@@FranLab This is why I bought a geiger counter a few months ago. Generally people aren't aware and because they can't tell it's there without a geiger counter to detect it they might never know. To make sure the Geiger counter was working though I had to get my hands on a test source so I bought a thorium gas lamp mantle which is now sat in the corner of my office in the plastic envelope it was shipped in. I didn't need to open it to test the geiger counter and it worked at charm. Maybe I should make a lead pig to keep it in?
Radium Girls they were called in Switzerland. They had big face issues because they used to put the brushes with the radium paint in their mouth. The places the dail factories were, are still an issue today but the story is held a little under the surface. Swiss watches had radium dials up to the 1960s. Then they used Tritium and these dials are marked: T-Swiss Made-T!
The dial painted would "tip" their brushes on the lips in order to create a point fine enough for detail work, thus ingesting large amounts of the radium paint. Radium is chemically similar to calcium, so the body builds it into bones. While bones, and the jaw and teeth in particular, may seem barely alive, they are nonetheless being forever maintained and rebuilt by the body. Radium is a powerful alpha emitter, and when ingested in large (microgram) quantities, destroys everything around it so quickly that cancer from genetic scrambling doesn't even have a chance to set in.
@@DandyDon1 Not clock makers but especially dial makers are the most endangered species! The factory sites are still contaminated and Swiss were very behind the Japanese!
Radior! commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Radior_cosmetics_containing_radium_1918.jpg And here's an appropriate lab notebook: www.redbubble.com/i/notebook/40495709.RXH2R
Marie Curie was astonished when she could see radioactive glow with eyes closed. That would make great bedside clock, you could see time while sleeping.
@@crackthefoundation_ yes, she died from aplastic anemia, because the radium (and other things) eventually damaged her bone marrow to the extent that red blood cell production was insufficient.
My mate of mine likes to walk into antique shops with a geiger counter, one of the old style large ones and check out the green glass wear. You should see the looks when it goes off.
Yes, Uranium glass, also glows under UV light, not much of a threat-fairly weak. There is also Thorium glass (generally dark beige to light brown). not a real threat either.
@@dno8maid It's generally "safe". Can't recommend it though, no matter what you do in modern daily life, you're getting similar doses, reducing carcinogen exposure/ionizing radiation is often a wise thing to do
@@dno8maid What I’ve heard (read) is that you shouldn’t use it with acidic foods/juices, which can leach out some of the Uranium. Personally, I’d never want it in contact with any of my food.
A mate of mine has actually a watch shop where he's selling very old watch stuff, watch dials from the 1900-today and government officials wanted to close his shop because of radiation! He had to declare his shop as a "historic monument" to be able to keep it open and sign various papers that he's aware of the dangers he's running! The former owner is now in his late 80s and still working there from time to time. So, the law of radiation must be observed: Ten times the distance = 1/100 of radiation!
Well, the classroom source was designed to be very low power - because kids - the paint is not 100% radium. The paint is mostly phosphorus mineral, plus a small trace of dilute radium.
A kid who sat too close to a cathode ray TV that morning would me more radioactive than the source used in schools. I know this from being in a lab with a kid who did just that!
@@toomanymarys7355 If he registered on a detector, it was not caused by a television. CRT tubes don't emit particulate radiation, so -- while they could be harmful -- people exposed to them would not become emitters themselves.
Radioactive Scotch Tape dispensers. The heavy weight inside is orange monazite sand (a thorium ore.) One of mine is completely inert, while the other gives about twice background counts. Fairly innocuous, somewhat like granite countertops.
My grandfather was proud to show how he could read in the dark from the light from the dial of his watch. He unfortunately died from lymphoma at age 64.
@@BobDarlington I know this know. quick comment before a search. He did love his americium-241. Enough to drive him to large scale theft, jail time and death. Not a full quid but worthwhile watching a doing a bit of reading and watching a few vids on.
@@Lazy_Tim That's what he started with then graduated up to Raduim. Great read. I think he is still alive. I read he got a lifetime dose but not a fatal amount. Of course who knows what will happen in 20-30 years.
Great read: "The Radium Girls" by Kate Moore. It's also a great history of workman's compensation. A little off-topic, but the story of the discovery of radon in homes is also quite interesting, especially if you live on "the Reading Prong" in Pennsylvania.
Can't recommend that book enough. My colleges library had it out on display one week and I'm glad they did because it became my favorite book I've read in years.
@@jefftreseder4358 thank you, Irish TV RTE1 showed this film many years ago. If it is the same film the Geiger counter was still able to read the radiation from there graves. 😔
Several years ago, there were literally hundreds of yellow Victoreen "Geiger counters" dumped on Ebay from folks who acquired them from their local Civil Defense departments. Apparently, they were given the go-ahead to get rid of them. I thought they'd be a great conversation piece, so I picked one up. I immediately noticed the 3 ranges were WAY up there, 100R, 10R and 1R. I calibrate these survey meters (they have a geiger-muller tube) with a Cs-137 source, up to a maximum of 1000mR/hr, so I was able to verify it did indeed work, but only on the lowest range. They didn't have ranges low enough to detect something like a radium clock dial because they were intended to be used during/after a nuclear event, where if your meter detected anything on any range, you were toast!
Actually in Lansdowne, PA. I was the Radiation Safety Officer for several years at the Austin Avenue Radiation Superfund Site. The person who was responsible for most of the issues there was a professor (I think of physics) at the University of Pennsylvania in the very early 20th century (
Also, there is a documentary film out there called "Radium City" about the dial painters in Ontario(?), Illinois. I used it as a "good example of a bad example" in my radiation safety training courses showing their current radiation protection practices(???) during their cleanup. Told my health physics technicians, "If I catch you doing any of that, you're fired."
@@johnsykesiii1629 a school got shut down recently after a student bought in a fiesterware plate and a geiger counter to show it off, in terms of risk it was minimal but the teachers went way OTT
I used to fly WW2 aircraft with a retired U.S. Navy pilot and in his North American SNJ-5C he had a compass with a radium dial. The FAA sent out a circular on this hazard and we replaced it with a new unit. This retrofit was done about 30 years ago. Thank You for sharing this wonderful info ma'am.
This reminds me of the time when I bought my first Geiger counter as a kid. I saved a long time for one. And of course I tried it on anything I could find. I got some exciting readings from the moss near the drains in the street. But the biggest surprise was a compass I had at home. Apparently it originated from the Hungarian military. That was when I found out my Geiger counter also has a beeping function.
One company I worked for also manufactured dosimeters. Anyhow, one business man dropped in to have a look at our current R&D of dosimeters. That day his electronic watch was not working, so just for the heck of it, he put on his fathers old watch instead. As he approached my work bench, the dosimeter alarms went off on each of the prototype dosimeters that I was testing at that time. Yes, his fathers watch was radio active. But even better than this was when the president of our company just came back from a hospital where he had received a cat scan. As he approached my bench, I noticed the radiation level bar displays on the dosimeters in front of me were beginning to clime. First they began to clime higher in the green (Good) area, then climb up into the orange (warning) area, and then as he was a bit closer they climbed up into the red (danger) area. By the time he was standing right behind me, all the alarms went off. He looked a bit nervous, once all the alarms went off.
I think it's easy to automatically associate the glow with the radiation, but for the most part the glow stops because the phosphor degrades. This is certainly info that should be better spread!
@@BLUECREEK333 Just a heads up that most granite making it's way to people's homes is super mild on geiger counter. Yes, I've checked all the samples at the large home improvement shops just for fun. Nothing very interesting at my local ones anyway.
I had a watch back in 1966 that glowed such a nice green, mezmerizing to a 5 year old boy. I remember my older sister making my parents take it away from me, I had no Idea why at the time. Fifty years later I have a nice dime sized age spot on my wrist that looks alittle like a burn.
Yeah, I have two clocks with the radium painted hands and numbers. One is displayed high up on a shelf away from people and it still glows, I've had them since I was a kid (I'm 45 now) and loved seeing the glowing hands and numbers in the night.
