Disclaimer: This post is not intended to cast blame on any eBay seller, any crafter, or any manufacturer. I'm sharing this as a public service, because I was really taken aback by what was shown to me this evening. I'm not posting this to encourage the kind of 11 o'clock news paranoia so often raised by this kind of information, but rather to raise a healthy level of awareness in my fellow hobbyists.
As many of you know, I make Steampunk Jewelry for fun and sometimes profit. I buy old watch parts off of eBay, glue them together into new and interesting shapes, and make them into pins and necklaces and earrings. Back in October, I won an auction that contained a bunch of old military watch faces. When they arrived, I looked them over, and after fiddling with them for a bit, and even preparing some of them to be made into jewelry, I noticed that several of them had greenish paint on their numerals. Huh, I thought. I'll bet that's the infamous radium paint I've heard so much about.
I didn't pay it much mind. After Googling a bit, I decided they were probably risky, so I segregated the suspect faces into a plastic bag and stuck them inside an Altoids box. I made up the rest of my jewelry, and took it to a local show. I sold a few pieces.
Fast forward through the holidays. I was making up a care package for a buddy in Alaska, because I had promised her a pin for Christmas. I picked out a hair barrette for her that I was particularly proud of, and noticed that the center dial had slipped under my radar: It too had greenish paint on the numerals. I hemmed and hawed a bit. Is it risky? Is it safe? Am I being paranoid? More Googling. More wibbling. (Side note: I grew up on a farm, around pesticides and cow manure and axle grease. I'm a little less paranoid than many people about "toxicity".)
I finally gave in to my suspicion and contacted the DEQ and also sent an email to a friend of mine who's a Chem professor at Western Michigan University. He directed me to WMU's Radiation Safety Officer. After an exchange of emails, the Radiation Safety Officer graciously agreed to come over to my house after work and check my jewelry supplies with a Geiger-Müller meter.
Turns out it was a darn good thing he stopped by.
The faces that I thought had radium paint were definitely giving off minute levels of radiation -- not enough to be immediately harmful, but definitely there. We surveyed my entire batch of watch parts and found a bunch more faces and parts -- plain metal parts the casual observer would never suspect -- were also radioactive. Old movements that probably had radium faces on them -- but without the faces, there was no way to tell. Tiny wristwatch hands with a pinhead-sized dab of paint on them turned out to be giving off as much radiation as some of the full-sized faces. Faces with so much of the paint flaked off of them that you could barely see the numerals on them showed as being hot. That barrette I was going to send my friend, the pin that a co-worker was going to get for Christmas, a pair of earrings a friend of mine made for me years ago -- they all had radium paint.
How radioactive were they? Not enough to harm you unless you swallowed one of the radium dials or duct-taped it to your forehead and left it there for a few years. Casual contact would probably not do you much harm; even an inch or two away from the hot pieces, the meter only picked up background radiation. Metal that had been in contact with the hot faces was also largely fine: after I pried the hot movement off of a pin-back, the pin-back registered as normal. Still -- radium has a half-life of 1600 years, so it's not like it's going to go away anytime soon. Far better safe than sorry.
According to the Radiation Safety Officer (and this MIT document),the legal annual occupational exposure of radiation for an adult (people trained in the use and handling of radioactive materials and radiation-producing machines), above background levels, is 5 REM per year. (1 REM is equal to 1 rad times a quality factor for the type of radiation being emitted.) The watch-hand in the middle video was giving off 5 millirads (Beta-Gamma). Since 1 rad == 1,000 millirads that means that you would have to affix that watch hand, radium-side-down, to your skin for about 1,000 hours (41 days straight) for this to start becoming a hazard.
The danger here is from proximity; radium emits radiation, but it's a relatively weak emitter. That means that just about anything (metal, glass, skin, even a few inches of air) will stop its radiation. As you saw in the videos, you had to get the Geiger-Müller meter really close to the objects before the radium registered.
Another danger is that as the radium paint gets older, the binder that holds the paint together decays, allowing the radium paint to flake off and migrate around. Which means if you're handling a lot of radium pieces, and then you wipe your nose, or eat a sandwich, or if you have cuts on your fingers, you're introducing radium into your body, where it will migrate to your bones and hang out, still emitting radiation slowly for years to come.
