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Should I be worried about radium?


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On a related topic what I am more concerned with are Russian sub clocks. Not the 'made for tourists' ones, but ones that have actually served time on a Russian sub, thankfully there are not that many of those about.

See this news article for what I'm talking about.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3556824/Radioactive-clock-killed-Husband-s-gift-wife-Russian-sub-gave-deadly-rays.html

 

But even this is not good to have in the kitchen, but it would take many years before it did any real harm

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It's an important subject for some more so than others. It always concerns me though, when this is mentioned, if the insurance companies are going to pick up on it.

I can imagine them laying down conditions for storage in the home, like watches to be stored in lead lined containers or something ridiculous.

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The actual dose you receive from working with lume is probably relatively insignificant, even if it comes in contact with your skin.

Ingesting or inhaling lume on the other hand presents a somewhat greater risk, particularly if you do so regularly.

If you were to remove and store all of the lume from every watch you ever encountered, and then swig the resulting concoction, the acetone would be a more immediate hazard.

Here is a chart of relative doses that brings some perspective to things.

https://xkcd.com/radiation/

It is factually correct to state there is no such thing as a safe dose of ionising radiation, but since you are being bombarded with the stuff naturally, the additional risk of working (sensibly) with lume is relatively low. 

Flying from LA to New York is more risky I would suggest, and even then, the risk is pretty low.



 

Edited by AndyHull
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  • 4 weeks later...

Well as someone who has been hammered with 7000 grays of xray radiation for cancer, plus a couple of pet scans and assorted xrays in a short period of time, Im all for avoiding any more.

As has been stated above in the scheme of things old lume is to be respected, just like every other chemical you come in contact with, most are unlikely to do you any damage with short exposure, however the cumulative effects are what bite you in the bum.

My last full time job was chasing up the MSDS and doing risk assessments on the 1700 chemicals used in the maintenance of the F111 aircraft. A bit of a shock to me as I figured out that I had had exposure to about 400 of those over more than 20 years.

Which probably explains the requirement for the radiation treatment.

The other thing that was highlighted in that job was, if it had more than 5 letters in the name or was unpronounceable, it probably wasnt good for you......

PPE is readily available these days use it as required.

Interesting discussion and some great replys.

 

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1 hour ago, szbalogh said:

There Geiger counters out there on Ebay. Very simple ones just put it in your smartphone's 3.5 jack and install the related app and use it. 20-30 USD for the sensor. Youtube videos shoving remarkable accuracy compared to a real detector piece. I am planning to buy one.

  i have a Giger Muler counter and have used it on several watches and air craft panel clocks.  it is a big, clunky, civil devence  unit..   i would not buy electronics from ebay.   it is important to buy with a guarante on this item.  vin

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On 11/7/2018 at 2:01 AM, AndyHull said:

The actual dose you receive from working with lume is probably relatively insignificant, even if it comes in contact with your skin.

Ingesting or inhaling lume on the other hand presents a somewhat greater risk, particularly if you do so regularly.

If you were to remove and store all of the lume from every watch you ever encountered, and then swig the resulting concoction, the acetone would be a more immediate hazard.

Here is a chart of relative doses that brings some perspective to things.

https://xkcd.com/radiation/

It is factually correct to state there is no such thing as a safe dose of ionising radiation, but since you are being bombarded with the stuff naturally, the additional risk of working (sensibly) with lume is relatively low. 

Flying from LA to New York is more risky I would suggest, and even then, the risk is pretty low.



 

Hi Andy,   B or even B+

May I add , however, ingested or inhaled dose not neccessarily end up as absorbed.

The radioactive nuclei is to chemically be in absorbable form and to remain in our system for sometime, it may not get absorbed and go through digestive system in which case the effect is neglegible. 

The alpha particle is a massive ion,  travels only a few centermeters in air.

This means folks surrounded by hundereds of vintage watches absorb no alpha emitting source and very little alpha radiation, as you well explained we get bigger dose from earth's background radiation. Radon girls kept ingesting the alpha source, some even wore radioactive makeup.it glew shiny.

The sun like any other star is a fusion reactor, making atoms including the ones our body is made of, dispite atmospheric sheilding we get big dose of radiation of massless particles it emits gamma so on, These are Electromagnetic particle we receive them even from galaxies which no longer exist.

High counts on the giger dose not mean we immediately get sick, if dosage accumeulates over time we will.

Regards nuce joe

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, AndyHull said:

B+ is all very well, but do I not get a medal?

 

Who dose Andy and medals may distract us from just living.  My decipline is nuclear science and graduated with collection of collage degrees, I can safely say I know I don,t Know much.

