@@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
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.
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.
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.
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!
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. 😔
@@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.
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
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!
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 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.
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 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.
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
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.
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.
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 th-cam.com/video/3b69gsi8WW8/w-d-xo.html
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.
I'm curious how dangerous they are? What if it did sit on the bedside table 3ft away from your bed, are you just being blasted by radiation all the time you're sleeping? Or if it was on a wrist watch. How much radiation are you getting? compared to say getting an x-ray done?
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. :)
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.
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.
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.
@@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
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
@@glasslinger See th-cam.com/video/bLjcz-OBonY/w-d-xo.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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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...
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...
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 have an Android App called Radioactivity Counter. When I worked with granite (schist) countertops, I could use it to see which stones were more radioactive.
My parents had one of those clocks and I used to stare at it for ages when I was a kid. Now I wonder how many years I shaved off my life. That's without being caught in the rain shortly after Three Mile Island. Good times!
You probably shave more time off your life by worrying about being exposed to radiation than the actual radiation. As long as the glass is on and you don't have it in your pocket or on your wrist for months it really doesn't matter. However, If you open it up and inhale some of the paint dust it will take a lot of time off.
Actual studies showed that lower doses have no discernible negative effects on public health. In fact, people with low levels of radon in the basement (but still above US EPA limits) have less cancer than people with none. This is likely due to hormesis. Most European countries have higher cut offs because they don't assume that cancer/dose is linear like the EPA likes to. They're right about this. The EPA is a mess.
Great video Fran , I've genuinely just been into my bedroom and removed 2 vintage alarm clocks and then into my son's room to remove a gauge from a spitfire plane . Question is what is a cheapish Geiger counter going to set me back or should I just get rid of these things .
Well holy cow. My parents had an antique clock with radium dial, and when I was visiting them, slept overnight in the guest room where it was. The clock had to have been from the 1930s or 40s and I had a few in the past that didn't produce a glow. This one did quite a bit, as I was startled to notice a "fizzing" on the dial from across the room. Not knowing any better, I went right up to the dial as I'm nearsighted to get a better look. Sure enough it was the strangest thing to see a very noticeable scintillating effect. Hopefully I won't develop anything from that. It had to have been 22 years ago. Whatever the manufacturer was, they doped the crap out of that clock!
The spinthariscope works that way. If your eyes are completely adjusted to the dark, you can see individual flashes on the phosphor of a spinthariscope. Each flash comes from the breakdown of a single atom.
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.
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.
as a kid i saw a documentary on "radium dials" the painters licked there paint brush, but. I have recently started collecting clansman military radios from 1982 falklands, I want sets too the quality of museum, some of my radios come from Poland, I was going to donate a radio to some one that needs it, first I need to find that it isn't going to hurt him! Can you recommend what dose meter, after e-mass I had a plan but now that I have learned this I need to change everything.
I'm kind of worried as I'm having a 50:s Soviet camera delivered. On the other hand they wouldn't use anything radioactive in a camera as it would fog the film, right?
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.
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.....
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.
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.
Radium decays into radon. So although it's certainly safer not to open the case, would you say it's true that inside a home the amount of radon released by a watch or clock is dangerous? I did read a study which concluded that even a small watch, in a ventilated room, will put that space many times over the UK action level of radon.
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.
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.
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
Oh dear, if theres no glow-in the dark parts or evidently painted parts, that mean it should be safe right? I have an old Jaeger-watch Car clock I'm planning on getting to work/cleaning and eventually mounting is all (O.o)
I think all the postal services ought to have radiation detectors on their mail sorting machines...it wouldn't cost much but they'd find so much of this stuff.
They probably do in some of the larger sorting centers. Fran did mention that only 3% of the emissions from radium paint were gamma radiation, which is what would be easily detectable. The remaining 97% is in the form of "weak" alpha particles where the glass and the packing material are enough to block the majority of it. Those weak alpha particles can still be very dangerous though, ingesting any of the radium would put those particles in direct contact with your cells.