Exposed radium paint on jewelry is a bad idea -- not because wearing it under normal circumstances would cause heavy exposure, but because the risks associated with handling the piece and allowing the radium dust to spread to other places, or internally. If you're intending to make jewelry out of watch parts, you should be very careful to not collect any pieces with unshielded radium paint, and if you see anything you even remotely suspect is radium, set it aside and get it checked out by a professional. You should not try to scrape or wash off the radium paint yourself. Radium dust can move around easily, so you may also want to have your work areas checked. When the Radiation Safety officer did an inspection of my work areas, we found only background radiation. That was comforting, let me tell you.
The good news is that now all the clockwork crafting supplies I currently have in my possession are clean and have been inspected thoroughly by a professional. The bad news is that I've made and sold a bunch of this jewelry already.
So: If you, or anyone you know, has ever purchased clockwork jewelry from me, you may return it to me for either inspection or a full refund, your choice. Just mail it to me with a note telling me how much it cost, and I'll either have it inspected and sent back to you free of charge, or if it turns out hot, I'll have it properly disposed of and will send you a check, including your shipping fee, for the balance.
I've probably only sold about fifty pieces of jewelry -- I don't have an Etsy shop, but I have sold my jewelry at several comic book conventions, including SPX and Wizard World Chicago. I suspect that only one of my pieces contained a radium watch dial, and I've already contacted the owner of that piece directly. However, I'm offering the buyback/inspection to my customers because I care as much about their peace of mind as much as I do my own work.
Please feel free to cross-post this to other forums and boards, and share this information with anyone you know who is a Steampunk crafter or who makes jewelry out of watch and clock parts. If you have questions about your own materials, do what I did: call your local public university and ask to speak to their Radiation Safety Officer. Alternately, call your state's Department of Environmental Quality: the Michigan DEQ rep was also willing to come out, free of charge, and inspect and remove any hot material -- the WMU Safety Officer just responded first*. A blogger with experience in radioactive materials also offered this helpful link to the Health Physics Society, which has a FAQ and links to help you find health physicists in your area.
The Radiation Safety Officer asked the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality about registering the material and was told that Michigan has exempt quantities of radium for timepieces and it does not require that the pieces be intact. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission also has exempt quantities, but does have stipulations about intact or loose parts. If you have questions regarding disposal of radium timepieces (or their parts), you should look into your particular state requirements for quantities. However, it may open an expensive proposition in quantifying the curie content of the materials.
Radium paint isn't anything to be terribly frightened of, but as crafters, we need to be well aware of the risks inherent in our medium, especially if we're intending to sell our pieces to the public.
* I need to give an enormous thankyou to WMU's Radiation Safety Officer for the time he spent inspecting my house and crafts, and for safely disposing of my hot material. He was very kind and thoughtful and thorough and took the time to explain a lot more about how radiation works, and more importantly, how it doesn't work. I totally got my science-nerd fix for the week. Thank you again, sir!
Posted by Janer
Holy shit. Kudos to you for being so diligent about this. That's some scary stuff.
Posted by: J. Kevin Carrier at January 9, 2009 5:54 AMWow, thanks for posting this! I'm calling the University of Washington first thing in the morning. Better safe than sorry!
Posted by: Grace at January 9, 2009 6:41 AMWow. Wowowowow.
Thanks for posting this. It's both cool and nutso concerning at the same time. I am sure I've licked my share of radium paint as a kid...eep!
This would be a cool cross-post over to BoingBoing and/or Makeblog, fwiw. I am sure it'd get "air-time".
Also, dude...this has "Steampunk Supers Origin Issue" written all over it! Gogogogo!
Posted by: Atis Kleinbergs at January 9, 2009 4:13 PMThank you THANK YOU thank you for having some business ethics and taking this seriously. I know a lot of people would just shrug and go on.
Posted by: Ivey at January 9, 2009 4:24 PMwow. that's crazy! when you posted for me to find my coworker i didn't think it was anything serious. guess i was wrong.
Posted by: Charna Rose at January 9, 2009 9:18 PMThanks for this post - here's an addendum. Following info is not probably useful for steampunk jewelry, but for general steampunk crafters: Anyboy who uses old instrument dials from aircraft - DON'T. As an ex instructor for the air cadets, we were given a bunch of old aircraft instruments to use in training. I was going through a physics degree at the time, and thought it might be useful to check the items. With the glass on, they registered mildly active. Any that did not have glass, they were hotter than our reference radioactive sources in our labs. i.e. EXTREMELY hazardous. Cleaning the metal parts would not make them safe. So old aircraft instruments should be avoided generally, unless you have a meter to check them.
