dropped a mixture of rubber and sulfur into a hot frying pan.

Although he never uses the word "vulcanizing" in his text, Nathaniel Hayward described "improvements in preparing caoutchouc (India rubber) with sulphur for the manufacture of various articles" in one of the earliest U.S. patents in 1839, assigning U.S. patent 1,090 to Charles Goodyear of Boston Massachusetts.

In the U.S. in the 1830s Goodyear was working to produce an improved automobile tire. Vulcan the god of fire, is the origin of the Latin word volcanus or volcano in English and hence was Goodyear's name for the process he discovered. By 1844 Goodyear had patented his process of vulcanizing rubber. (Goodyear 1853)

Cheever, in describing his patent for a rubber hose machine, described vulcanization:

To accomplish this, I take the rubber, when con pounded with sulfur in any of the ordinary compounds used in Vulcanized rubber goods, and when it is in the state ready to be submitted to the Vulcanizing heat, that is, a substance like stiff dough or paste, mix it with the fibers of cotton and flax, by grinding the materials between heated rollers in the mode usually practiced by rubber manufacturers, until the fiber is thoroughly incorporated with the rubber.

The proportion I prefer is three pounds of rubber compound to one pound of flax or cotton, although these proportions may be varied according to the quality of the fabric.

More practical applications of the process of vulcanization were described by Dubois D. Parmelee (1860) in the production of hollow objects of vulcanized rubber, continuing Goodyear's work on automobile tires from three decades earlier.

Another early U.S. patent for vulcanized "rubber" was by Newbrough, J.B. & E. Fagan (1867) in which the authors combined stearing or margarine with melted sulphur. The mixture was heated, melted, solidified, then re-heated for pouring into a mold of "any required form" to make "imitation rubber".

An early and important US Patent describing the vulcanizing process to produce a true vulcanized rubber was by Mosher Sutherland, in which the inventor combined India rubber or caouchoue with asbestos and a quantity of sulphur sufficient to effect a proper vulcanization of the mass. (Sutherland 1869)

These vulcanised rubber products produced a product with very useful flexibility, durability, and water or oil resistance, for example in Johns 1889 patent for insulated electrical wire described below. Johns found that this electrical wire insulation was heat resistant and practically "fireproof", an important property for electrical wiring if building fires were to be avoided.

By combining asbestos fibers with rubber and sulphur, a flexible but yet strong product was achieved. (De Karavodine 1906). And of course a major and early use of vulcanized rubber with other materials was in the manufacture of tires (Roussillon 1912).

Modern versions of vulcanized asbestos-rubber products are used to form heat and/or oil-resistant pads, gaskets, mats used in engine construction, pipelines, and other applications. These products may also be reinforced with wire mesh.

Vulcanized Rubber Products Patents & Research

Johns Patent for vulcanized asbestos-rubber electrical  wire insulation cited & discussed at Inspectapedia.com

Parmlee's hollow vulcanized rubber object production method described vulcanizing  - cited & discussed at Inspectapedia.com


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