MeghanIsMe

About asbestos exposure and safety:

When the fire at the condo happened, my 31-year-old Model M keyboard (well, it was 30 at the time) was in the spare room, which was damaged less by fire than most of the condo was. It was still very sooty and smoky, and I think some of the ceiling had collapsed onto the open box it was in, filling it with debris.
I spent a while disassembling it and cleaning it thoroughly out and off and was thrilled to find that it wasn't damaged. I started using it again.

Then Miriam expressed concern that there may be asbestos particulate in the keyboard and that use of it could expose us to asbestos. Our condo was built right at the tail end of the use of asbestos materials in new construction and they did have to do asbestos abatement as part of the demolition (I don't know if that was just SOP with a building of that age or if they knew there was asbestos.)

My immediate thought was that that shouldn't be an issue between the cleaning and the minimal exposure we'd be getting. But in reality, I have no idea if that's the case, and it is definitely a legitimate concern without having more information.

Do any of my readers have knowledge that would help me figure out whether using the keyboard is safe and, if not, what would be required to make it safe? I miss the springy-sprongy and the clicky-clacky!

(Not incidentally, I was working on disassembling and cleaning the video card I salvaged from the computer that was in the condo too. New ones are expensive, and we are going to hit our insurance cap. I stopped because of the same concerns. With the heat sink and fan on it, it does seem like there's be *more* risk of exposure from it, if there's any at all.)

Once upon a time, I bought a cheap music-type keyboard from Goodwill. It came with a folding X-style stand that was fine except it was too short for me. I ended up turning it sideways and securing it with a twist-tie.

A little while back, I ordered myself a nicer keyboard. It's a 61-key MIDI controller with velocity-sensitive keys. I bought the suggested X-style stand with it from the music store. To my surprise, it has the same issue; it's too tall at minium height. I have it turned sidewise and again am using twist ties to keep it from folding up.

I write about this because it just collapsed, and as I worked to secure it up again, I wondered if this is just me being too short for a standard height to work (I'm 5'11" so that seems unlikely), or having bad luck with cheap keyboard stands, or what? If I use the stand as intended, the keys are definitely too high for good ergonomics, and if I sit in a taller chair my feet aren't flat on the floor.