Radium watch worries

[MattyG]

I believe Iv worked on at least 2 watches with radium on the dials. Both times I hadnt taken the proper precautions when working on radium watches, as I hadnt known any better. Am I in  danger? This picture is a watch I worked on recently. And I cannot tell if its radium or really old tritium. The hand glow for less than a second under a black light.

[lexacat]

https://www.mass.gov/service-details/health-effects-of-radium-radiation-exposure

Long story short, unless you've been exposed to radium in large amounts or small/medium amounts over long periods of time, the chance of having any adverse health issues are pretty small.

Unless you were scratching off the lume and intentionally breathing in the dust, handling a couple of watches without proper dust protection and/or gloves is unlikely to have any impact on you. 

I highly recommend against anyone doing this and urge anyone dealing with radium to take the proper precautions or just don't work on that movement.

Edited October 31, 2022 by lexacat
spelling

[MattyG]

your the man lexacat. I was panicking in my room for about two hours. I'm going to invest in a Geiger counter, and vow to never work on radium dials. I'm gonna vacuum the ever living hell out of my room, and wash off my work bench. Thanks for calming my nerves down.\

Im not the brightest watchmaker in the bunch 

Edited October 31, 2022 by MattyG

[Neverenoughwatches]

5 hours ago, MattyG said:

I believe Iv worked on at least 2 watches with radium on the dials. Both times I hadnt taken the proper precautions when working on radium watches, as I hadnt known any better. Am I in  danger? This picture is a watch I worked on recently. And I cannot tell if its radium or really old tritium. The hand glow for less than a second under a black light.

Prolonged and consistent exposure to radium would cause health issues matty. You will be fine dont worry, unless you were working on radium dial watches on a regular basis and being very careless.  Just take precautions in the future.

[mikepilk]

I sometime work on radium watches- I've just removed the radium from the dial and hands of a 60s Rotary.

I have a "Pocket Geiger" so I can check any suspect watches - I didn't expect this mid to late 60s watch to have radium. Glad I checked.

After plenty of research, I decided it's OK to work with radium (I try to avoid the watches*), but taking the following precautions (probably more than I need to) :

I cover my work surface with cling-film, I wear a mask and latex gloves (probably not needed).

The radium dissolves easily in water. To remove dots from the dial I used wet cotton buds. For hands - I put then in a very small plastic bag/container and a blast in the ultrasonic. Change the water, do it again until no reading on the geiger. I only use a teaspoon of water each time, then soak it up in to a tissue and bag it. 

Everything disposable used gets sealed in plastic bags and disposed in the household waste bin.

All tools used get washed in the sink.

*With some "more valuable" watches, people want the original patina of the dial and hands. I have a Universal Geneve with radium, but I'm leaving untouched. I'm just careful when working on it (seal the dial/hands in a bag)

[MattyG]

10 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Prolonged and consistent exposure to radium would cause health issues matty. You will be fine dont worry

I never regularly worked on radium dials. Maybe maximum two. Thanks for the reassurance.

 

@mikepilk. Thanks for your comment as well. I unfortunately don't see too many hobbiest watchmakers talk about the dangers of radium. It's important to look out for the little guys. Those who are just starting out and don't know what to look for. We tell a lot of new watchmakers to practice on vintage watches (which is a good way to practice), but vintage watches can obviously be a bit dangerous when in the wrong hands, especially when learning to relume. 

Just a unsettling invisible danger. Thanks for the info guys

[mikepilk]

19 hours ago, MattyG said:

I never regularly worked on radium dials. Maybe maximum two. Thanks for the reassurance.

 

@mikepilk. Thanks for your comment as well. I unfortunately don't see too many hobbiest watchmakers talk about the dangers of radium. It's important to look out for the little guys. Those who are just starting out and don't know what to look for. We tell a lot of new watchmakers to practice on vintage watches (which is a good way to practice), but vintage watches can obviously be a bit dangerous when in the wrong hands, especially when learning to relume. 

Just a unsettling invisible danger. Thanks for the info guys

It's worth buying a cheap geiger counter to check on old watches.

I bought a job lot of watch cases. I decided to check them with the geiger, just in case - and they set it pinging away !

[MattyG]

4 hours ago, mikepilk said:

It's worth buying a cheap geiger counter to check on old watches.

May I ask what geiger counter you got?

[mikepilk]

10 minutes ago, MattyG said:

May I ask what geiger counter you got?

I bought a "Pocket Geiger Counter".  It's a small detector which plugs in to a phone or tablet. They were made cheaply for selling in Japan after Fukushima. They don't seem to be on sale any more. But a quick search on ebay/Amazon, there are detectors available for less than £50. 