Fran, my father worked for US Gauge in Sellersville PA. Just go up Rt 309 about ten miles from Philly. Out of business and all buildings demolished around 2012 but where the first factory stood in the 1920s is fenced off, barren, and a superfund site. They used to coat gauge dials with Raduim in the same period as the Radium girls and the ground under the former factory is quite contaminated. Prime real estate too right in the center of town.
Radium and Radon are part of the Uranium decay chain. Uranium ore gives off radon gas which is a potent carcinogen due to its radioactivity and gaseous form. In some cases house foundations can become saturated with radon gas (if not ventilated properly) , due to radioactive decay in the shallow crust.
Radon is a nobel gas that is produced naturally. Since it isn't absorbed by the body it isn't very dangerous unless it is in high concentrations due to a lack of ventilation. The radium in clock paint will release an extremely small amount of radon.
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 Or not. Actual studies with radon levels show that there is probably an hormesis effect at lower doses, and the European looser standards for radon are probably correct and strict US ones are wrong. :)
Thanks for the heads-up on aircraft instruments. I will have to check the compass I picked up recently. The local scrap yard I go to has a radioactivity detector at the entrance. All vehicles passing through must go 2 mph and wait for the green light.
In the 1970s in the UK, my parents had a Trimphone, this had an illuminated dial. The dial was illuminated by a Betalight, which was a c-shaped sealed glass self luminescent tube coated internally with phosphor and filled with tritium gas. In the early 1990s a friend who worked for British Telecom said that someone had found boxes of Betalights at the back of store room and they had to call the National Radiological Protection Board to organise their safe disposal.
But tritium has a half-life of about 12 years "only" and decays to a stable helium-3, so I don't think those lights are really dangerous after a few decades.
@@BluesyBor I agree that the risks would have been minimal, but there are radiation safety regulations that companies are obliged to follow. This happened around 25 years after the devices were made, so there would still be some tritium remaining, however I think the only danger would have been if the tritium tubes were broken in a confined space.
@@peterjf7723 there will be some tritium that hasn't decayed yet 100, 200 and 500 years later - perks of half-life term. ;) Besides tritium is a beta emitter, and beta radiation is "manageable" if it comes from outside of your body - so you're relatively safe as long as you do not absorb it somehow. Like when the tube breaks and some of this gets into your eye or mouth, or you inhale the vapor... Because then even small amount could prove fatal. A bit like mercury, but hurts in a different manner. Now radium - 33 (I think) isotopes, all radioactive in various ways (alpha, beta, gamma, protons etc.), all decaying to other radioactive elements (I'm pretty sure that's true for all of them), ALL of them with half-life times from miliseconds to thousands of years. Compared to this, tritium is a cute puppy who can still bite if you're not careful. ;D
I used to fix and dismantle old clocks when I was a teenager, all sorts of mains powered, wind-up, alarm clocks, travel clocks. Even had a draw full of hands in the workshop and a pile of dials, and remember the paint coming off some. They didn’t seem to glow in the dark much though (after the usual “storage” types had run down). Never thought they could be radioactive (it was way before the internet). Perhaps that explains something...🤓 Interestingly now I know about this the radium paint is the only thing which stops me collecting old aircraft instruments, which would be very interesting inside!
I had one of the Tritium watches I bought from Sears, it glowed for at least 10 years until the capsule gave out. There were switches used by both US and Soviets in aircraft and other vehicles. In the end of the switch there was a clear glass bead that housed a bit of radium and phosphor. They don't glow today but they still emit radioactive particles.
I grew up in Orange, NJ. A few blocks from my house was the old United States Radium factory of Radium Girls fame. Next door to the main building was a small attached building that looked like a large garage. It even had the door. In there was the Elliot-Green sequin factory. My mom worked in that building. Also in the front of the main building was a small luncheonette, that I guess at one time catered to the factory workers. I was open and served food. Wikipedia says the company became defunct in 1970. So it was still in operation at that time. In 1983 the EPA started cleaning up the site. They sent people out in the 90s to examine my mom to see if she had any. radon related health issues. She was in her 80s and fairly healthy for a woman of that age. There was a lot of property in Orange and neighboring towns dug up because contractors used contaminated soil from the United States Radium factory site for land fill. We had those Westclox radium dial clocks in my house growing up. They glowed at the time.
Basically *ANY* metal scrap facility here in Europe has to be fitted with radiation detectors. I've worked at a steel mill where both truck entry and ship entry were doing detection. Both incoming and outgoing trucks had to pass detectors, and the scrap grapler hanging from the crane had a radiation detector build in as well. I still have my "geiger counter diploma", my certificate showing I know how to use a radiation counter properly. Since every (European at least) steel manufacturer has to declare on its material certificates that the material is free from radioactive contamination, both steel mills and scrap dealers have radiation detection fitted.
Hi Fran, enjoying your videos. I bought a clock in a local second hand shop..taking it to clockmaker after it fell from wall (another story), he says “young man, the only thing that fm transmitter receiver has in common with your clock is that rather oversized power source” . ! My radium dial has black onyx covering.
In the early 1900's, there was a radium factory outside of Philly in Lansdowne. It ended up being a very big deal because they dumped all liquid waste into the septic system and sold the dry waste for plaster sand. A number of houses in Lansdowne needed to be demolished when the whole site became a EPA superfund site in the 90's.
I was the Radiation Safety Officer for the Austin Avenue Superfund site for a few years in the 1990s. We remediated 41 properties within 2 miles of the site, that had become contaminated with the waste from the factory on Austin Ave.
Have been asked to survey a couple homes over the years from friends that had inventor type grandpas . Got a nice collection that is kept off premises.
Outside of Radium paint on military surplus is with surplus optics which for need of very high refractive index glass sometimes use elements like Yttrium, Thorium, & Uranium, the latter two being radioactive. Fortunately most of the glass radioactive glass elements are sandwiched between more normal glasses inside of a metal housing, which limits exposure considerably but dismantling the optics or long term storage in human proximity is an issue. I even had a friend who had a bunch of military surplus scopes & eyepieces that he stored under his bed, after we tested them he decided it would be better to store them outside his house.
Measure from a distance of 1 foot, not in contact with the surface, close the beta shield. If the reading translates to less then 2mR/H (typically an activity of 1250 cpm), it's harmless.
Depends really. Modern or vintage? The Civil Defense cold war surplus ones on eBay are getting more expensive these days but you can still pick one up for a reasonable price. Look for CD V-700 and hope it's working. Most of them are. They certainly look the part. Like you're straight from a sci-fi B-movie. But you can also get a reasoably priced modern one from Amazon like the GQ GMC-320 Plus which can do timed measurements and logging. Expect to pay around $100
I own a GQ 500+ and I'm quite pleased with it, it's a low cost device and thus only detects beta and gamma. If you want to detect alphas I heard that the Radiascan 701 would be very good.
If you're on this channel, you might enjoy the kit on Adafruit. For guarding against actual threats (not just playing around) I don't think I'd personally go for the actually used vintage ones, but there are a lot of V700s on eBay that look basically new. Get a calibration source and use it regularly.
Best bang for the buck right now is Radex 1503. New old stock ones in original box are being sold on ebay for about $50 delivered. They are very sensitive and use the classic SBM-20 tube. These units were mass produced around the time of the Fukushima incident.
Don't be fooled by the CD V-715 looking like the V-700 Lots of sellers are listing the 715 as being almost the same as the V-700 but when you ever see the needle on one of those move while wearing your daily clothing you're already as good as dead.
Very useful information! In the watch community there are lots of people talking about "nice patina" such as "radium burn"....and that removing the radium is such a shame...well, for me, no matter how cool a watch is, if it's got radium it's just not worth it
0:30 I tried the same thing with my Geiger counter and a 1940's Westclox Big Ben wind up alarm clock. The regular background radiation is about 12.5 counts per minute, and I measured more than 100 counts per minute from the clock. I made the measurement with the probe's window closed, so this is definitely not beta radiation. These are gamma rays or X rays. The clock hasn't "alarmed" anyone in many years, but it did surprise me.