@@keenanfinucan8778 In the video, at 0:31 Fran detected the radiation through the clock glass. That would have blocked all the alpha, so she was getting that reading from just the gamma. However, it did look like she had to get quite close to it to get a significant reading.
@@glasslinger I'm not sure they are. They can be pretty "hot". I would say radioactive mail ought to have hazard labels like everything else needs to (even batteries these days). No label? Your stuff gets a giant warning sticker and you have to sign a disclaimer.
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....
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".
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!
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.
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!
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 🙄🙂
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.
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!!!!!!
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!
FRAN, Thank You for the reminder.
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 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?
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.
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.
"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!
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.
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.
WOW Fran, I never appreciated this being a problem. DAMN good advice! Thanks from the UK.
7:11 what documentary is that from?
🎵 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..
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.
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.
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
th-cam.com/video/3b69gsi8WW8/w-d-xo.html
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.
I'm curious how dangerous they are? What if it did sit on the bedside table 3ft away from your bed, are you just being blasted by radiation all the time you're sleeping? Or if it was on a wrist watch. How much radiation are you getting? compared to say getting an x-ray done?
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. :)
This should be a Worldwide public service announcement. Thankyou Fran!
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.
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!!!!
That was really illuminating. Love your insightful videos.
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.
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.
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.
"Radioactive Boy Scout" or the "Nuclear Boy Scout", was an American man who built a homemade neutron source at the age of seventeen.
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
Thanks so much for the information Fran
Honestly, I like the radium clocks. As my Bday is Aug 6, I'm kind of an Atomic head.
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.
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 wasn't ready at 7:12 is this the effects of the radioactive stuff?
I was like wtf is that?
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.
Incredible! Thanks for sharing. This video alone will raise awareness.
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!
Fran , I am so happy I found your channel. I love it.
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.
I've owned many radium wristwatches and clocks: thoroughly irradiated I suppose.
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.
The eBay sellers either "do not know"... or they know very well and are keen to get rid of the "hot stuff".
wow i had no idea there were so many on the market, that’s crazy.
@@glasslinger See th-cam.com/video/bLjcz-OBonY/w-d-xo.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.
Have them use the good meter. The one from the safe.
This is an excellent video on safety. Thank you so much!
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.
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.
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
Im really loving these videos that combine history, science, and electronics! you have so many interesting topics!
So many wonder materials come back to bite us. Interesting channel, thanks for sharing your knowledge.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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...
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.
Great video. Thanks. I didn’t know about radium paint.
Love this clocks, use in all my 7 arms. :p
Buy yourself more clock so you will wake up every day with more mods :D
What a nice public service you did contacting those old sellers. Cool chick 😎
Just saw your video. Should I throw my little westclox beside radium clock away. Is it dangerous?
So what do you suggest we do when we encounter one of these clocks? I mean, not everyone has a Geiger counter at the ready...
I have an Android App called Radioactivity Counter. When I worked with granite (schist) countertops, I could use it to see which stones were more radioactive.
My parents had one of those clocks and I used to stare at it for ages when I was a kid. Now I wonder how many years I shaved off my life. That's without being caught in the rain shortly after Three Mile Island. Good times!
You probably shave more time off your life by worrying about being exposed to radiation than the actual radiation. As long as the glass is on and you don't have it in your pocket or on your wrist for months it really doesn't matter. However, If you open it up and inhale some of the paint dust it will take a lot of time off.
Unless you ate it, you shouldn't worry.
Remember the furor over radon in the house a few decades ago?
Actual studies showed that lower doses have no discernible negative effects on public health. In fact, people with low levels of radon in the basement (but still above US EPA limits) have less cancer than people with none. This is likely due to hormesis. Most European countries have higher cut offs because they don't assume that cancer/dose is linear like the EPA likes to. They're right about this. The EPA is a mess.
