How can I tell if the clock have Radium?

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Wed 25 Apr 2018 16:48
How can I tell if the clock have Radium? - fv43576

I found a clock in loft when we moved in, it is a gold Swiza 8 days alarm clock with handle on the top and it works it looks about 1940 - 1960s, it may have radium on the needles and on dial spot around the numbers the colour is dirty cream rough like paint by hand. Me and my wife are concerned about Radium but we don't know much how to identify if it is Radium or not?

Is the Radium glow all the time? I have a black UV light it glows green till 1 minute then gone.

Thanks for more info.

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Wed 25 Apr 2018 17:45
How can I tell if the clock have Radium? - RobJP

Unless you're going to lick the glowy part or grind it into a powder and ingest or inhale it, then any radium isn't going to be a problem.

It's in a stable state, it has a very long half-life (1600 years), and is present in very small amounts (only a miniscule fraction of the paint was radium to start with). Radium is a problem if ingested or inhaled because it is taken up by the bones.

If you're concerned, then get rid of it to the tip.

Otherwise, enjoy it for what it is. Be aware that any vigorous cleaning could be a risk, but that's all.

You will get more radiation dose from your computer screen than you will from that clock.

Edited by RobJP on 25/04/2018 at 17:45

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Wed 25 Apr 2018 17:48
How can I tell if the clock have Radium? - fv43576

"You will get more radiation dose from your computer screen than you will from that clock." Wow I did not know, I have been work on computer for 12 years in the office!

I think I'll keep it.

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Wed 25 Apr 2018 22:29
How can I tell if the clock have Radium? - alan1302

"You will get more radiation dose from your computer screen than you will from that clock." Wow I did not know, I have been work on computer for 12 years in the office!

I think I'll keep it.

Also you get radiation just standing about outside...it is everywhere.

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Wed 25 Apr 2018 17:59
How can I tell if the clock have Radium? - galileo

I found a clock in loft when we moved in, it is a gold Swiza 8 days alarm clock with handle on the top and it works it looks about 1940 - 1960s, it may have radium on the needles and on dial spot around the numbers the colour is dirty cream rough like paint by hand. Me and my wife are concerned about Radium but we don't know much how to identify if it is Radium or not?

Is the Radium glow all the time? I have a black UV light it glows green till 1 minute then gone.

Thanks for more info.

Radium will glow in the dark all the time, check by keeping the clock in a box or tin and then looking at it in a dark room: things that glow under UV light and stop when its switched off don't contain radium

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Wed 25 Apr 2018 18:11
How can I tell if the clock have Radium? - fv43576

Thanks galileo I will put in box till tomorrow morning to see what it is.

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Thu 26 Apr 2018 08:06
How can I tell if the clock have Radium? - Falkirk Bairn

Wikipedia

Radium dials are watch, clock and other instrument dials painted with radioluminescent paint containing radium-226. Radium dial production peaked in the first decade of the Twentieth Century as radiation poisoning was then unknown; subsequently, radium dials have largely been replaced by phosphorescent- or occasionally tritium-based light sources.

At the end of WW2 10's of thousands of instruments were burned @ an airfield near the Forth Bridge. The argument of who pays & how much cleaning up has to be done has gone on for say 20+ years.

MoD, after many years, now admits it caused it & will pay but only for a fraction of the work local residents claim their experts say needs to be done. 60 years since the danger of radium was highlighted

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17921639

We have a BIGGER problem near the Forth Bridges 8 to 10 rotting & decommissioned BUT highly radioactive hunter killer nuclear submarines from the 50's/60s & 70's

Edited by Falkirk Bairn on 26/04/2018 at 08:09

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Sun 6 May 2018 00:05
How can I tell if the clock have Radium? - focussed

I know a bit about this subject because we have a disused uranium mine tunnel just under one corner of our land about 50 metres down, and we get visited now and again by the French government nuclear inspectors doing safety checks.

We have an old british army WW2 compass that used to belong to MOH's father when he was in the army. Knowing about the use of radium in old instruments, on one or their visits I dug it out and stuck it under their scintillometer - a sort of geiger counter which detects alpha + beta + gamma ray emissions, it went into a frenzy and exceeded their preset danger limit - so now it lives in the barn!

Some info here on just how dangerous radium is in old compasses:-

www.trademarklondon.com/Radiation/index.html

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Sun 6 May 2018 16:12
How can I tell if the clock have Radium? - galileo

When I was in a Science 6th form in about 1960, two chaps from the Atomic Energy Authority came to tell us all about Nuclear power and brought, in a lead container weighing about 45 pounds a small radioactive sample, fished it out with tongs and showed how it set off a Geiger counter.

Asking if anyone had a luminous watch and one being offered, it had 10 times the effect of the sample from the lead container.

Edited by galileo on 06/05/2018 at 16:13

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Thu 31 May 2018 14:09
How can I tell if the clock have Radium? - Arrius

"Although old radium dials may no longer produce light, this is frequently due to the breakdown of the crystal structure of zinc sulfide rather than the radioactive decay of the radium, which has a half-life of about 1600 years, so even very old radium dials remain radioactive."

Radium paint glows through its natural radioactivity. It probably won't anymore because the activity has dropped off. The very first thing to do is look for white-ish paint on the watch face and hands, where you'd want to see it in the dark. Do you have anything like this?

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