I recently found out the clock I got from my grandpa’s shed had radium paint! I remember finding it and putting it up to my face and being so excited that it glowed in the dark… It was a scare at first to find out, but luckily it’s in great condition and I’ve never slept next to it.
As a 12 year old in the late 50s, I built a battery-powered geiger counter from plans in some magazine. Parts from Allied Electronics. Once it was finished, it needed to be tested. I used my father's military-issue wristwatch from when he flew B-17s in WWII. It worked! Why did I build it? We were still having "dive under your desk" A-bomb drills in my California school. Memories...
I've seen all sorts of radiactive items on ebay, including a Cobalt 60 source in a waveguide fitting and the seller had removed the closing plate to photograph it, despite the large warning labels.
Back in the day, I worked for an old steel mill. They used a giger counter to scan all the incoming rail cars, which contained the scrap metal. Every once in a great while it would pop, from radioactive contaminants, like scrapped medical scanning equipment.
@@MeriaDuck water, water is what could go wrong. nuclear waste is pretty safe, until it soaks on water and leaks, because water dissolves everything, pretty nasty stuff water is
Don't forget that radium decays into radon gas which can then be easily inhaled. If enough is inhaled it can significantly increase the risk of lung cancer. A radium painted clock doesn't need to have the paint crumbling to be hazardous. I spent nearly $1000 to get remediation for the high radon levels in my home's basement. It was worth the trouble and cost to not have a drastically increased risk of cancer.
So a lot of people have radium stuff and have no idea. I should probably avoid handling my great-grandfather's watch until I can check. Thanks Fran! I think radium-dial compasses were very common, too.
The Army switched from radium to tritium gas in the 1960s. Tritium emits a low energy beta particle and, of course, dissipates immediately if the glass is broken.
I hadn't really thought about hot clocks specifically, but this is a good reminder that I probably should get a radiac for checking stuff in general. You never do know...
Great advice Fran I'm amazed at what people don't know about radium dials on old clocks and equipment I live In Edinburgh Scotland and a few years ago across the firth of forth in dalgety Bay Fife it came to light that the ministery of defence was scraping plane's from ww2 just burning the planes then landfilling them on the beach and buried the ashes all was good until it came to light and they had to close the bay and clean it up the source was radium 226 fist found in the area in 1990 long after the event just make me wonder how many outher places may have the same problem as yet unknown a dangerous and sad state of affairs
A great friend of mine is in the horological business and always put his few antique radium timepieces in a thick lead box. Great advice! I need to read the new Illinois Watch book that's quite an epic as I love 19th century and early 20th century American timepieces speaking of which.....
Hi Fran! Yes, I have uranium glass and other things... but I did toss out my antique radium dial clocks. They clicked from across the room on my counter. Yeah, I don't need that in my house.
Thank you for this information. It made me do some more research into my Junghans alarm clock from the early 50s. Turns out Junghans still used Radium at that point and my clock still glows strong.
Thank you for this. I learned something interesting about the phosphors degrading with time and the prevalence of radium dials in older time pieces. I had a watch when I was in my teens that my father gave me. He bought it when he was in the army during WWII. It always glowed very bright. When I was in high-school electronics class I put a Geiger counter up to it and it pinned the meter! I broke it a few months later and threw it away.
i know of the dangers of radium paint. however, my grandmother used to have an old radium painted clock next to her bed for over 60 years which never caused her any problems and she lived untill the age of 83. it might very well depend on how much paint was used and the concentration of the radium in the paint and maybe also the proximity to the bed. hers only had the dials and numbers painted. it looked like an off white with the slightest hint of green but ive never seen it glow in the dark.
Its not only clocks. They used to do things like lining serving and mixing bowls because it was assumed that it was healthful. And then there is Orange Fiesta from the original run. This color of dishware was made using depleted uranium in the glaze. I was once in an antique emporium in Lancaster Co., PA and tried to show the seller that the big pile of orange Fiesta in his booth was lethal (using my belt holstered geiger counter). He thought i was somehow spoofing him, who claimed to be one of the world's experts on Fiesta.
Of course, the first clock you show is a 1950s Raytheon clock, which looks very similar to the one that's been sitting in my living room for a few years now. I had not even considered that the dial could have been painted with Radium. Well, I don't have a Geiger Counter on hand, so I don't know for sure. At the very least, it doesn't appear to glow, it isn't flaking, and it is on a shelf far from where everyone sits.
This is funny because it reminded me of a car in the 1950s. Can't remember if it was a Desoto or Chrysler or what but the instrument cluster is radioactive; because they were trying out a way to get the dash to light up better at night. And to this day if you oops up on one in an old car junkyard you can get your geiger counter out and get a reading.
Very interesting. I have worn my old Tudor to work and it puts our hand scanners into alarm when I leave the experimental halls. In fact I can't remember the actual figures but when we measured its dose rate, for a nearly 70 year old watch it was quite significant.
The biggest issue is that there are no regulations on the buying and selling of potentially radioactive antiques. This allows for many known potentially radioactive antiques to move freely within the country. If you were to remove the radioactive dial and then attempt to transport that as a known radioactive source, it would be regulated unless you were to classify it as an "antique dial face." As for the public perception of radiation and radioactive sources in general, few are actually educated to understand the hazards. This is the reason we get such varying responses to anything nuclear in general. Radium in general is a nasty material. It is chemically similar to calcium; this is why it ends up in human bones upon ingestion. It decays to Radon, another radioactive element with a shorter half-life and then down to Polonium also radioactive (all three discovered by the Curies). Ultimately Radium 226 has a total of 9 decay steps to stable lead 206, and lead 210 is the second longest half-life of 22 years (the rest varying from 138 days to 0.16 ms). For those unsure, a half-life is the time measured for 1/2 of the original element to decay into another element. Typically after 5 half-lives have passed the element is considered gone. Bottom line is, if you look at the decay chain and ignore the shorter half-lives, Radium 226 will take nearly 8117 years for 97% to decay to stable lead. Also, that decay chain has 5 alpha emitters and 4 beta (alpha is a high energy helium moving so fast it leaves it's electrons behind and beta is high energy free electrons.) The alpha emitters can damage your lungs if you breath them in as either radon or dust in the other forms. This is why radon buildup in basements of housing is such an issue.
Lowest price, way under $100, search for "assembled geiger counter kit," it's only an electronics board and battery connector, you provide the plastic box. Also, Electronics Goldmine has cheap little DIY geiger counter kits, solder-it-yourself. There are tiny smartphone "android" geiger counters, but no actual counter-tube, not very sensitive. I've never tried those. Fairly good one for $100 or so is "GQ GMC" little white device with USB and lcd screen, but doesn't sense alphas. Expensive pro GM counters with external probe are: Ludlum or Eberline corp, used ones usually $500-$1500 (I once found one for $150, w/dead meter, working pancake probe.) Weird: search pripyat master, or pripyat bella. These are pocket geiger/dosimeters dating from the Chernobyl era, w/little LCD screen, usually under $50
My Dad had a watch in the 1960's with a glowing dial. He used to wear it to work and one day he toured a nuclear facility. On the way out he set off the whole body scanner. After some investigation the "contamination" turned out to be his watch. They told him to take it with him and not bring it back in again. If you looked at it closely in the dark you could see the scintillation from the decay. I wonder if it's still in a box somewhere? If I find it I won't open the watch case. As you pointed out it will have long stopped glowing but will still be radioactive.
In the hunters point naval shipyards in San Francisco, they serviced subs for many years, and I read they literally dumped all the radium phosphor indicators, dials and knobs from them in the bay. The navy also dumped the old lead acid batteries. There's an incomplete apartment building there where they mixed sand from the bay into the mortar and later found it to be radioactive, and the construction stopped.
@@Oldbmwr100rs Pretty bad. It reminds me an obscure story about a parking lot with a thick layer of yellow cake waste hidden under the macadam, somewhere in France :-D
@@msylvain59 Oh, hunters point had a waste dump where drums of oil and whatever else was around (and this place had a lot of maintenance on ships and subs going on) to be crushed by bulldozers and buried under soil, then another layer added. Once the base was closed, it was given to the city to deal with. Pretty common on military bases over the years.