Be careful that you get a "Nuclear radiation" detector - ie. measures alpha/beta/gamma particles. A lot of the radiation detectors listed only detect electromagnetic radiation.

[MattyG]

Update: I know is been a while but I finally got myself a pretty good Geiger counter. I got a GQ GMC-500. Normal back round radiation seems to be at around 20cpm. Just thought Id update you guys. I feel a bit safer now that I don't need to take any chances. 

Thanks for all your responses . 

[mikepilk]

20 minutes ago, MattyG said:

Update: I know is been a while but I finally got myself a pretty good Geiger counter. I got a GQ GMC-500. Normal back round radiation seems to be at around 20cpm. Just thought Id update you guys. I feel a bit safer now that I don't need to take any chances. 

Thanks for all your responses . 

20cpm! That seems high. Where are you ?

I'm just north of London and record a background of about 4.5 cpm, which is 0.09 micro sievert/h (x8760) = 0.788 mS/ year.

Just read up on your Geiger counter. It detects Beta as well as Gamma radiation, which probably accounts for the high cpm. Mine only records Gamma. What is it in micro Sieverts/h ?

Edited December 1, 2022 by mikepilk

[MattyG]

on the card it gives me it says 5-50 cpm is considered normal for this counter. Again assuming because it detects Beta and Gamma. I'm in the states. Particularly NJ. It says 0.13 - .16 in Sv/h. I highly doubt this is because of working on a few radium watches. 

"Normal background radiation (as measured by the Leiger), is around 20-30 CPM (counts per minute, or about 0.14 uSv/hour)"

https://reimaginingeducation.org/what-is-safe-cpm-radiation/

This quote is from the website link above ^

[LittleWatchShop]

I have said this somewhere else on this forum: working on radium is simply not a concern IMHO.

I posted several government papers on the topic that support my view and I gave the anecdotal evidence that my father worked on radium watches from 1947 to about 1990 without taking any precautions that I am aware of.  He died at 93 of issues unrelated to radium

All that being said, don't eat it or ingest it through other body orifices.

I have one of the inexpensive geiger counters...just for fun.

[JohnR725]

On 10/30/2022 at 8:25 PM, MattyG said:

I'm going to invest in a Geiger counter, and vow to never work on radium dials

It's really nice of you get a sensitive Geiger counter with audio. In other words if I turn the Geiger counter on that I have about every 20 to 30 seconds there is a little pop sound some random piece of something flying through space. But slowly bring it up near the packet of brand-new watch hands I have and it starts to pick up where though there is more and more of them in the wood bursts get closer and closer and then it sounds like a rapid machine gun fire.

But it does bring up a problem my brand-new hands that look brand-new how old are they? The fact that the Geiger counter makes an interesting sound tells you that they must be reasonably old. If you're looking up brand-new hands on a card with the way they used to come if you move the hand a little bit C can see underneath on usually the radium ones you will see that the paper is a darker color. But otherwise it could be a card of hands made last year or whatever you can't tell.

Or when you are buying old watchmakers stuff it used to be the feel the hands in they had a wax substance you'd melt it and you put that on the hands and I was thought that was all newer except once again the Geiger counter got really excited so maybe it's not that new. Then yes they did make some actual radium and refilling kits there was once one in the material house that I managed to acquire. It's very clearly labeled radium but it's not labeled touch it and you'll die they weren't afraid of radium back then.

Then conceivably you're going to find that almost everything that fluoresces before a certain age is probably radium. Maybe I should work on military watches oh wait they have like 1 million times the radium of a normal civilian with each. Like a ships clock for instance I've heard stories of people going day Canada for watch show coming back to the US and getting pulled aside just for the possession of one ships clock with radium hands because the detectors at the border able to pick up something like that in your car. Then depending upon who you are determines how nicely they treat you. One was a older couple in a nice car slid invited him inside I think they gave moved coffee asked if they had any medical procedures asked if they could search the car and then they brought the offending clock in. The other person apparently they were out with their M-16s and more concerned about the way he looked. But it's interesting one radioactive ships clock you can't even come back to the country and no I don't know if they got confiscated or not

The definitely if you want to be upset get yourself a Geiger counter and start looking at everything you have. Oh and here's a YouTube Channel you might find interesting. The last video covers what were talking about now which Geiger counter to buy and then go look at his early videos where he visits antique stores and other places where you'd think it would be safe but well it isn't

https://www.youtube.com/@RadioactiveDrew

3 hours ago, LittleWatchShop said:

I posted several government papers on the topic that support my view and I gave the anecdotal evidence that my father worked on radium watches from 1947 to about 1990 without taking any precautions that I am aware of.  He died at 93 of issues unrelated to radium

Yes I suspect if radium was the killer of watchmakers it would be a much bigger thing than it is. Radium almost falls into a category of if you don't know it's bad then it's not going to hurt you..

