Dangerous substances when disassembling timex indigloo?

[watchAdventures]

I have a timex urban command (digital watch with indiglo). Are you aware of any dangerous substance or material that I can come in contact with if I disassemble the watch? For example I read that the indigloo is made of luminescent “indium tin oxide” (as reported here https://www.chemeurope.com/en/encyclopedia/Phosphor.html) and that this material can cause irritation to the respiratory tract If inhaled (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indium_tin_oxide). Any other stuff I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

[rjenkinsgb]

As long as you don't grind the stuff up and blow it around, you should be fine. Use a dust mask if in doubt.

 

The things I'm very careful of are:

Radium lume - even the stuff that is visually completely dead and inert is still highly radioactive; it's the fluorescent part that decays, not the radium.

A single speck inhaled or ingested can cause cancer, so store parts in zip bags and wear a dust mask & wipe your work area down after handling anything that uses it.

A proper geiger counter is a good investment if you plan on working with vintage watches, so you can check for it & take appropriate precautions.

 

"One dip" & equivalents - the original type & the generic PERC dry cleaning fluid (Tetrachloroethylene / perchloroethylene) which is what the original one dip was mostly made of. That's toxic, a known carcinogen.

Use in very good ventilation only & keep it sealed whenever possible.

 

The newer B-Dip is presumably a safer replacement.

 

[mikepilk]

Sensible precautions @rjenkinsgb. I remember as a lad, my mate's dad ran a garage. I can clearly remember watching him change break pads. He used an airline to blow the dust out, (when pads used asbestos), and  we used to practically bathe in "carbon tet". But then he did smoke about 40 cigs a day.

Makes me shudder to think about it.

[watchAdventures]

On 5/13/2024 at 5:26 PM, rjenkinsgb said:

As long as you don't grind the stuff up and blow it around, you should be fine. Use a dust mask if in doubt.

 

The things I'm very careful of are:

Radium lume - even the stuff that is visually completely dead and inert is still highly radioactive; it's the fluorescent part that decays, not the radium.

A single speck inhaled or ingested can cause cancer, so store parts in zip bags and wear a dust mask & wipe your work area down after handling anything that uses it.

A proper geiger counter is a good investment if you plan on working with vintage watches, so you can check for it & take appropriate precautions.

 

"One dip" & equivalents - the original type & the generic PERC dry cleaning fluid (Tetrachloroethylene / perchloroethylene) which is what the original one dip was mostly made of. That's toxic, a known carcinogen.

Use in very good ventilation only & keep it sealed whenever possible.

 

The newer B-Dip is presumably a safer replacement.

 

Thanks for the info.

Didn't know about dry cleaning fluids. I don't intend to use them myself. Just to be sure: could trace of this stuff be inside the watch already? (the watch I'm talking about is recent. Year of release should be 2020. Bought it new)

 

 

 

[rjenkinsgb]

4 hours ago, watchAdventures said:

Just to be sure: could trace of this stuff be inside the watch already?

No. It's incredibly volatile and evaporates in seconds; there is no way it would last as long as it took to just install the part cleaned in it, in the movement.