I once visited an old bunker in Berlin, which was open to the public, pretty much a museum. They had a lot of luminiscent paint on the walls and on the ceiling, because, obviously, the lights would often go out when the bombs dropped. Wonder if that was the same stuff.
And some odd vacuum tubes were also radioactive, as they needed less power to get to an excited state to do their thing. Surprised those didn't get a mention.
Now I'm a bit worried because my granddad owns a tonne of those things, old and new, and when I was younger I used to smash them apart and I think I still have a few in a box... Let's just hope they were not the radioactive ones
@@KingJellyfishII very few consumer products had any need for a tube of that type. Your grandfather's collection would have to be supplied from military or scientific equipment.
That's the UX-201A triode or 01A (one of them anyway).. They used a thorium cathode to enhance emission, but they are rare being pre octal 1920's vintage.
Radium is an alpha emitter. Alpha particles are easily stopped by the crystal and case of clocks and watches. Obviously if the paint has turned to fine (breathable) powder, it's unsafe, but if it's in situ and stable, it should be safe. One concern is that radium 226 decays into radon gas. Radon is heavier than air so it can pool in basements and cellars, especially if poorly ventilated. Radon has a short half-life, and decays more rapidly. Inhale Radon, and the odds of an energetic particle being released without any protection is much higher.
Orange " carnival glass" can be radioactive...in high school physics class ( 1970s) radiographs were made with an old coffee cup and plate made of orange carnival glass. An overnight exposure on Tri-X sheet film gave clear images...
Wow, I was completely unaware of the use of radium in the USSR. That's so crazy. I bought one piece of electronics from Poland, but it was produced post 1991.
... I did have luminous clocks, I don't use them now, but I never threw them away. They're here, somewhere, no idea exactly. Cue house hunt with Geiger counter. Info that just because it does not glow, does not mean it is safe is very good.
Perhaps with a scintillator. Even if you have a quite good Geiger-Mueller counter, if an antique shop gives it a rise from outside while driving by, the occupants are in for health issues. Radium is an alpha emitter; alpha particles are easily stopped by paper. What the counter is picking up through the clock face is the "mild" gamma emissions from Radium along with Gamma+Beta from its daughters. With the dial face removed (don't do this!!!), a radium dial clock will send an alpha sensitive detector screaming. Not all "Geiger Counters" are alpha sensitive. Your average bright yellow Civil Defense GM counter is not. The best GM tubes are sensitive, but that *that* sensitive. Scintillators on the other hand can be many orders of magnitudes more sensitive. Mine will register the granite cobblestone in my driveway and the bricks in my 115 year old house. For comparison, they're completely undetectable by a good pancake GM tube. The level is so low as to be harmless. In the below video, the baseline of 2000-3000 CPM is just it picking up cosmic rays and natural radiation in the soil, all around us. A normal GM counter would be ticking about 40 times a minute ua-cam.com/video/3b69gsi8WW8/v-deo.html
@@glasslinger See ua-cam.com/video/bLjcz-OBonY/v-deo.html, and on eBay old clocks, search on "antique" or "vintage" to exclude the post-1950s non-radium dials. Fran seems to have done that.
During WW2 in Germany they also use glowing painting in both Military and civilian into air raid tunnel for example as direction information on the tunnel wall.
Fran, thanks for the heads-up! I have several vintage clocks and now I need to check them out. Guess I'll need to purchase a Geiger-counter. Thanks for sharing.
In a similar vein, a non-radioactive dangerous thing to be aware of is old metal can transistors that have white-yellow powder visible on the metal case. I'm not 100% sure what it is, maybe arsenic, but damn does it give you a pounding headache if you mess with it and get it on you.
Another often unknown source is gas lantern mantles, they are even worse once used as the material is close to air suspension mass when broken. Great video (again) Fran.. Cheers.
stumbled upon a story about the "radium girls" of east orange while looking up "tritium exit signs." i was wondering how luminous exit signs qualified as "hazardous waste." people who enjoy canned tuna and pink salmon need geiger counters now, too. what a world.
In the UK Smiths Industries and the Joe Lucas company were responsible for a lot of the radium painted dials during WW2 for aircraft. They still find small but seriously radiologically contaminated sites around the country when surveying for new builds on brownfield sites.
Couple construction company's around here had radioactive placards on storage areas in their yards. Asked one day why, it was for gauges, assuming they were radium as well.
I carry mine to antique stores but only find pottery and old thorium mantles. I've yet to find a clock. I did find an old store in town that had black and white glass tile and the white tiles were custard glass.
I have an old radium dial Baby Ben clock. You can still see it scintillate at night. My high school physics class in 1970 was next to the school darkroom. We had an alpha source in a dish like container with a magnifier attached. We can see the sparks go off of the source. My old clock, the same way. The old clock's phosphor base was long nuked away.
hi Fran, love the channel. You mention that radium paint emits mostly alpha particles. Those particles are accompanied by gamma radiation which is bad bad. And just to add to the fun the radium breaks down into radon gas which causes lung cancer...
I think it's more a matter of people not knowing rather than not caring, which is why your knowledgeable videos are great!
Knowledge Is Power indeed...
@@FranLab This is why I bought a geiger counter a few months ago. Generally people aren't aware and because they can't tell it's there without a geiger counter to detect it they might never know. To make sure the Geiger counter was working though I had to get my hands on a test source so I bought a thorium gas lamp mantle which is now sat in the corner of my office in the plastic envelope it was shipped in. I didn't need to open it to test the geiger counter and it worked at charm. Maybe I should make a lead pig to keep it in?
@@binky_bun why would it have to be a lead pig, surely second or even third in command would suffice
@@kamalmanzukie The big bad wolf already got those two
@@binky_bun Can a smoke detector be used to test the geiger counter?
I knew that the face painters suffered terrible fates, but hadn't considered the dangers of crumbling paint etc. Appreciate the PSA
Radium Girls they were called in Switzerland. They had big face issues because they used to put the brushes with the radium paint in their mouth. The places the dail factories were, are still an issue today but the story is held a little under the surface.
Swiss watches had radium dials up to the 1960s. Then they used Tritium and these dials are marked: T-Swiss Made-T!
@@jurivlk5433 The US had Radium Girls too. I'm told some even painted their teeth and subsequently lost all of them.
The dial painted would "tip" their brushes on the lips in order to create a point fine enough for detail work, thus ingesting large amounts of the radium paint.
Radium is chemically similar to calcium, so the body builds it into bones. While bones, and the jaw and teeth in particular, may seem barely alive, they are nonetheless being forever maintained and rebuilt by the body. Radium is a powerful alpha emitter, and when ingested in large (microgram) quantities, destroys everything around it so quickly that cancer from genetic scrambling doesn't even have a chance to set in.
Clock makers and the mad hatters (mercury in felt lining of hats)!
@@DandyDon1 Not clock makers but especially dial makers are the most endangered species! The factory sites are still contaminated and Swiss were very behind the Japanese!
Fran, you look _radiant_ today !!!
Radior! commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Radior_cosmetics_containing_radium_1918.jpg
And here's an appropriate lab notebook: www.redbubble.com/i/notebook/40495709.RXH2R
Bad-dum Tisssss....
Marie Curie was astonished when she could see radioactive glow with eyes closed. That would make great bedside clock, you could see time while sleeping.
For a few years at least ;)
@@crackthefoundation_ yes, she died from aplastic anemia, because the radium (and other things) eventually damaged her bone marrow to the extent that red blood cell production was insufficient.
Marie Curie's husband died from radiation: he was crossing the road preoccupied with thoughts of radiation and was run over by a beer wagon.
@@mannysanguena7900 so, alcohol killed him?
@@jhingur7169 I guess you could say so. That mean both alcohol and radiation are bad for your health!
My mate of mine likes to walk into antique shops with a geiger counter, one of the old style large ones and check out the green glass wear. You should see the looks when it goes off.
Yes, Uranium glass, also glows under UV light, not much of a threat-fairly weak.
There is also Thorium glass (generally dark beige to light brown).
not a real threat either.
Is this U glass any danger to use? Say in an old fruit juicer? I think the doping level in the glass would be too low.
