Give me a break. Do you think an artist points their brush with their tongue when they're using oil paints? I'd tend to doubt that radioluminescent paint came in flavors, and I'd presume that a watch dial factory would have the facilities to provide a cup of water.
The working conditions are only part of it, and they are the most easily addressed. The disposal problem is another factor. Concentrating lethal materials for use in a specific application, where it may be harmless, then having no concerns over the disposal of the material is idiocy.
If you read the history of the women who got cancer from it, that really is the reason they ingested it. They moistened the brushes with their tongue, documented fact. I have no idea why they didn't use water. Ok do you got a break, now go read the history of it and then you'll understand.
Do you just guess at things, or do any research? Try this little tidbit: /begin quote
Radium Dial Painters
During the 1920s, the radium paint was applied to clock and watch components in a variety of ways: painting it on with a brush, painting it with a pen or stylus, applying it with a mechanical press, and dusting. The latter procedure involved dusting a freshly painted dial with radioluminescent powder so that the powder would stick to the paint.
The original practice of using the mouth to put a point on a brush is described as follows by Robley Evans: "In painting the numerals on a fine watch, for example, an effort to duplicate the shaded script numeral of a professional penman was made. The 2, 3, 6, and 8 were hardest to make correctly, for the fine lines which contrast with the heavy strokes in these numerals were usually too broad, even with the use of the finest, clipped brushes. To rectify these broad parts the brush was cleaned and then drawn along the line like an eraser to remove the excess paint. For wiping and tipping the brush the workers found that that either a cloth or their fingers were too harsh, but by wiping the brush clean between their lips the proper erasing point could be obtained. This led to the so-called practice of "tipping" or pointing the brush in the lips. In some plants the brush was also tipped before painting a numeral. The paint so wiped off the brush was swallowed."
It might be worth noting that tipping the brushes was not something the dial painters just decided to do. At least in some plants they were actually trained how to do it. In fact, the instructors sometimes swallowed some of the paint to show it was harmless. It has been estimated that a dial painter would ingest a few hundred to a few thousand microcuries of radium per year. While most of the ingested radium would pass through the body, some fraction of it would be absorbed and accumulate in the skeleton. Later on, Robley Evans would establish a maximum permissible body burden for radium of 0.1 uCi.
As a result of the ingestion of the radium, many of the dial painters developed medical problems of varying degrees of severity. The first deaths occurred in the mid 1920s, and by 1926 the practice of tipping the brushes seems to have ended. /end quote
/begin quote: The major disadvantage to tritium is the evaporation rate, and most=20 tritium =93paint=94 only lasts 7-8 years before it becomes too dim to be =
useful. While GTLS tubes last longer, they still become uselessly dim=20 sooner than one would like.
Because of the complex licensing and export issues with tritium, and the =
inherent limited lifetime of tritium paint and GTLS, most watchmakers=20 today use SuperLuminova. It's a photoluminescent paint, and when=20 =93charged up=94 from a UV source (sunlight, fluorescent light) is able t= o=20 emit a fairly bright glow up to six hours after exposure. And the lack=20 of ionizing radiation makes it an easier sell in our paranoid culture.=20 (Though the paint itself may be more toxic than tritium!) /end quote.
the above from:
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--=20 Grandpa
What is that dripping from my fingers? Why it looks like time.
Just think of it. Some terrorist gets a bottle of fresh radium paint and makes a dirty bomb. It may not kill or even injure anyone but the publicity and panic in this day and age would be intense, especially if it in a public place. (should be easy to clean up in the dark though)
Secondly, with controls on ionizing materials, how would one ship such a material. Manufacturing of the radium isotope would also be highly restricted today. You would need a license to handle it and be required to be trained in HazMat to transport it.
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Such a material would be very expensive due to all the regulations now existing for its handling and storage and disposal (of material and equipment so contaminated). Even if it were available to manufacturers (for this purpose), it would be too expensive to justify given the many alternatives in active lighting and phosphorescent paints.
Quite right. The keyword being "compound". Phosphors used in CRTs etc are not phosphorous, they are compounds of phosphorous with totally different characteristics to the elemental form.
Incorrect.
White phosphorous was indeed used in matches between about 1830 and
1910. It was eventually banned because of the health risk it caused. It is very poisonous. There was enough white phosphorous in one matchbook to poison a healthy man. It was mixed with various gums and waxes along with, I think, antimony and some other compounds. Indeed they often exploded in peoples pockets, but that is not why they went out of production.
Next time I have a supplies of white phosphorous and carbon disuphide in my kitchen I will give that a go.
Ahh that's what SMUGGLING can do for you. Seal it up in several layers of plastic and immerse it in a steel can of chemicals of some other sort bound for the USA. Easy to them get 25 gallons of the stuff, make 5 bombs that detonate in the AIR (altimeter based trigger, shoot them up
250 feet before exploding to get the maximum distribution).
Actually Chris we are quite wrong. The Phosphors used in CRTs almost never contain phosphorous. They are compounds of all sorts of things that give the required emissions when stimulated. Phosphorous is just not a major contributor.
for example
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I guess you were just all up wrong on this and the matches.
Not a major contributor _anymore_. They certainly _used_ to be - eg: the name. "Almost never" doesn't qualify as "quite wrong". Just somewhat wrong ;-)
As for matches, the context were that of match composition 30 years ago. The counter information was for a variety of matches that haven't been produced in over a century.
The vast majority of watches or clocks made before 1950 that have a thick yellowish or white paint on the hands or dial are made with radium.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the dangers of using radium was recognized and it was phased out in the US. Instead, either non-radioactive phosphorus compounds were used or various tritium compounds were used. Other countries, especially third world countries, still use radium. For example, Iraqi tanks captured during the Gulf War had radium dials on gauges.
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