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Radium Paint search

Se7en

Well-Known Member
Jun 27, 2010
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i was out and about looking for Radium Paint ( it was used in old watch3s and airplane dial'?' *glow in dark*). i was able to find it in Google shopping but two problems one its not \radium?, Second; when you click on it it doesn't exist?

uranian paint illegal - Google Search


scroll down on the search list and you will see this:



New Phosphorescent radio dial paint. Custom developed by American-Milspec. (NEW 2nd Generation Flow Medium Used! We just made this product even ...
Add to Shopping List $12.50¢
 

I think that stuff has been illegal to use for a long time. It was killing off the workers who were painting in on the faces of watches.

There are a lot safer things to paint your toenails with ya know. :p
 
i was out and about looking for Radium Paint ( it was used in old watch3s and airplane dial'?' *glow in dark*). i was able to find it in Google shopping but two problems one its not \radium?, Second; when you click on it it doesn't exist?

uranian paint illegal - Google Search


scroll down on the search list and you will see this:



New Phosphorescent radio dial paint. Custom developed by American-Milspec. (NEW 2nd Generation Flow Medium Used! We just made this product even ...
Add to Shopping List $12.50¢


Click on your link above and then click on "Reset search tools" and you will see a lot about radium paint and why it is no longer available. radium paint was causing skin cancer in those who wore watches with it and do a serch for "radium girls". They were never told about the radiation they were working with and many died from cancer.
 
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I think that stuff has been illegal to use for a long time. It was killing off the workers who were painting in on the faces of watches.

There are a lot safer things to paint your toenails with ya know. :p

A girls vanity knows no boundaries.
 
A girls vanity knows no boundaries.

How true, the women that worked in this one New Jersey Watch factory used to paint there nails and even teeth with it because they were told it was harmless.

US Radium employed hundreds of women at their factory in Orange, New Jersey, including Grace Fryer. Few companies at that time were willing to employ women, and the pay was much higher than most alternatives, so the company had little trouble finding employees to occupy the rows and rows of desks. They were required to paint delicate lines with fine-tipped brushes, applying the Undark to the tiny numbers and indicator hands of wristwatches. After a few strokes a brush tended to lose its shape, so the women’s managers encouraged them to use their lips and tongues to keep the tips of the camel hair brushes sharp and clean. The glowing paint was completely flavorless, and the supervisors assured them that rosy cheeks would be the only physical side effect to swallowing the radium-laced pigment. Cause for concern was further reduced by the fact that radium was being marketed as a medical elixir for treating all manner of ailments.

And the result:

The last of the famous Radium Girls died in the 1930s, and many other former factory workers died of radium poisoning without finding justice. Later medical research would determine that radium behaves much like calcium inside the body, causing it to concentrate in the teeth and bones. By shaping their brushes with their lips as instructed by their knowledgeable supervisors, the dial painters had ingested anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand microcuries of radium per year. One tenth of a microcurie is now considered to be the maximum safe exposure. Marie Curie herself died of radiation-related ailments in 1934. Because radium has a half-life of 1,600 years, her lab notebooks are said to be too highly contaminated to be safely handled even today.

The Full text is to be found Here:


Undark and the Radium Girls • Damn Interesting

Cap Kilo nailed that one.

73
Jeff
 
ah yes they did use radium in the paints , rite here in the great stae of illinois in OTTOWA IL. near PERU il.

RADIUM DIAL CO.

Radium Dial Company
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The now defunct Radium Dial Company, was one of a few United States companies along with the United States Radium Corporation, involved in the painting of clocks, watches and other instrument dials using radioluminescent paint containing radium. These dials are collectively known as radium dials. However unlike the US Radium Corporation, it was specifically set up to paint dials only, no other radium related processing took place.
[edit] History

The Radium Dial Company was started in 1917 and was in full production of painted dials by 1918. The company was a division of the Standard Chemical Company based in the Marshall Field Annex building in Chicago. In 1920 the company relocated to Peru, Illinois to closer proximity to the clock manufacturer and major customer, Westclox.

The product used on the dials of the clocks was a mixture of phosphorus and radium called Luna. By 1922 the company had moved to a former high school building in Ottawa, Illinois where it remained until the mid 1930s. At the highest point in production (around 1925), the Radium Dial Company employed around 1,000 young women who turned out around 4,300 dials each day[citation needed].

edited-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Radium dial painting began in 1917 but it was deadly for the dialpainters.

Young women ranging in age from the mid teens to the early 20's were employed to apply the paint to clock dials and other products for several different companies. The dialpainters were typically single and lived with their parents. Dialpainting was easy work with comparatively high wages. Over the first 10 years about 2000 women were employed in this work, mostly in three locations: Orange, NJ, Waterbury, CT and Ottawa, IL. The picture at the left was taken in the 1920's at the Orange, NJ facility. Photo courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory.