 

[LittleWatchShop]

6 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

Or when you are buying old watchmakers stuff it used to be the feel the hands in they had a wax substance you'd melt it and you put that on the hands and I was thought that was all newer except once again the Geiger counter got really excited so maybe it's not that new. Then yes they did make some actual radium and refilling kits there was once one in the material house that I managed to acquire. It's very clearly labeled radium but it's not labeled touch it and you'll die they weren't afraid of radium back then.

Yup.  From my Dad's bench.  I used to play with it when I was a kid.  Here I am.

[MattyG]

I know radium doesn't seem to be a huge problem from the watchmakers perspective. Again seeming that you don't breath it in or anything. However I think its always good to know so you can at least feel a little more inclined to handle with care. Especially when reluming old watch hands. I didn't get into watchmaking to deal with radioactive material. I got into watchmaking because I love the puzzling idea of putting all of these gears and wheels apart and putting them back together again. Reviving old watches especially since I work on vintage most of the time. 

There seems to be two opposing and completely contrasting sides to these arguments: Iv seen people swear that radium watches are not worth the risk of working on them and Iv seen others say its harmless. I like to err on the side of caution when it comes to these things. 

9 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

if you want to be upset get yourself a Geiger counter and start looking at everything you have

I know what your saying John. A lot of things are radioactive to some degree, and funny enough when my Geiger counter came in I did look at everything I had lol. Just to experiment a little. I mean what if some radium got onto my tools? My floor? My bench? I guess I do tend to overthink these types of things, and radium watches certainly got me anxious when I learned how "dangerous" they could be. I started seeing comments on  watch repair related YouTube videos talking about how the repairer should be worried about the radium in the air when they were reluming hands. Then I spiraled down to a panic. 

3 hours ago, LittleWatchShop said:

Yup.  From my Dad's bench.  I used to play with it when I was a kid.  Here I am.

Just thought I'd add. These are really cool little boxes you. I didn't know they had radium reluming kits. Interesting

[LittleWatchShop]

11 minutes ago, MattyG said:

Then I spiraled down to a panic.

To be absolutely safe, send me your radium watches and I will bear the risk.

[MattyG]

7 minutes ago, LittleWatchShop said:

To be absolutely safe, send me your radium watches and I will bear the risk.

After fixing them up (before I knew they were radium) I sold them all. Lol. maybe next time 

[JohnR725]

1 hour ago, MattyG said:

YouTube videos

Thinking of YouTube videos did you watch the video is at the link I gave up above? I was curious and watched his last video on detectors and revealed what I suspected a lot of the inexpensive ones you find on Amazon or eBay are not quite worthless but almost worthless. You need a detector with a better sense or otherwise you're not going to pick up all the stuff you really want to pick up

Oh and here's an interesting company. The Accucell watch hands the listed under Geiger counter accessories. We'll see they have Geiger counter kits unknown if they're very good. I'm suspicious of anything that has a metal tube because the metal tube is going to filter out things. For instance my two bits on my machine has I think it's Micah in the front it's a very thin something that's not metal that makes it very sensitive. So they have anything resembling metal it's for it has to be much stronger. Even in the review video at the YouTube link above he has a detector that was two-part Sydney pointed out it had a more higher radiation detector and he takes the back off and sure enough the metal tube. So basically by the time that part of the detector would be unhappy well you'd be unhappy in your future also but the website they do have things to pick up just in case you don't have any radium hands as they have a few of those for sale and other things of the radioactive

https://theelectronicgoldmine.com/

1 hour ago, LittleWatchShop said:

To be absolutely safe, send me your radium watches and I will bear the risk.

That reminds me of an interesting story. The national Association of watch and clock collectors as regional meetings all across the country. Somewhere in I don't know if as a regional meeting or a national meeting somebody came in to the meeting and claim they were from the Atomic Energy Commission and they had a Geiger counter and they were going to confiscate everything that was radioactive at least that was the story I was told in and basically everything that had radium was under the table after that. I think somebody thought it was basically just a clever scam to pick up harmful evil radioactive items like Rolex watches they have a lot of well some of them do of course the amusement with the story is if you have one of the sensitive detectors hiding your radium stuff under the table isn't going to do the a lot a good.

What's really fun for risk is if I can remember what I did with my bag of military timepiece hands I don't remember how many I have in a bag but Quite a few and that's where my detector will pick that up several feet away ill start picking up whatever it's radiating which is why usually I try to remember to put that someplace else in the house the same as the aircraft clock dials there somewhere else in the house and I thought normally all the radioactive hands were someplace else like in the attic Far away.