@@dno8maid It's generally "safe". Can't recommend it though, no matter what you do in modern daily life, you're getting similar doses, reducing carcinogen exposure/ionizing radiation is often a wise thing to do
@@dno8maid What I’ve heard (read) is that you shouldn’t use it with acidic foods/juices, which can leach out some of the Uranium. Personally, I’d never want it in contact with any of my food.
A mate of mine has actually a watch shop where he's selling very old watch stuff, watch dials from the 1900-today and government officials wanted to close his shop because of radiation! He had to declare his shop as a "historic monument" to be able to keep it open and sign various papers that he's aware of the dangers he's running! The former owner is now in his late 80s and still working there from time to time. So, the law of radiation must be observed: Ten times the distance = 1/100 of radiation!
My Teacher in the 70s was alarmed to discover by accident that his inherited watch was far more radioactive than the source we used in the classroom!!
Well, the classroom source was designed to be very low power - because kids - the paint is not 100% radium. The paint is mostly phosphorus mineral, plus a small trace of dilute radium.
One of the sources we used in the classroom was an old radium painted (hands only) alarm clock!
A kid who sat too close to a cathode ray TV that morning would me more radioactive than the source used in schools. I know this from being in a lab with a kid who did just that!
@@toomanymarys7355 If he registered on a detector, it was not caused by a television. CRT tubes don't emit particulate radiation, so -- while they could be harmful -- people exposed to them would not become emitters themselves.
@@toomanymarys7355 Unlikely... Radioactivity is not "contagious".
As a kid in the 1950's, we had radium EVERYTHING ! Clocks, crucifixes, toys, statues, and even salt and pepper shakers !
but how about radium salt ?
Radioactive Scotch Tape dispensers.
The heavy weight inside is orange monazite sand (a thorium ore.) One of mine is completely inert, while the other gives about twice background counts. Fairly innocuous, somewhat like granite countertops.
The 1950's were the radioactive days there was thorium uranium and radium in every general store
My grandfather was proud to show how he could read in the dark from the light from the dial of his watch.
He unfortunately died from lymphoma at age 64.
The book "The Radioactive Boyscout" is a great read about this type of stuff!
Wasn't he the smoke detector collector?
@@Lazy_Tim Yep and clocks as well if I recall!
@@Lazy_Tim smoke detector theif. He was also mentally ill (by a lot) and he's now dead.
@@BobDarlington I know this know. quick comment before a search. He did love his americium-241. Enough to drive him to large scale theft, jail time and death. Not a full quid but worthwhile watching a doing a bit of reading and watching a few vids on.
@@Lazy_Tim That's what he started with then graduated up to Raduim. Great read. I think he is still alive. I read he got a lifetime dose but not a fatal amount. Of course who knows what will happen in 20-30 years.
Great read: "The Radium Girls" by Kate Moore. It's also a great history of workman's compensation.
A little off-topic, but the story of the discovery of radon in homes is also quite interesting, especially if you live on "the Reading Prong" in Pennsylvania.
See that on Netflix right now.
Can't recommend that book enough. My colleges library had it out on display one week and I'm glad they did because it became my favorite book I've read in years.
@@jefftreseder4358 thank you, Irish TV RTE1 showed this film many years ago. If it is the same film the Geiger counter was still able to read the radiation from there graves. 😔
Netflix won’t show this film in Ireland 🙄🙂
Several years ago, there were literally hundreds of yellow Victoreen "Geiger counters" dumped on Ebay from folks who acquired them from their local Civil Defense departments. Apparently, they were given the go-ahead to get rid of them. I thought they'd be a great conversation piece, so I picked one up. I immediately noticed the 3 ranges were WAY up there, 100R, 10R and 1R.
I calibrate these survey meters (they have a geiger-muller tube) with a Cs-137 source, up to a maximum of 1000mR/hr, so I was able to verify it did indeed work, but only on the lowest range. They didn't have ranges low enough to detect something like a radium clock dial because they were intended to be used during/after a nuclear event, where if your meter detected anything on any range, you were toast!
A bunch of houses in Philly were built in the 20s using sand waste from a radium dial factory.
Actually in Lansdowne, PA. I was the Radiation Safety Officer for several years at the Austin Avenue Radiation Superfund Site. The person who was responsible for most of the issues there was a professor (I think of physics) at the University of Pennsylvania in the very early 20th century (
Also, there is a documentary film out there called "Radium City" about the dial painters in Ontario(?), Illinois. I used it as a "good example of a bad example" in my radiation safety training courses showing their current radiation protection practices(???) during their cleanup. Told my health physics technicians, "If I catch you doing any of that, you're fired."
Correction to my above reply. It was Ottawa, Illinois not Ontario. The "Radium City" documentary is available on Vimeo.
@@johnsykesiii1629 a school got shut down recently after a student bought in a fiesterware plate and a geiger counter to show it off, in terms of risk it was minimal but the teachers went way OTT
WOW had no idea this was a thing! As a person that people often hand me they’re old junk to fix often.... THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!!!!!!
I used to fly WW2 aircraft with a retired U.S. Navy pilot and in his North American SNJ-5C he had a compass with a radium dial. The FAA sent out a circular on this hazard and we replaced it with a new unit. This retrofit was done about 30 years ago. Thank You for sharing this wonderful info ma'am.
Now I want a antique clock even more than ever!
Me too, especially if 7:11 is the result of exposure. That's a cute look.
This reminds me of the time when I bought my first Geiger counter as a kid.
I saved a long time for one. And of course I tried it on anything I could find.
I got some exciting readings from the moss near the drains in the street.
But the biggest surprise was a compass I had at home. Apparently it originated from the Hungarian military.
That was when I found out my Geiger counter also has a beeping function.
One company I worked for also manufactured dosimeters. Anyhow, one business man dropped in to have a look at our current R&D of dosimeters. That day his electronic watch was not working, so just for the heck of it, he put on his fathers old watch instead. As he approached my work bench, the dosimeter alarms went off on each of the prototype dosimeters that I was testing at that time. Yes, his fathers watch was radio active. But even better than this was when the president of our company just came back from a hospital where he had received a cat scan. As he approached my bench, I noticed the radiation level bar displays on the dosimeters in front of me were beginning to clime. First they began to clime higher in the green (Good) area, then climb up into the orange (warning) area, and then as he was a bit closer they climbed up into the red (danger) area. By the time he was standing right behind me, all the alarms went off. He looked a bit nervous, once all the alarms went off.
Really interesting ... and quite scary. I didn't realise that the radiation could continue long after the glow had stopped.
Half life of around 1600 years!
I think it's easy to automatically associate the glow with the radiation, but for the most part the glow stops because the phosphor degrades. This is certainly info that should be better spread!
@@brhfl2812 Yes the phosphor literally gets "burned-out" by the alpha radiation from the radium.
If radiation scares you, stay away from your granite kitchen counter. Also, don't ever fly on a plane.
@@BLUECREEK333 Just a heads up that most granite making it's way to people's homes is super mild on geiger counter. Yes, I've checked all the samples at the large home improvement shops just for fun. Nothing very interesting at my local ones anyway.
FRAN, Thank You for the reminder.
I had a watch back in 1966 that glowed such a nice green, mezmerizing to a 5 year old boy. I remember my older sister making my parents take it away from me, I had no Idea why at the time. Fifty years later I have a nice dime sized age spot on my wrist that looks alittle like a burn.
That's crazy. How'd your sister know at the time?
WOW Fran, I never appreciated this being a problem. DAMN good advice! Thanks from the UK.
Yeah, I have two clocks with the radium painted hands and numbers. One is displayed high up on a shelf away from people and it still glows, I've had them since I was a kid (I'm 45 now) and loved seeing the glowing hands and numbers in the night.
Fran, my father worked for US Gauge in Sellersville PA. Just go up Rt 309 about ten miles from Philly. Out of business and all buildings demolished around 2012 but where the first factory stood in the 1920s is fenced off, barren, and a superfund site. They used to coat gauge dials with Raduim in the same period as the Radium girls and the ground under the former factory is quite contaminated. Prime real estate too right in the center of town.