The earliest dialpainters had come from the china painting industry. Workers were required to use lippointing to bring the paintbrushes to a point between the lips. This practice was passed on to the radium painting industry that also needed fine work. The majority of dialpainting was for wristwatches. The watch at the right was made in the late 1920's by Illinois Watch, Springfield, Illinois. The painting is done exceptionally well.

This radium dial was probably painted by a dialpainter that later may have suffered and/or died as a result of having painted the numbers and hands on this and other watch dials. By the 1920's and 1930's some dialpainters and former dialpainters began to suffer from a variety of illnesses, often crippling and frequently fatal as a result of ingesting the radium paint. Ingested radium is known to deposit permanently in bone structures. Radiation can then damage bone marrow, causing anemia. It can also weaken the bones so they might crush or snap under normal pressure. It can weaken bone tissue making it easy to get infection such as the jawbones that have dental work or gum disease. It can cause other forms of cancer in the sinus and mastoids.

The dialpainters were some of the first victims of radioactive poisoning. Earlier, Marie Curie, who first discovered radium in 1898, died from leukemia, which in all probability was caused by her long exposure to radium. Sabin Von Sochocky discovered a luminous paint formula that included radium and founded a company that sold luminous clock and watch dials. He died from aplastic anemia, also likely caused by radium exposure.

It isn't clear how well known the dangers of radium were in 1917 but no warning was given to the workers. The radium companies denied the dangers of imbibing radium despite the consensus of opinion among most medical experts and government officials that it was dangerous. The dialpainters were such a minority and lacked any financial resources to have any clout in dealing with industry. The battle for recognition of this health hazard to these women went on for many years.

A book titled "Radium Girls: Women and Industrial health reform, 1910-1935" by Claudia Clark was published by The University of North Carolina press, Chapel Hill and London in 1997 (ISBN 0-8078-2331-7 cloth and ISBN 0-8078-4640-6 paperback.) This is an excellent source of information on the subject. It is well documented with many references and an extensive bibliography.

A 1-3/4 hour film titled "Radium City" was made in 1986 about the aftereffects of two radium dial painting companies based in Ottawa, Illinois. The city of Ottawa, IL is about 80 miles southwest of Chicago. The Radium Dial Company (RDC) moved from the East Coast to Ottawa in 1922. Joseph Kelly was president. The first problems of radiation exposure occurred with the young women who applied the radium paint to the dials. According to the film, RDC went out of business in 1934 after being faced by many lawsuits. Luminous Process Incorporated (LPI) started soon after also headed by Kelly. It operated from 1932 to 1978 when the NRC shut it down. Both factories were demolished, RDC in 1969 and LPI in1984 and much of the material was used as land fill. As a result there are 13 areas today with above normal radiation in Ottawa. The major contaminant is radium-226 and the by-product, radon-222. For more information see the Petitioned Public Health Assessment, Ottawa Radiation Areas, Ottawa, Lasalle County, Illinois

It isn't known if the radium dials used by Jefferson starting in 1949 were painted by their employees or even done by Jefferson at all. They may have been sent out to be painted. In any case, working conditions were improved by that time but use of the paint was eventually banned.

note , that i live in SPRINGFIELD,ILLINOIS and the old ILLINOIS WATCH CO. building still stands here on the north side of spfd. il
 
Last edited:
So It is not safe, Wanted the real deal but ill figure something else out.

I wonder if I can extract the glow marks on a few Russian aircraft gauges and add chem to bring the dry paint back to liquid form and re-use it ?

Sent from Outerspace, on the DarkSide of X.
 
So It is not safe, Wanted the real deal but ill figure something else out.

I wonder if I can extract the glow marks on a few Russian aircraft gauges and add chem to bring the dry paint back to liquid form and re-use it ?

Sent from Outerspace, on the DarkSide of X.

Local Ham radio Operator glows in the dark....story at 11.
 
We use Tridium on gun sites around here. It glows in the dark, but we are just using a dot. I don't know what the NRC thinks of it, but you can use that instead od the banned Radium.
 
glow in the dark stuff

Tritium is indeed the best stuff - BUT - tritium is an isoptope of hydrogen and is a gas, not a liquid. The "tritium" night sights used on firearms (bows now, too, and even some fishing lures) are actually non-hydrogen-pemeable glass or thermoplastic vials of the gas with a phosphor coating inside the vial. Yes - even the tiniest of dots. I use them too. Trivia: Tritium is also the radioactive gas used as one of the triggers compressed to start a thermonuclear "hydrogen" bomb reaction. The other is deuterium. Both are required to finish off the earth in one pop.