Eversince CERN started working, ground braking obserbations are made with each experiment, fundamentaly altering our understanding of the physics of this material existance. Multiverse may be a reality with different laws of physics.

Your post besides being mostly correct, is interesting in challanging our natural fear of unknown and warns against  blowing the fear out of proportion. Some articles on the subject tend to scare the reader.

I take this opportunity to say x-ray is atomic radiation not nuclear, weaker energy by several orders of magnitute. The fear of exposed may hurt as much as ill effects.

I have no access to youtube and didn,t see the video you sent. I hope it's msg tells us to enjoy life and avoid fear.

Regards joe

 

 

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If you want to read a more scientific assessment of the toxicity of radium specifically as opposed to ionising radiation in general, this might be of interest -> https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp144.pdf

Do bear in mind though that infrequent exposure while working with a few watch dials, if you use sensible precautions is till relatively low risk. Low risk, does not mean no risk, so do take care to minimises exposure.

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Just FYI, I picked up an FTLab headphone jack geiger counter, I can't vouch for it's accuracy, but it is picking up significant counts for the watches I own I know to have radium lume, and little to no counts for those I know/hoped to not have radium lume.

Very important to use it with your data and wifi disabled, was picking up some worrying levels of radiation before I copped this. Almost set a match to the place! :biggrin:

IMG_6751.JPG

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  • 2 weeks later...

In another life, I was a crew member of a nuclear powered submarine for 2+ years. On my first deployment one of the nuclear twidgets who worked on the reactor came into the senior petty officer berthing area with a geiger counter. After taking a couple of readings, he zeroed in on me. My watch with radium lume was setting off the compartment radiation counter. My watch was confiscated and placed in a lead container for the duration of the patrol. I was told to take it home and not bring it back aboard afterwards. I was also told that the radiation emitted wasn't in the least dangerous to me but that it posed a pain in the butt for the on-board radiation monitoring system. 

I'm assuming that he knew his subject matter. In any event, I sold the watch and bought another so that I could have a timepiece on my wrist while working aboard.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just by a chance I happen to work at a company dedicated to handle low, medium and high level radioactive waste.

I haven't really followed this discussion before about 226Ra (Radium) but can only agree in the conclusion Andy has presented here.

As long you wear good protection like nitrile gloves and don't lick on the dial or at your fingers after you handled the dial or hands you shouldn´t be worried. As with any hazardous material one should use common sense when handling it.
A simple respiratory mask will be enough protection if you are afraid you are in the risk zone to inhale 226Ra. Even if you have had protective gloves when handling the dial or hands always wash of your hands with soap and water.  

I usually leave the residues of 226Ra on the dial after a slight cleaning of the dial with Rodico. Most often it goes away from the dial hands when cleaning them and therefore gets stuck in the Rodico.
If you worry about the radiation from the residues on the Rodico: then just put it in a jar with water.
Water is a good protection against radiation and we also use it as protection when handling high level waste from nuclear plants.

The small amount from one or two watches will not contribute as any source for radiation that significantly will affect any living been.

One have to keep in mind when it comes to the thing with "The radium Girls", back in the time some people still believed radium was a miracle cure for anything and they didn't see any harm in painting not only their teeth but also use it as makeup. Radium is a poisonous chemical.

226Ra mostly contributes with alpha and beta radiation which has a short reach and limited penetration ability, the small amount of gamma radiation one get from a watch is very hard to detect since the background radiation in the most cases is probably higher. To detect alpha and beta radiation from radium you have to use specialized equipment calibrated to 226Ra. These instruments are not commonly available at Ebay.

Just buying a cheap gamma detector which is not calibrated for the use to check your watches is in my mind just a waste of money since the most people haven’t got any training in how to use them or the understanding in how to interpret the results from the measurements.

So just be cautious and aware when handling this kind of watches and I think the most of you can sleep without worrying about radiation hazards even if you like me are collecting watches from the time period when dials were painted with Radium.

P.S If you see something like in the picture below in your watch then you should be a little more cautious.

Kapsel2.png.jpg

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1 hour ago, AndyHull said:

All of that shiny stainless would make a fine mantle clock.:D

 

It actually would... if you got the right height to the ceiling the height of the fuel assembly is 4 m. ;D  

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  • 4 weeks later...

I recently bought a few old cheap watches to work on and I believe some of them have radium on the dial and hands. Yesterday I accidentally touched the dial with my fingers and opened up the others to inspect them.. Should I be worried? Should I not work on watches with radium on them? 

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33 minutes ago, seikoskx said:

I recently bought a few old cheap watches to work on and I believe some of them have radium on the dial and hands. Yesterday I accidentally touched the dial with my fingers and opened up the others to inspect them.. Should I be worried? Should I not work on watches with radium on them? 