Plus one of the decay isotopes is radon.
Radium and Radon are part of the Uranium decay chain. Uranium ore gives off radon gas which is a potent carcinogen due to its radioactivity and gaseous form. In some cases house foundations can become saturated with radon gas (if not ventilated properly) , due to radioactive decay in the shallow crust.
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 Yep very easy to vent though and not very expensive.
Radon is a nobel gas that is produced naturally. Since it isn't absorbed by the body it isn't very dangerous unless it is in high concentrations due to a lack of ventilation. The radium in clock paint will release an extremely small amount of radon.
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 Or not. Actual studies with radon levels show that there is probably an hormesis effect at lower doses, and the European looser standards for radon are probably correct and strict US ones are wrong. :)
Fran is such an inspiring soul. Her energy is infectious
Thanks for the heads-up on aircraft instruments. I will have to check the compass I picked up recently.
The local scrap yard I go to has a radioactivity detector at the entrance. All vehicles passing through must go 2 mph and wait for the green light.
This should be a Worldwide public service announcement. Thankyou Fran!
In the 1970s in the UK, my parents had a Trimphone, this had an illuminated dial.
The dial was illuminated by a Betalight, which was a c-shaped sealed glass self luminescent tube coated internally with phosphor and filled with tritium gas.
In the early 1990s a friend who worked for British Telecom said that someone had found boxes of Betalights at the back of store room and they had to call the National Radiological Protection Board to organise their safe disposal.
Peter - Amazing about the Betalite of the 1970's. Watch makes are just now starting to use Tritium.
But tritium has a half-life of about 12 years "only" and decays to a stable helium-3, so I don't think those lights are really dangerous after a few decades.
@@BluesyBor I agree that the risks would have been minimal, but there are radiation safety regulations that companies are obliged to follow.
This happened around 25 years after the devices were made, so there would still be some tritium remaining, however I think the only danger would have been if the tritium tubes were broken in a confined space.
@@peterjf7723 there will be some tritium that hasn't decayed yet 100, 200 and 500 years later - perks of half-life term. ;)
Besides tritium is a beta emitter, and beta radiation is "manageable" if it comes from outside of your body - so you're relatively safe as long as you do not absorb it somehow. Like when the tube breaks and some of this gets into your eye or mouth, or you inhale the vapor... Because then even small amount could prove fatal. A bit like mercury, but hurts in a different manner.
Now radium - 33 (I think) isotopes, all radioactive in various ways (alpha, beta, gamma, protons etc.), all decaying to other radioactive elements (I'm pretty sure that's true for all of them), ALL of them with half-life times from miliseconds to thousands of years. Compared to this, tritium is a cute puppy who can still bite if you're not careful. ;D
A TV show called "1000 Ways to Die" did a story on the RADIUM GIRLS in one of their episodes. Exactly on this issue with radium ingestion.
I used to fix and dismantle old clocks when I was a teenager, all sorts of mains powered, wind-up, alarm clocks, travel clocks. Even had a draw full of hands in the workshop and a pile of dials, and remember the paint coming off some. They didn’t seem to glow in the dark much though (after the usual “storage” types had run down). Never thought they could be radioactive (it was way before the internet). Perhaps that explains something...🤓 Interestingly now I know about this the radium paint is the only thing which stops me collecting old aircraft instruments, which would be very interesting inside!
I had one of the Tritium watches I bought from Sears, it glowed for at least 10 years until the capsule gave out.
There were switches used by both US and Soviets in aircraft and other vehicles. In the end of the switch there was a clear glass bead that housed a bit of radium and phosphor. They don't glow today but they still emit radioactive particles.
I grew up in Orange, NJ. A few blocks from my house was the old United States Radium factory of Radium Girls fame.
Next door to the main building was a small attached building that looked like a large garage. It even had the door. In there was the Elliot-Green sequin factory. My mom worked in that building. Also in the front of the main building was a small luncheonette, that I guess at one time catered to the factory workers. I was open and served food. Wikipedia says the company became defunct in 1970. So it was still in operation at that time.
In 1983 the EPA started cleaning up the site. They sent people out in the 90s to examine my mom to see if she had any. radon related health issues. She was in her 80s and fairly healthy for a woman of that age.
There was a lot of property in Orange and neighboring towns dug up because contractors used contaminated soil from the United States Radium factory site for land fill.
We had those Westclox radium dial clocks in my house growing up. They glowed at the time.
Basically *ANY* metal scrap facility here in Europe has to be fitted with radiation detectors. I've worked at a steel mill where both truck entry and ship entry were doing detection. Both incoming and outgoing trucks had to pass detectors, and the scrap grapler hanging from the crane had a radiation detector build in as well. I still have my "geiger counter diploma", my certificate showing I know how to use a radiation counter properly.
Since every (European at least) steel manufacturer has to declare on its material certificates that the material is free from radioactive contamination, both steel mills and scrap dealers have radiation detection fitted.
Hi Fran, enjoying your videos. I bought a clock in a local second hand shop..taking it to clockmaker after it fell from wall (another story), he says “young man, the only thing that fm transmitter receiver has in common with your clock is that rather oversized power source” . ! My radium dial has black onyx covering.
Why did I not discover you sooner?!?!?! I've been binge watching your old videos for the past 3 weeks or so. I love your work!!!!
🎵 Don't it always seem to go, that you don't what you've got 'til it's glowin?
hahaha im wondering how many know thats from a song..
In the early 1900's, there was a radium factory outside of Philly in Lansdowne. It ended up being a very big deal because they dumped all liquid waste into the septic system and sold the dry waste for plaster sand. A number of houses in Lansdowne needed to be demolished when the whole site became a EPA superfund site in the 90's.
I was the Radiation Safety Officer for the Austin Avenue Superfund site for a few years in the 1990s. We remediated 41 properties within 2 miles of the site, that had become contaminated with the waste from the factory on Austin Ave.
Incredible! Thanks for sharing. This video alone will raise awareness.
Im really loving these videos that combine history, science, and electronics! you have so many interesting topics!
"well, we saw that your ceiling had been painted with radium paint, so we decided to cover it up with lead paint, so it should be perfectly safe now."
That's just what I was thinking when it was shown. Yeah, good 'Ol communism and caring for the peasants!
Have been asked to survey a couple homes over the years from friends that had inventor type grandpas . Got a nice collection that is kept off premises.
Outside of Radium paint on military surplus is with surplus optics which for need of very high refractive index glass sometimes use elements like Yttrium, Thorium, & Uranium, the latter two being radioactive. Fortunately most of the glass radioactive glass elements are sandwiched between more normal glasses inside of a metal housing, which limits exposure considerably but dismantling the optics or long term storage in human proximity is an issue. I even had a friend who had a bunch of military surplus scopes & eyepieces that he stored under his bed, after we tested them he decided it would be better to store them outside his house.
Measure from a distance of 1 foot, not in contact with the surface, close the beta shield. If the reading translates to less then 2mR/H (typically an activity of 1250 cpm), it's harmless.
Thanks so much for the information Fran
So what Geiger counter should I buy?
Depends really.
Modern or vintage?
The Civil Defense cold war surplus ones on eBay are getting more expensive these days but you can still pick one up for a reasonable price. Look for CD V-700 and hope it's working. Most of them are.
They certainly look the part.
Like you're straight from a sci-fi B-movie.
But you can also get a reasoably priced modern one from Amazon like the GQ GMC-320 Plus which can do timed measurements and logging. Expect to pay around $100
I own a GQ 500+ and I'm quite pleased with it, it's a low cost device and thus only detects beta and gamma. If you want to detect alphas I heard that the Radiascan 701 would be very good.
If you're on this channel, you might enjoy the kit on Adafruit. For guarding against actual threats (not just playing around) I don't think I'd personally go for the actually used vintage ones, but there are a lot of V700s on eBay that look basically new. Get a calibration source and use it regularly.
Best bang for the buck right now is Radex 1503. New old stock ones in original box are being sold on ebay for about $50 delivered. They are very sensitive and use the classic SBM-20 tube. These units were mass produced around the time of the Fukushima incident.