@@toomanymarys7355 "The EPA is a mess." You're telling me?!?! 🙄
I have a number of Pentax lenses from the 1960's that have Thorium in the glass.
I only use them occasionally 🙂
Great video Fran , I've genuinely just been into my bedroom and removed 2 vintage alarm clocks and then into my son's room to remove a gauge from a spitfire plane . Question is what is a cheapish Geiger counter going to set me back or should I just get rid of these things .
Well holy cow. My parents had an antique clock with radium dial, and when I was visiting them, slept overnight in the guest room where it was. The clock had to have been from the 1930s or 40s and I had a few in the past that didn't produce a glow. This one did quite a bit, as I was startled to notice a "fizzing" on the dial from across the room. Not knowing any better, I went right up to the dial as I'm nearsighted to get a better look. Sure enough it was the strangest thing to see a very noticeable scintillating effect. Hopefully I won't develop anything from that. It had to have been 22 years ago. Whatever the manufacturer was, they doped the crap out of that clock!
The spinthariscope works that way. If your eyes are completely adjusted to the dark, you can see individual flashes on the phosphor of a spinthariscope. Each flash comes from the breakdown of a single atom.
Why do I feel the urge to build a PIPBOY while watching?
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.
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.
as a kid i saw a documentary on "radium dials" the painters licked there paint brush, but. I have recently started collecting clansman military radios from 1982 falklands, I want sets too the quality of museum, some of my radios come from Poland, I was going to donate a radio to some one that needs it, first I need to find that it isn't going to hurt him! Can you recommend what dose meter, after e-mass I had a plan but now that I have learned this I need to change everything.
If you painted over the radium paint with lead paint, would that make it better?
I'm kind of worried as I'm having a 50:s Soviet camera delivered. On the other hand they wouldn't use anything radioactive in a camera as it would fog the film, right?
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.
Evening, Fran -
Fascinating, and creepy.
Enjoyed this & just subscribed, thanks...
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.....
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.
Was radium paint used on other articles like furniture?
Welp, I just bought a geiger counter for my vintage Russian watch collection. Thanks!
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.
Radium decays into radon. So although it's certainly safer not to open the case, would you say it's true that inside a home the amount of radon released by a watch or clock is dangerous? I did read a study which concluded that even a small watch, in a ventilated room, will put that space many times over the UK action level of radon.
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.
When was the use of radium in consumer goods eventually banned?
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.
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
Oh dear, if theres no glow-in the dark parts or evidently painted parts, that mean it should be safe right? I have an old Jaeger-watch Car clock I'm planning on getting to work/cleaning and eventually mounting is all (O.o)
My sister's twins HS put on the stage version of The Radium Girls. Sobering. Thanks for the PSA. Now how do I get a Geiger Counter?
I think all the postal services ought to have radiation detectors on their mail sorting machines...it wouldn't cost much but they'd find so much of this stuff.
It's likely to be against their regs to use their service with radioactive stuff.
They probably do in some of the larger sorting centers. Fran did mention that only 3% of the emissions from radium paint were gamma radiation, which is what would be easily detectable. The remaining 97% is in the form of "weak" alpha particles where the glass and the packing material are enough to block the majority of it. Those weak alpha particles can still be very dangerous though, ingesting any of the radium would put those particles in direct contact with your cells.
@@keenanfinucan8778 In the video, at 0:31 Fran detected the radiation through the clock glass. That would have blocked all the alpha, so she was getting that reading from just the gamma. However, it did look like she had to get quite close to it to get a significant reading.
@@glasslinger I'm not sure they are. They can be pretty "hot".
I would say radioactive mail ought to have hazard labels like everything else needs to (even batteries these days). No label? Your stuff gets a giant warning sticker and you have to sign a disclaimer.
@@beware_the_moose You better stick those disclaimers on your barbecue as well, them.