Really appreciate you putting out this warning - thanks.
Posted by: Guy Champ at January 9, 2009 11:35 PMLet me get this straight - you had KNOWN radioactive materials, and you WASHED THE PAINT-DUST DOWN THE DRAIN? Are you insane? How dare you pollute the water table like this. May I have your home address? I'd like to notify the local government, so they can send a cleanup team and perform an environmental impact statement regarding your criminally negligent behavior.
Posted by: Safety Officer at January 10, 2009 12:13 PMYou bet I did, because the nice man with the Geiger-Muller counter told me to. If you're not a troll, I'll be happy to put you in contact with Western Michigan University's Radiation Safety Officer so you can discuss proper dispersal of radioactive material.
Posted by: Janer at January 10, 2009 5:52 PMSweet fancy Moses! Naturally you know what this means - you're totally going to develop super powers! Fsck YES! It's gonna be so sweet!!! Also your linoleum may develop super powers. Watch out for that - normal powered linoleum is tricky enough to deal with, let alone linoleum that can fly around and shoot death beams and stuff.
Seriously tho', good save on that one. It could have gone a lot more south.
Posted by: Scary Mike at January 11, 2009 11:40 PMBack in 1983 I was sitting in a diner in Elgin Illinois, and looking out the window wondering why an entire building was wreathed in scaffolding and wrapped like an Xmas gift.
Turns out that was the paint building for the ancient Elgin Watch Company; it's where the ladies inside would apply dabs of Radium paint to the dials and hands of clocks and watches.
Someone at the counter told me it was being decontaminated and taken apart BY HAND, as it was so hazardous.
Then she told me how the ladies that worked there would dab the tip of the paintbrushes on their tongues to keep a better point on them to apply the paint more precisely.
Guess the fate of all these women, and the others that supervised them?
Yep. Cancer. All SORTS of cancer.
SO before you pick up that neato-keeno radium clock face, get it rad checked.
'nuff said.
Posted by: Sgt. Mustache at January 12, 2009 1:50 PMthank you so much for posting this information. I had never even thought about this when I collect old things... a good warning.
Posted by: Miss Dot at January 13, 2009 3:12 AMI was referred here by a friend, and you can read about the correct physics in the comments I made on her blog. Mostly these were obvious physics errors that do not impact your results greatly, except for earrings.
I am, however, curious about the washing things in the sink. If I get bored next week when I'm in Kalamazoo I'll call up WMU for my own curiosity, since it doesn't sound correct as a general procedure. Clearly dosing a water supply with 210Po would be a sure way to kill many people, which was only avoided here from the small amount. These are heavy elements, so they should be filtered out of the water supply anyway, but it's certainly not wise to do it on purpose without a proper water treatment system. My main point on that note is less concern about this case as the "general information" that the drain is a correct way to dispose of radioactive material, because it isn't.
Posted by: daid at January 13, 2009 3:07 PMDaid:
Thank you very much for your comments. Again, I wouldn't have washed ANY radium down the sink on purpose, but the RSO was standing right there and said it was a safe way to see if that specific piece wasn't hot. I doubt he was suggesting that I rinse all my pieces to remove radium dust, but rather to just test that one piece.
And yes: the drain is NOT the place for radioactive waste.
I am wondering, do you set any of your pieces in resin? As you mentioned a thin barrier seems to cut the radioactivity down to background levels, I'm wondering if a coating of resin would do the same. Not that I'm suggesting that anyone should work with radioactive pieces, just curious if that came up during your testing.
Posted by: Joei at January 14, 2009 9:57 PMHello, Joei - I don't think that a sealant or resin would be good enough to stop the radiation. As you could see from the video, those watch faces were still quite noticeably radioactive through their plastic bag. If I do continue to make this kind of jewelry, I'm going to take each batch of old watch parts down to WMU and have it scanned.
Thanks for your question, though!
Posted by: Janer at January 15, 2009 2:05 PMThank you for posting this! I am about to make my first purchase of a bunch of old watch parts, and because of your post, I am calling around to make sure I can get them tested before I use them.
