I got an older fixture with a ballast that has fabric-covered leads.  They look like thin round shoelaces.  It looked to be in good condition, but was rather stiff.  I removed the old ballast and when I cut and stripped some of it, small bits of insulation broke apart (but only from the area I cut).  I decided to replace all of the old wire, but I'm wondering if it would have been safe.  I don't know if it was brittle with age or if that's simply the nature of it.  I'm guessing the fixture is 1960s or 1970s.  When was cloth insulation phased out?  Does it frequently contain asbestos?  I only thought about asbestos after getting pieces of it all over the place.

The fact your wires crumbled near the end mean that the actual isolation (rubber) is allready crumbling and only the cloth is holding it together. Which means, that under the cloth, in numerous places along the wire it possibly have micro cracks in it. To me this means that its electrical properties are VERY questionable - such micro crack has a surface area straight from the conductor to the outside, so very short distance for tracking. Any contamination or moisture and the wire isolation becomes a resistor capable of leakage currents.... Not good if you ask me

Attached is a picture of the style of wire used with my ballast, although this isn't the ballast from my fixture.  Do you think this type of insulation contains asbestos?  If it is, I should've left it alone.  I know some forms of cloth insulation are asbestos, but I don't know if this is.  The health hazard most often associated with old ballasts is PCBs.  It'd be ironic to become exposed to asbestos through the removal of old ballasts out of concern for PCBs.

I have (literally) hundreds of ballasts in regular use with PCB and cloth (yes mostly asbestos probably) wire.  As long as you leave it alone, it will last nearly indefinitely.  The majority of my fixtures have been in regular use since the 1940s and 50s, with their original cloth wired wires.  I have only "disturbed" the wires enough to VERY CAREFULLY add power cords to them before putting them to use.  With a power cord added, the ballast's wires should never have to be touched again, even if I decide to move the lights around in the future.

There's a lot of asbestos out there.  I suppose realistically a little bit isn't likely to hurt and it's impossible to avoid it altogether.  I was surprised to find that many buildings still used materials containing asbestos through the late 1970s and into early 1980s.  I always thought of it in being primarily a concern in pre-70s construction and equipment, but it wasn't discontinued altogether until well after the health hazards were known.

The asbestos is dangerous only when manipulating with it, so mainly the workers were at risk.

The health hazards were known, but it was assumed, than designing the procedures on how to safely handle it (to not release the dangerous dust) would be sufficient to address the issue, after all the asbestos is not the only dangerous thing used in building construction.

But after the years it become more and more clear, than enforcing the use of safe practices is a "mission impossible", mainly because all the items look quite innocent (they appear the same as the safe materials for similar use), so workers very simply fall off-guard and haven't followed them.
Other aspects (and as far as I remember it was the main reason for the asbestos ban) was the manufacture of the asbestos containing devices: The processes used to expose workers to the dust and the necessary measures to control the dust became way more complicated and expensive than originally thought, making the asbestos products not competitive. And as many companies were reluctant to apply them ans do were able to manufacture cheaper (so were an unfair competitors), it yield to the total ban of the asbestos use as the only available measure to protect the workers.

And finally, only in the late 80's arise the problem with demolitions of buildings extensively using the substance...

This does not explain why existing construction needs to be disturbed to "get rid of the dangerous material"

This does not explain why existing construction needs to be disturbed to "get rid of the dangerous material"

The problem is, than each and every one building would be disturbed, sooner or later. There would at least come the moment, when it would have to be torn down. And that is an event when the control of any material release is really nonexistent.
And later it would become way bigger problem than it is today, because the knowledge about the asbestos presence and the related safe handling procedures would become forgotten. Mainly because most of the buildings at that time won't contain it anymore, so nobody would expect such danger.

So to prevent this, during the first major reconstruction all the asbestos in the affected area shall be removed.

This does not explain why existing construction needs to be disturbed to "get rid of the dangerous material"

I had no idea myself of the wiring containing asbestos I guess old wiring was made like this.

I highly doubt that wire contains asbestos. I've worked with plenty of asbestos-insulated wire in stage lighting fixtures, and it has a certain "feel" -- almost a greasy feeling because it is so soft. It also doesn't stay together too well! So far I've never worked with a ballast that appeared to have that kind of insulation. I think its just a plain cloth wire like you would find with old Romex.

Also, asbestos-insulated wire is not usually so darkly colored. I don't know if it was just that hard to dye asbestos or what, but I don't know if you could color asbestos as deeply as ballast wires are often colored.

Lastly, the asbestos insulation on stage lighting is much thicker than anything I've ever seen on a ballast. That could just be because stage light whips are subjected to constant motion and stress, or it could be because asbestos had to be that thick to have sufficient electrical insulation properties.

That's just my $0.02 anyway! I could be wrong, but I just don't think ballasts have asbestos-insulated wire.

Asbestos in certain applications is safe. Creating dust is the hazardous part, which is usually limited to manufacturing, installing, or removing the product. If the product in question doesn't look damaged or worn, it is probably safest to leave it alone. Asbestos is dangerous in dust form, where particles can be inhaled.

Asbestos and dye: It won't be so difficult to dye the asbestos, but the problem is with the dye - in order to make sense to use it with the asbestos, it should have at least similar heat resistance. And that is the problem - the only materials available are the colored glass fibers (the glass still does not resist as high temperatures), but then using the glass fiber alone (so without the asbestos) would make the cloth of the same heat robustness as when the glass is used only as the dye - the temperature would become limited by the glass anyway...

Typed out an answer and found after spending a lot of typing time that it timed out so sorry I am not prepared to type it all out again. This is not the first time this has happened why cant more time be given to people who cannot type fast.

I've never had LG time out. Sometimes I'll start a reply and not finish it until several hours later.

If you have a long response, you might try typing it into a word processor or even Notepad. Then, once you are done typing, copy it and paste it into the reply box.

I've never had LG time out. Sometimes I'll start a reply and not finish it until several hours later.

If you have a long response, you might try typing it into a word processor or even Notepad. Then, once you are done typing, copy it and paste it into the reply box.

Depend on the mode you are logged in: If you do not check the "permanent log-in", the session time out and so you become only a "guest", so it does not allow you to post anything.

On computers I do not want to keep the login data (when they are not mine), I use the notepad (Win) or nedit (Linux) method...
And when the response take me longer than I expected, I first copy it int a clipboard, so when it time-out, I log in back, return to the topic and "retype" my postfrom the clipoard...