Don't be fooled by the CD V-715 looking like the V-700
Lots of sellers are listing the 715 as being almost the same as the V-700 but when you ever see the needle on one of those move while wearing your daily clothing you're already as good as dead.
Very useful information! In the watch community there are lots of people talking about "nice patina" such as "radium burn"....and that removing the radium is such a shame...well, for me, no matter how cool a watch is, if it's got radium it's just not worth it
0:30 I tried the same thing with my Geiger counter and a 1940's Westclox Big Ben wind up alarm clock. The regular background radiation is about 12.5 counts per minute, and I measured more than 100 counts per minute from the clock. I made the measurement with the probe's window closed, so this is definitely not beta radiation. These are gamma rays or X rays. The clock hasn't "alarmed" anyone in many years, but it did surprise me.
I recently found out the clock I got from my grandpa’s shed had radium paint! I remember finding it and putting it up to my face and being so excited that it glowed in the dark… It was a scare at first to find out, but luckily it’s in great condition and I’ve never slept next to it.
7:11 what documentary is that from?
As a 12 year old in the late 50s, I built a battery-powered geiger counter from plans in some magazine. Parts from Allied Electronics. Once it was finished, it needed to be tested. I used my father's military-issue wristwatch from when he flew B-17s in WWII. It worked! Why did I build it? We were still having "dive under your desk" A-bomb drills in my California school. Memories...
I've seen all sorts of radiactive items on ebay, including a Cobalt 60 source in a waveguide fitting and the seller had removed the closing plate to photograph it, despite the large warning labels.
Back in the day, I worked for an old steel mill. They used a giger counter to scan all the incoming rail cars, which contained the scrap metal. Every once in a great while it would pop, from radioactive contaminants, like scrapped medical scanning equipment.
Those radioactive bunkers would be a good place to use up any remaining supplies of leaded paint. 2 wrongs might make a right!
would need to be a coating inches thick...
What could go wrong :D
@@MeriaDuck water, water is what could go wrong. nuclear waste is pretty safe, until it soaks on water and leaks, because water dissolves everything, pretty nasty stuff water is
Don't forget that radium decays into radon gas which can then be easily inhaled. If enough is inhaled it can significantly increase the risk of lung cancer. A radium painted clock doesn't need to have the paint crumbling to be hazardous.
I spent nearly $1000 to get remediation for the high radon levels in my home's basement. It was worth the trouble and cost to not have a drastically increased risk of cancer.
So a lot of people have radium stuff and have no idea. I should probably avoid handling my great-grandfather's watch until I can check. Thanks Fran!
I think radium-dial compasses were very common, too.
The Army switched from radium to tritium gas in the 1960s. Tritium emits a low energy beta particle and, of course, dissipates immediately if the glass is broken.
I hadn't really thought about hot clocks specifically, but this is a good reminder that I probably should get a radiac for checking stuff in general. You never do know...
Great advice Fran I'm amazed at what people don't know about radium dials on old clocks and equipment I live In Edinburgh Scotland and a few years ago across the firth of forth in dalgety Bay Fife it came to light that the ministery of defence was scraping plane's from ww2 just burning the planes then landfilling them on the beach and buried the ashes all was good until it came to light and they had to close the bay and clean it up the source was radium 226 fist found in the area in 1990 long after the event just make me wonder how many outher places may have the same problem as yet unknown a dangerous and sad state of affairs
That was really illuminating. Love your insightful videos.
A great friend of mine is in the horological business and always put his few antique radium timepieces in a thick lead box. Great advice!
I need to read the new Illinois Watch book that's quite an epic as I love 19th century and early 20th century American timepieces speaking of which.....
This is an excellent video on safety. Thank you so much!
Hi Fran! Yes, I have uranium glass and other things... but I did toss out my antique radium dial clocks. They clicked from across the room on my counter. Yeah, I don't need that in my house.
Thank you for this information. It made me do some more research into my Junghans alarm clock from the early 50s. Turns out Junghans still used Radium at that point and my clock still glows strong.
Fran , I am so happy I found your channel. I love it.
Thank you for this. I learned something interesting about the phosphors degrading with time and the prevalence of radium dials in older time pieces.
I had a watch when I was in my teens that my father gave me. He bought it when he was in the army during WWII. It always glowed very bright. When I was in high-school electronics class I put a Geiger counter up to it and it pinned the meter! I broke it a few months later and threw it away.
i know of the dangers of radium paint. however, my grandmother used to have an old radium painted clock next to her bed for over 60 years which never caused her any problems and she lived untill the age of 83. it might very well depend on how much paint was used and the concentration of the radium in the paint and maybe also the proximity to the bed. hers only had the dials and numbers painted. it looked like an off white with the slightest hint of green but ive never seen it glow in the dark.
Its not only clocks. They used to do things like lining serving and mixing bowls because it was assumed that it was healthful. And then there is Orange Fiesta from the original run. This color of dishware was made using depleted uranium in the glaze. I was once in an antique emporium in Lancaster Co., PA and tried to show the seller that the big pile of orange Fiesta in his booth was lethal (using my belt holstered geiger counter). He thought i was somehow spoofing him, who claimed to be one of the world's experts on Fiesta.
Of course, the first clock you show is a 1950s Raytheon clock, which looks very similar to the one that's been sitting in my living room for a few years now. I had not even considered that the dial could have been painted with Radium. Well, I don't have a Geiger Counter on hand, so I don't know for sure. At the very least, it doesn't appear to glow, it isn't flaking, and it is on a shelf far from where everyone sits.
This is funny because it reminded me of a car in the 1950s. Can't remember if it was a Desoto or Chrysler or what but the instrument cluster is radioactive; because they were trying out a way to get the dash to light up better at night. And to this day if you oops up on one in an old car junkyard you can get your geiger counter out and get a reading.
Did radium paint come in paint cans? Imagine finding one of those in a garage sale 😦 a whole quart of the stuff 😂 yikes.
It was manufactured by the drum. An advocate for (later, activist against) the harmlessness of radium paint, dunked his arm in it as a press stunt.
@@DrewskisBrews Yikes! How many extra arms did he have when he decided to work against it?
that would be really dangerous, imagine if you piled enough of those cans to have a critical mass, some clocks, meh
@@monad_tcp Radium isn't fissile, you can't get a critical mass.
Ebay was still selling antique "Fit-rite Radium Outfit" 1950s watchmaker kits at one time, containing several ccs of radium "lume" for watch-repair.
Very interesting. I have worn my old Tudor to work and it puts our hand scanners into alarm when I leave the experimental halls. In fact I can't remember the actual figures but when we measured its dose rate, for a nearly 70 year old watch it was quite significant.
The biggest issue is that there are no regulations on the buying and selling of potentially radioactive antiques. This allows for many known potentially radioactive antiques to move freely within the country. If you were to remove the radioactive dial and then attempt to transport that as a known radioactive source, it would be regulated unless you were to classify it as an "antique dial face." As for the public perception of radiation and radioactive sources in general, few are actually educated to understand the hazards. This is the reason we get such varying responses to anything nuclear in general.
Radium in general is a nasty material. It is chemically similar to calcium; this is why it ends up in human bones upon ingestion. It decays to Radon, another radioactive element with a shorter half-life and then down to Polonium also radioactive (all three discovered by the Curies). Ultimately Radium 226 has a total of 9 decay steps to stable lead 206, and lead 210 is the second longest half-life of 22 years (the rest varying from 138 days to 0.16 ms). For those unsure, a half-life is the time measured for 1/2 of the original element to decay into another element. Typically after 5 half-lives have passed the element is considered gone. Bottom line is, if you look at the decay chain and ignore the shorter half-lives, Radium 226 will take nearly 8117 years for 97% to decay to stable lead.
Also, that decay chain has 5 alpha emitters and 4 beta (alpha is a high energy helium moving so fast it leaves it's electrons behind and beta is high energy free electrons.) The alpha emitters can damage your lungs if you breath them in as either radon or dust in the other forms. This is why radon buildup in basements of housing is such an issue.
