![]() ![]() Vintage Trench watch with Radium dial Watch dial using Tritium Radium Girls Make an educated guess concerning the age of the watch the older it is estimated to be, the more likely it is to contain radioactive material.These instruments will be able to pick up the radiation of a vintage radium-painted watch, but will not be able to detect other, non-radioactive glow-in-the-dark compounds, or tritium-painted compounds-tritium gives off such little energy when it decays that special instruments would most likely be required to actually detect it. Use a Geiger counter or dosimeter to measure any present radiation levels.(Tritium is a type of radioactive hydrogen that decays rather harmlessly into helium, and is far less dangerous than radium.) The “<25” label signified that the watch included less than 25 millicuries of radioactive tritium. Similarly, a watch featuring tritium in its paint during this time would also be marked with two small “T”’s, or “T<25” labels near the same six o’clock marker. Beginning around the 1950’s or 60’s, watches dials began to be labeled this way in order to distinguish the element used in its markers. If there is an “R” or “Ra” located on the dial below the six o’clock marker.There are a handful of ways to identify a radium-painted watch: The problem with vintage radium-painted watches was that their “glow” came from the radioactive decay of the radium itself, which had the very serious potential to cause various health problems to those who handled them frequently. This type of mixture was often chosen over others because of the superiority of its glow and longevity-unlike any other glow-in-the-dark paints, the radium-mixed paint could glow through an entire night (where other paints would lose their glows as the night progressed) and could potentially continue to glow for many years. This compound would cause the hands/numbers to glow in the dark. This paint could potentially be made of a phosphorescent compound mixed with radium. Many old vintage watches-especially military watches-have gold or white-ish colored paint on their hands or the numbers on their dials. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |