Re: Radium watch dial paint Message #11 Posted by blurdybloop on 18 June 2006, 2:41 a.m., in response to message #10 by Mark Lynch
Say what?
Tritium watches are most assuredly still available. Luminox makes them. I have two. Tritium is also used in compasses and gun sights, both readily available to civilians.
However, the earlier poster mentioned using a Geiger counter. That would be a radium watch. Tritium only emits beta particles, which won't penetrate human skin, much less the glass of the mounted microbottles which holds the tritium/phosphorus mix (it's not paint). A tritium watch won't register on a Geiger counter (and to prove it, I have both watch and Geiger counter).
Radium, on the other hand, is a powerful alpha, beta, and gamma emitter. Mixed with beryllium, it also produces neutrons. It generates heat and has a blue luminescence of its own. It's chemically similar to calcium and will replace calcium in your bones. Last but not least, radon gas is one of its decay products.
Put another way, radium is not stuff that you want in your system. If you encounter an old watch (or gauge -- they were commonly used in aircraft instruments) with radium illumination your best course of action is to call the hazmat people to dispose of it. An intact radium watch is probably not particularly harmful (the glass and the metal in the watch provide some shielding) if worn occasionally, but many of these old watches and especially old gauges are not intact.
People have bought pallets of surplus military equipment sight-unseen in warehouses, opened them up to find aircraft gauges, and thought wow, what a find. That is, until after handling and sorting them, they started noticing that they were getting sunburnt even though they were inside...Uh-oh...turn off the lights...UH-OH!!
Radiation burns are no fun at all; nor is worrying about the long-term consequences of having had one. The guys that this happened to did recover, by the way.
I had that reaction myself when I bought some MiG aircraft instruments and saw them glowing when I turned off the lights that night. Quick panic, grab the Geiger counter, nothing registering,...hmm, the glow is dimming...OK, it's just phosphorus dials, nothing radioactive...WHEW!
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