Please do a follow up about geiger counters next. Maybe some recomendations? Thanks!
Lowest price, way under $100, search for "assembled geiger counter kit," it's only an electronics board and battery connector, you provide the plastic box. Also, Electronics Goldmine has cheap little DIY geiger counter kits, solder-it-yourself.
There are tiny smartphone "android" geiger counters, but no actual counter-tube, not very sensitive. I've never tried those.
Fairly good one for $100 or so is "GQ GMC" little white device with USB and lcd screen, but doesn't sense alphas.
Expensive pro GM counters with external probe are: Ludlum or Eberline corp, used ones usually $500-$1500 (I once found one for $150, w/dead meter, working pancake probe.)
Weird: search pripyat master, or pripyat bella. These are pocket geiger/dosimeters dating from the Chernobyl era, w/little LCD screen, usually under $50
My Dad had a watch in the 1960's with a glowing dial. He used to wear it to work and one day he toured a nuclear facility. On the way out he set off the whole body scanner. After some investigation the "contamination" turned out to be his watch. They told him to take it with him and not bring it back in again. If you looked at it closely in the dark you could see the scintillation from the decay. I wonder if it's still in a box somewhere? If I find it I won't open the watch case. As you pointed out it will have long stopped glowing but will still be radioactive.
Some old aircraft instruments, in particular 40's-50's era are way worse than clocks for radium.
In the hunters point naval shipyards in San Francisco, they serviced subs for many years, and I read they literally dumped all the radium phosphor indicators, dials and knobs from them in the bay. The navy also dumped the old lead acid batteries. There's an incomplete apartment building there where they mixed sand from the bay into the mortar and later found it to be radioactive, and the construction stopped.
@@Oldbmwr100rs Pretty bad. It reminds me an obscure story about a parking lot with a thick layer of yellow cake waste hidden under the macadam, somewhere in France :-D
@@msylvain59 Oh, hunters point had a waste dump where drums of oil and whatever else was around (and this place had a lot of maintenance on ships and subs going on) to be crushed by bulldozers and buried under soil, then another layer added. Once the base was closed, it was given to the city to deal with. Pretty common on military bases over the years.
I once visited an old bunker in Berlin, which was open to the public, pretty much a museum. They had a lot of luminiscent paint on the walls and on the ceiling, because, obviously, the lights would often go out when the bombs dropped. Wonder if that was the same stuff.
And some odd vacuum tubes were also radioactive, as they needed less power to get to an excited state to do their thing. Surprised those didn't get a mention.
Now I'm a bit worried because my granddad owns a tonne of those things, old and new, and when I was younger I used to smash them apart and I think I still have a few in a box... Let's just hope they were not the radioactive ones
@@KingJellyfishII very few consumer products had any need for a tube of that type. Your grandfather's collection would have to be supplied from military or scientific equipment.
@@DrewskisBrews ok that's probably fine then, they were mostly old wireless tubes I think.
That's the UX-201A triode or 01A (one of them anyway).. They used a thorium cathode to enhance emission, but they are rare being pre octal 1920's vintage.
Radium is an alpha emitter. Alpha particles are easily stopped by the crystal and case of clocks and watches. Obviously if the paint has turned to fine (breathable) powder, it's unsafe, but if it's in situ and stable, it should be safe. One concern is that radium 226 decays into radon gas. Radon is heavier than air so it can pool in basements and cellars, especially if poorly ventilated. Radon has a short half-life, and decays more rapidly. Inhale Radon, and the odds of an energetic particle being released without any protection is much higher.
7:10 After the radium paint stopped glowing... heads started growing!
Orange " carnival glass" can be radioactive...in high school physics class ( 1970s) radiographs were made with an old coffee cup and plate made of orange carnival
glass. An overnight exposure on Tri-X sheet film gave clear images...
At 1:31 The printed advertisement is touting the benefits of radium applied to the buckles of bedroom slippers.
I have a number of Pentax lenses from the 1960's that have Thorium in the glass.
I only use them occasionally 🙂
Wow, I was completely unaware of the use of radium in the USSR. That's so crazy. I bought one piece of electronics from Poland, but it was produced post 1991.
... I did have luminous clocks, I don't use them now, but I never threw them away. They're here, somewhere, no idea exactly. Cue house hunt with Geiger counter. Info that just because it does not glow, does not mean it is safe is very good.
I’ve heard that some are so radioactive that you just have to drive down the street in front of antique shops with a Geiger counter and it’ll go off
Really? Wow. I want a Geiger counter now.
Perhaps with a scintillator. Even if you have a quite good Geiger-Mueller counter, if an antique shop gives it a rise from outside while driving by, the occupants are in for health issues. Radium is an alpha emitter; alpha particles are easily stopped by paper. What the counter is picking up through the clock face is the "mild" gamma emissions from Radium along with Gamma+Beta from its daughters. With the dial face removed (don't do this!!!), a radium dial clock will send an alpha sensitive detector screaming. Not all "Geiger Counters" are alpha sensitive. Your average bright yellow Civil Defense GM counter is not.
The best GM tubes are sensitive, but that *that* sensitive. Scintillators on the other hand can be many orders of magnitudes more sensitive. Mine will register the granite cobblestone in my driveway and the bricks in my 115 year old house. For comparison, they're completely undetectable by a good pancake GM tube. The level is so low as to be harmless.
In the below video, the baseline of 2000-3000 CPM is just it picking up cosmic rays and natural radiation in the soil, all around us. A normal GM counter would be ticking about 40 times a minute
ua-cam.com/video/3b69gsi8WW8/v-deo.html
wow i had no idea there were so many on the market, that’s crazy.
@@glasslinger See ua-cam.com/video/bLjcz-OBonY/v-deo.html, and on eBay old clocks, search on "antique" or "vintage" to exclude the post-1950s non-radium dials. Fran seems to have done that.
During WW2 in Germany they also use glowing painting in both Military and civilian into air raid tunnel for example as direction information on the tunnel wall.
Fran, thanks for the heads-up! I have several vintage clocks and now I need to check them out. Guess I'll need to purchase a Geiger-counter. Thanks for sharing.
In a similar vein, a non-radioactive dangerous thing to be aware of is old metal can transistors that have white-yellow powder visible on the metal case. I'm not 100% sure what it is, maybe arsenic, but damn does it give you a pounding headache if you mess with it and get it on you.
Another often unknown source is gas lantern mantles, they are even worse once used as the material is close to air suspension mass when broken.
Great video (again) Fran.. Cheers.
Honestly, I like the radium clocks. As my Bday is Aug 6, I'm kind of an Atomic head.
Have them use the good meter. The one from the safe.
stumbled upon a story about the "radium girls" of east orange while looking up "tritium exit signs." i was wondering how luminous exit signs qualified as "hazardous waste." people who enjoy canned tuna and pink salmon need geiger counters now, too. what a world.
In the UK Smiths Industries and the Joe Lucas company were responsible for a lot of the radium painted dials during WW2 for aircraft. They still find small but seriously radiologically contaminated sites around the country when surveying for new builds on brownfield sites.
Couple construction company's around here had radioactive placards on storage areas in their yards. Asked one day why, it was for gauges, assuming they were radium as well.
I've owned many radium wristwatches and clocks: thoroughly irradiated I suppose.
I carry mine to antique stores but only find pottery and old thorium mantles. I've yet to find a clock. I did find an old store in town that had black and white glass tile and the white tiles were custard glass.
I have an old radium dial Baby Ben clock. You can still see it scintillate at night. My high school physics class in 1970 was next to the school darkroom. We had an alpha source in a dish like container with a magnifier attached. We can see the sparks go off of the source. My old clock, the same way. The old clock's phosphor base was long nuked away.
hi Fran, love the channel. You mention that radium paint emits mostly alpha particles. Those particles are accompanied by gamma radiation which is bad bad. And just to add to the fun the radium breaks down into radon gas which causes lung cancer...
"Radioactive Boy Scout" or the "Nuclear Boy Scout", was an American man who built a homemade neutron source at the age of seventeen.
So many wonder materials come back to bite us. Interesting channel, thanks for sharing your knowledge.