As long as you washed you hands and didn't ingest any, you will be OK.

Yes you should be careful with radium watches, some prefer not to touch them at all.  If they are just cheap old watches, personally I wouldn't open them. They relatively safe as long as you don't open them(or wear them all the time) - the glass and case will stop the alpha, and as long as the radium isn't plastered on, the gamma shouldn't be too bad. 

I have worked on a few, but only after extensive reading-up, and taking (probably more than necessary) precautions.

I bought a 'Pocket Geiger' counter and when working with radium wear face mask, gloves and make sure that I work in a 'sterile' environment.

Try this article http://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/luminous.php

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34 minutes ago, mikepilk said:

As long as you washed you hands and didn't ingest any, you will be OK.

Yes you should be careful with radium watches, some prefer not to touch them at all.  If they are just cheap old watches, personally I wouldn't open them. They relatively safe as long as you don't open them(or wear them all the time) - the glass and case will stop the alpha, and as long as the radium isn't plastered on, the gamma shouldn't be too bad. 

I have worked on a few, but only after extensive reading-up, and taking (probably more than necessary) precautions.

I bought a 'Pocket Geiger' counter and when working with radium wear face mask, gloves and make sure that I work in a 'sterile' environment.

Try this article http://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/luminous.php

Well one of them doesn't have a crystal

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This has been addresses in another thread, see here =>

https://www.watchrepairtalk.com/topic/10086-radon-hazards-of-luminous-timepieces/?tab=comments#comment-91769

 

The short answer, is no, you should not be worried. However, you should take a little extra care in future.


There was a very small risk when handling that single watch, but that risk is not worth loosing any sleep over.

You almost certainly got more exposure to radiation that day, from simply going about your daily business.

The trouble comes from cumulative exposure without protection. Read the thread I linked above, and you will get a better idea of what I mean.

It is true, that any exposure is not a good idea, but nor is exposure to lead, asbestos, mercury, benzine and other similar hydrocarbons, chlorine.. I could go on, but in all of these cases, the biggest risk when dealing with low levels of exposure is from the cumulative effect of repeated exposure. The more you come in to contact with hazardous materials (especially things like heavy metals, which your body finds difficult to remove, or radioactive materials which can be absorbed into some body tissues), the greater the risk. 

Radiation exposure is generally poorly understood by most of us. This chart may give you a better idea of doses.

https://xkcd.com/radiation/


In summary, the more you handle without protection, or the more you ingest small quantities of these materials, the more cumulative dose you receive, and the more likely that is to cause health problems. Your body is designed to deal with the constant damage from small levels of background radiation.  One brief, small exposure is therefore of little consequence. Multiple exposures over the long term, or large exposure to highly radioactive material (like the core of a nuclear power plant) over a very small period on the other hand are a bad thing.

So use gloves, keep exposure risk to a minimum, and clean up any loose material you find. Dispose of it carefully and wash your hands with soap and water afterwards, and you should be fine. For the same reason you shouldn't cross the road without looking, you shouldn't handle potentially dangerous materials without understanding and mitigating the risks either. 

Edited by AndyHull
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A chemical bond between two atoms A and B, gets formed when oribital electrons of atom A, take a tour and orbit around nuclei  B as well, a new molecule AB with it's own specific chemical properties is formed, which can then enter consequent chemical interaction, so radioactive nuclei gets in cycles the same as non-radioactive ones.

This means radioactive nuclei get in our drinking water as easy as  non-radioactive ones and get in vegetation, dairy, meat ,wool and cotton , including our body.  

Once a radioactive source gets inside our body, it will continue with the job on chemical interaction,  it will come it contact with other chemicals in us including the acid our stomach spreads on it and the products of stomach chemical pot, there a new story develpoes, if it gets absorbed and gets in our blood system among others, it may spend long times circulating through the system or go to a cell to get burnt, our cell provide oxygen to burn the food and get energy from it and some heat, this is how the heat in our body is generated, We are a thermodynamic body.

If the nuclei get in subsytems that dont throw it out, blood circulation system for one, it can spend years within our body and generously distribute radiation through out us. 

Radiations emitted by nuclear reaction are of several orders of magnitude higher enrgy compared to atomic reactions and can easily break weaker chemical bond cauing undesired new bond, such undesired bond cause a change in programming of the molecule or cells, among numerous defence mechanisms our body may deploy, is to store all such disorederly cell in one place and wrap tissues aroumd them to keep them contained in company of otherwise rejected cells ( cancerous tumors).  

If you don,t stop me here and don,t go to the next topic,  within an hour I will have got to the dangerous parts of this story. 

 Joe

 

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