Tritium would not be safe to use by itself, it is radioactive and toxic, and being a gas, kinda gets away from you quickly!

HOWEVER - I have successfully used some short-term GITD paint made by good old Krylon for a variety of projects. Called Krylon "Glowz" it produces the same eery green-white color that lasts a few hours after a few hours of exposure to daylight or regular commercial fluorescent lighting. Both brush-on and spray. Not very expensive - I got mine at Home Depot I think.

Krylon: Products: Glowz® Brush-On

It's a latex paint, water soluble, and I recommend you use it over a base coat of flat white primer, preferably something with a solvent base like acrylic or lacquer.

One of my great feats with this stuff was to paint stars and planets and rockets and such on the latex white ceiling of my son's bedroom when he was a wee lad. Endless entertainment, and now that he is in his teens he won't let me get rid of it! Few hours with the drapes open or a fluorescent ceiling light on and outer space glows for a couple hours. Been working fine for over ten years.

If you're in need you can overcoat the Glowz with a clear sealer so it is more weatherproof/waterproof.

Not authentic but may get you where you want to go and if it isn't right you can remove it fairly easily with denatured alcohol.
 
Tritium is indeed the best stuff - BUT - tritium is an isoptope of hydrogen and is a gas, not a liquid. The "tritium" night sights used on firearms (bows now, too, and even some fishing lures) are actually non-hydrogen-pemeable glass or thermoplastic vials of the gas with a phosphor coating inside the vial. Yes - even the tiniest of dots. I use them too. Trivia: Tritium is also the radioactive gas used as one of the triggers compressed to start a thermonuclear "hydrogen" bomb reaction. The other is deuterium. Both are required to finish off the earth in one pop.

Tritium would not be safe to use by itself, it is radioactive and toxic, and being a gas, kinda gets away from you quickly!

HOWEVER - I have successfully used some short-term GITD paint made by good old Krylon for a variety of projects. Called Krylon "Glowz" it produces the same eery green-white color that lasts a few hours after a few hours of exposure to daylight or regular commercial fluorescent lighting. Both brush-on and spray. Not very expensive - I got mine at Home Depot I think.

Krylon: Products: Glowz® Brush-On

It's a latex paint, water soluble, and I recommend you use it over a base coat of flat white primer, preferably something with a solvent base like acrylic or lacquer.

One of my great feats with this stuff was to paint stars and planets and rockets and such on the latex white ceiling of my son's bedroom when he was a wee lad. Endless entertainment, and now that he is in his teens he won't let me get rid of it! Few hours with the drapes open or a fluorescent ceiling light on and outer space glows for a couple hours. Been working fine for over ten years.

If you're in need you can overcoat the Glowz with a clear sealer so it is more weatherproof/waterproof.

Not authentic but may get you where you want to go and if it isn't right you can remove it fairly easily with denatured alcohol.

I would love to see pictures of that ceiling!
Ok I k ow tritium is a gas not a paint form I will try the stuff mentioned by krylon Glowz.

P.s we used to break open glow sticks and cover our bmx bikes and face and hands and ride @ night when I was a teen.

I'm going to paint small glow lines on some items I have and think it would be safer with something non radioactive so we don't have to wear lead suits and gloves hehe

Sent from Outerspace, on the DarkSide of X.
 
glow in the dark stuff

Well, the much prettier and feminine half of my marriage (a lot smarter, too!) has just told me she has seen glow-in-the-dark "tape" in Hobby Lobby and a peek at their on-line store proves it. 5 feet long by 1 inch wide self-adhesive, apparently works just like the Krylon paint. $10 seems a bit stiff but I'll bet that's really a HECK of a lot of tape when you get right down to using it! Sounds handy enough.

I guess if it goes on any type of moving pointer or needle weight might be an issue so maybe the tape would be an "if".

Deprecated Browser Error

They show many types of glow paint too, but it all seems pricey. Probably the case of such things in hobby shops.

I'll try to get a pic of that ceiling tonight, for the giggles it is worth.
 
Well, the much prettier and feminine half of my marriage (a lot smarter, too!) has just told me she has seen glow-in-the-dark "tape" in Hobby Lobby and a peek at their on-line store proves it. 5 feet long by 1 inch wide self-adhesive, apparently works just like the Krylon paint. $10 seems a bit stiff but I'll bet that's really a HECK of a lot of tape when you get right down to using it! Sounds handy enough.

I guess if it goes on any type of moving pointer or needle weight might be an issue so maybe the tape would be an "if".

Deprecated Browser Error

They show many types of glow paint too, but it all seems pricey. Probably the case of such things in hobby shops.

I'll try to get a pic of that ceiling tonight, for the giggles it is worth.

Do they sell glow paint ina can ? So I can brush it on...I hate rattle cans.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2
 

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