[LittleWatchShop]

27 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

What's really fun for risk is if I can remember what I did with my bag of military timepiece hands I don't remember how many I have in a bag but Quite a few and that's where my detector will pick that up several feet away ill start picking up whatever it's radiating which is why usually I try to remember to put that someplace else in the house the same as the aircraft clock dials there somewhere else in the house and I thought normally all the radioactive hands were someplace else like in the attic Far away.

It is all makes sense to me now.  @JohnR725is radioactive.

[JohnR725]

7 hours ago, MattyG said:

I know radium doesn't seem to be a huge problem from the watchmakers perspective. Again seeming that you don't breath it in or anything. However I think its always good to know so you can at least feel a little more inclined to handle with care. Especially when reluming old watch hands. I didn't get into watchmaking to deal with radioactive material. I got into watchmaking because I love the puzzling idea of putting all of these gears and wheels apart and putting them back together again. Reviving old watches especially since I work on vintage most of the time.

How what we apply a different rule here? An observation that I've made has been when you find somebody this concerned are upset with something then usually that's going to be bad for them. It probably won't be bad for the rest of us but you probably will die from cancer from radiation exposure. It's just your destiny so knowing that it's your destiny don't play with them. I just noticed over the years of my life that things that people get upset about are the things that plagued them in life so this is going to be your thing then get your Geiger counter and stay away from them.

Then while you're at it takers sensitive Geiger counter and look at the videos on that channel of all the other stuff is radioactive some of that vintage glass that you might have in the kitchen or certain ceramics that have certain colors on them East shows a ceramic tile but in one of his videos in the antique story was running around in there all kinds of things are radioactive.

Then a course you go back farther and they're all kinds a silly people at thought radioactive stuff was good for you all sorts of Healthy remedies of that new angle radium stuff.

Then unfortunately there's another YouTube channel or two that I subscribed to that talks about disasters and is back in water disasters of and it's not from radium watch hands. Usually some of the biggest disasters involves medical stuff either by accidental computer programming or the real big one is medical waste ending up in places where they don't grasp what the pretty powder is inside spread all over the place. There has been several really sizable disasters of that because the other problem of course is you can't see it

So the rule is if it's going to bother you get rid of it.

[HectorLooi]

I would avoid any radioactive watch for the moment. 

Can you imagine what would happen if the geiger counter went off at an airport security check?

[JohnR725]

26 minutes ago, HectorLooi said:

Can you imagine what would happen if the geiger counter went off at an airport security check?

I find it interesting there radiation detectors all around us. I met somebody worked as a fireman commented that the fire trucks all of radiation detectors. Supposedly the airport staff that have what look like pagers on the belts there supposed to be radiation detectors. But you wouldn't want everyone wearing a vintage Rolex to cause an entire hazmat team of radiation specialist pouncing on them every time they go through the airports I don't know how sensitive all of that stuff is. Also notice must be radiation detectors at places that by scrap metal sleigh can avoid medical waste. In other words somebody scraps out a hospital without proper paperwork.

 

 

 

[mikepilk]

A lot of the danger is blown out of proportion as people panic when they hear "radiation". Not realising that even bananas (and us) are radioactive to some degree.

The bottom line is, you are probably safe unless you ingest some radium - which you definitely don't want. The body treats it as calcium and deposits it in bone, where it will stay for the rest of you life, emitting alpha, beta, gamma particles. Alpha particles are the most damaging inside the body (Litvinenko was killed by an alpha emitter).

That's why, when working on radium dials and hands,  I  wear a mask and gloves, use cling film on the work surface, and use water to remove any radium.

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

5 hours ago, mikepilk said:

A lot of the danger is blown out of proportion as people panic when they hear "radiation". Not realising that even bananas (and us) are radioactive to some degree.

The bottom line is, you are probably safe unless you ingest some radium - which you definitely don't want. The body treats it as calcium and deposits it in bone, where it will stay for the rest of you life, emitting alpha, beta, gamma particles. Alpha particles are the most damaging inside the body (Litvinenko was killed by an alpha emitter).

That's why, when working on radium dials and hands,  I  wear a mask and gloves, use cling film on the work surface, and use water to remove any radium.

 

Thanks mike. Nice to know someone else is a bit more sensible about the dangers. No effort involved to take some precautions, i dont think we have a neuclear physicist here that actually knows the true effects of different radiations at different levels at different stages in our lives over different time periods. And we can all make assumptions based on what we read, but can we believe what we read ? I wouldnt want to find out in 10 or 20 or 30 years time that i have something wrong with me caused by radiation contamination because i worked on too many old watches and didnt take enough care .