The Minnesota Department of Health person in the Radioactive Materials unit was helpful, but unfortunately they do not do testing. I'm going to call the University of Minnesota next.
Posted by: Elise Matthesen at January 15, 2009 7:27 PMThis was some great reporting on something that most of us really don't think about - grampa's watch parts that the kids like to play with. you did a fantastic job documenting everything. Could be a documentary in the making.
Posted by: joan at January 24, 2009 2:53 AMHey there -- I wanted to thank you for offering such good information on the possible health risks of old watch parts. I realize I'm in no position to do so, but I was wondering if I could ask a favor?
I bought a necklace made from a Benrus Watch Co 17 Jewels watch for a friend at Christmas. I have no idea how old the watchpiece is, and I can't find any relevant information or statistics via google, and the last thing I would ever want is for my friend to be exposed to radioactivity.
I live in a tourist town in Alberta, Canada, and while I have yet to check, I seriously doubt there is anyone in the vicinity who will be willing to check for radioactivity, which is where my question comes in -- if I mailed the piece to you, would you be willing to check it for radiation? I would pay you, definitely, but I just really need to settle my fears that this necklace could be harmful. I'll try the official routes first, but if you could get back to me just in case I can't find anything, that would be just... amazing.
And thanks again for bringing this to everyone's attention.
Posted by: Courtney at January 27, 2009 12:12 AMHey, sure. Just send the jewelry and a return envelope to my PO box on my contact page (http://www.vogelein.com/vogelein/contact.shtml) and I'll have it scanned with the rest.
Honestly, though? International postage (especially both ways) is heinously expensive. Before you mail it to me, I'd start by checking around with some of your friends and see who has a Geiger-Müller counter. As soon as I posted this, three of my buddies came forward and said that they owned one. Alternately, check with the U of Alberta: it looks like they have a Radiation Safety Technician on staff: http://www.ehs.ualberta.ca/index.aspx?Pg=2 -- even mailing it to them would be way cheaper than mailing it to me.
First, there are many kinds of radiations, some harmless, some dangerous, but gamma rays are gamma rays; always dangerous. Radium has killed Marie Curie (who has discovered it) and tens of people in Switzerland who used to paint radium on watch dials. So I wouldn't say that radium is a weak gamma-ray emitter: on the contrary, it is a lot more potent than uranium, for example.
Secondly, there is no threshold under which gamma rays are safe.
Third, a lead plate as thick as 6" (six inches) can only stop about 50% of the gamma rays emitted by radium. So, when you write that "just about anything (metal, glass, skin, even a few inches of air) will stop its radiation.", that's true for other radiations, but not for gamma rays.
In addition to Universities & Health folks, don't forget that your local Police Departments may also have detectors for this type of radiation. Part of the anti-terrorism requirements for modern life, in most cities. Please, approach them with common sense...
If memory serves, radium is one of the items they like to look for...
Posted by: lynnm at February 5, 2009 1:30 AMI don't know if anyone else has observed this yet, but the _other_ problem with radium is that the next step in its decay series is radon. (That means, every time yourr Geiger counter clicks over your radium source, an atom of radon has also been produced.) Radon is an "alpha-emmitter", like radium, which means it gives off very non-penetrating radiation, that can mostly be stopped by, say, a single sheet of paper. You are unlikely to have major problems from an alpha emmitter unless you eat or inhale it.
Problem is, radon is a gas.
Therefore, it is VERY difficult not to inhale it.
The emission levels from a bunch of watch parts is probably not too high, but I wouldn't know for certain.
If the radium-painted surface is sealed, then it should be fine. (A 3 micron gold coating is sufficient to pretty well prevent radon emission from a radium source, for instance.) If it isn't, I would suggest you might like to get rid of it. No amount of care in not generating dust is going to prevent inhalation of the radon. Sure, if it's a one-off it's probably not an issue at all, but if you work with old watch parts often, it's probably something you should think about.
Posted by: Flynn MacCallister at March 26, 2009 7:37 AM*Where* do you get rid of it though?
That's the whole problem with nuclear technology - how the bejesus do you handle all the waste? As you've found out, even small scale excursions can lead to seroius public health problems - think how much more waste is generated by a power station!
Kudos on bringing in the professionals, btw.
Posted by: badnewswade at March 14, 2010 5:37 PMReally appreciate you putting out this warning - thanks.
Posted by: Justinv at August 16, 2010 4:59 PM