The glass industry has made ​​extensive use of asbestos-containing materials, the insulation of the tank furnaces to consumables. The glass industry Mechanical Hollow, so called to distinguish it from the hollow glass art, made ​​use of fabrics
for the lining of parts of machines that had contact with the article just formed, and then at a temperature such that any contact with the heat conductive materials would have resulted in the rapid cooling and
consequent breakage. Asbestos was therefore the function of thermal insulation and therefore was interposed between the metal parts and glass manufacture. The pusher machines that are used for the automatic movement of artifacts from a car transporter alnastro and vice versa, were covered with fabric that asbestos was replaced periodically in the company workshops because it is subject to wear and tear. The guides funnel for guiding the drop of molten glass in the mold were made
in syndanio, an asbestos cement containing up to 40% of chrysotile asbestos usually, by means of a machining with machine tools with swarf removal.
The glassworks hand tools (pliers, metal supports, tops etc) were wrapped with asbestos materials (Filotti, ribbons and animation). Even the individual protection against heat were made ​​with the same materials.
The production of glass beads (typical Venetian) lead to use free of asbestos fiber buckets in which to drop the “pearls” so that you experience a slow cooling.
Probably the use of asbestos in glassware is stopped with the announcement of 1992 … These are images in 2009