I own an AWA model 563MA clock radio with luminous paint on the hands of the clock mechanism that no longer glows. I recently borrowed a radiation meter from a work colleague. The normal background radiation reading on the meter at my house is around .08 microSievet per hour. When I placed the meter infront of the clock face on my AWA clock radio the meter jumped to 4.7 microSievet per hour.

Anyone who is working on or dismantling the clock movement on a similar clock radio should be aware that the paint on the hands of the clock mechanism is radioactive, and may wish to take precautions against the possible inhalation or ingestion of paint particles or contaminated dust from brittle paint.

That has been common ever since the Curies discovered Radium & killed them selves with it.

Radioluminescence in clock paint was produced by radium exciting a mix of Zinc Sulphide, doped with copper. The exciter in radioluminecence is now Tritium.

In the old days these were painted with the luminous paint by women and using a paint brush. Because they needed to have a fine end on the paint brush they wet it in their mouths and after a time they had jaws that glowed in the dark......it was called Radium jaw.

http://www.humanresourcesmba.net/10-deadliest-occupational-diseases-in-history/ Item 8

Just up the road from where I once worked in Hunters Hill, NSW there was a radium processing factory. The site remains a contaminated wasteground to this day and once manufactured the paint for clocks and 'cats eyes'.

Photo uploaded.

Roflol "Radio"-active!!! Lol (sorry) It seems really toxic stuff like Radium had very dangerously wide spread :"uses" in the not so distant past, just like asbestos. One must be careful, that's for sure...

Funny thing watching a program on TV about the Edwardian times and they were talking about the very subject, Madame Curie discovered it (Radium that is). They put it in everything including water as a health drink.....................

Looks just like our family radio when I was a kid. Since ours was new, it had all the proper knobs etc.

Unfortunately when it broke down my father threw it out.

They discovered in the 20's that Radium was a nasty. It is also interesting that the aboriginal peoples around Kakadu area, had realised that if you took rocks away from that area they would cause sickness & death.

In earlier times, the best and most vivid colours used especially green, were derived, or contained things like Arsenic, Lead & other nasties. Lead sent the Romans mad & wallpaper killed quite a few. Lead used in plumbing continued well into the 20th century. Where we developed even nastier stuff.

There's still plenty around and they are closer to home than most realise. Fluorescent lamps are a good place to start. They contain a couple of small blobs of mercury that gives off gas to help the lamp start. Mercury is a deadly poison in the right circumstances. The white phosphor that lines the inside of the lamp can cause blood poisoning. If one cuts themselves with the glass that still has some of the powder on it, it can stop the wound healing correctly.

Electric stoves made before 1970 will most likely still have asbestos inside the linings for thermal and electrical insulation. Asbestos will still be present in any fibro installed in houses before around 1985.

Any old full gloss enamel paint will contain lead.

Gas heaters with orange flames will be pumping carbon monoxide into the house. Flames should be almost entirely blue.

Lighting circuits in homes built before around 1980 that have not been rewired will almost certainly not contain earth conductors.

Parts of water and gas reticulation will be made of lead.

The under floor section of the house may be contaminated with Heptachlor, a substance once used to kill white ants.

There will almost certainly not be a check valve on your water meter to stop any water that becomes contaminated on your property being fed back to the mains and thus your neighbours water pipes. Most commercial and industrial properties have had these fitted though.

And to keep the subject relevant, poly-chlorinated biphenyl, lead and asbestos may well be present in many old radios.

Refitted a Philco BC221N Frequency meter recently. That had Oil filled metal cans with rubber seals. Interesting; the seals were both leaking contents (weeping) and leaking electrically. As were the caps in them.

I did decide to do the can opener job on the rear of them. I suspected the oil, from its smell was a Phenol and destroyed it. Then I recycled the cans. New grommets & caps & put them back as the can acts as a shield.

Marc

Brad "Fluorescent lamps are a good place to start. They contain a couple of small blobs of mercury that gives off gas to help the lamp start. Mercury is a deadly poison in the right circumstances. The white phosphor that lines the inside of the lamp can cause blood poisoning. If one cuts themselves with the glass that still has some of the powder on it, it can stop the wound healing correctly."

That information is quite a few decades out of date
Modern Fluorescent tubes typically only contain 2-3 milligrams of mercury vapour; they stopped putting liquid mercury in them a long time ago.
The original 1930s tubes contained Beryllium in the phosphor which, if you get cut by a broken tube can produce swollen inflamed flesh for which the only known treatment is surgical removal. It also used to be used in heatsink compound. but it's been banned for a long time.
Actually the main reason Beryllium compounds fell into disuse was that they produced such a sickly greenish coloured light.

Anyway, technology marches on, and many US lighting suppliers (GE etc) no longer sell compact fluorescent lights; they've all been replaced by white LEDs. I only just noticed the other night that all the streetlights in my street have been replaced by LED.

I realise this is an old thread, though the above post requires correction. Mercury is still inside fluorescent tubes in liquid form. It can be seen if one looks closely enough.

Most of the older sheds here were wired early 70's and have earthed cable. Pump shed was different as it only had one Bakelite GPO.

It was totally refitted 2016 when we put the power underground (that one is just under a 500m run). House (since replaced) Exposed earth on GPO's but some did have earthed cable. This studio / shed / workshop / office pre 1984 earthed cable. Feed and its own box 2012 feeds house sub board as well.

Most Dangerous with Mercury is its vapours and some of the compounds of it. I still have a Mercury Barometer: That will not fume. One wonders about the drama: We used to chase it around the chem lab benches & suck it up with pipettes & I have never seen a record of one of the students I was at school with, suffering any affects from it? Many choose, or suffered, more conventional ways of dying, or haven't.

Millenary was one of the worst offenders for sending people mad & inventing the term "Mad as a hatter" resulting from long term exposure to it.

Not to mention most of us carrying a load of it around as silver-mercury amalgam. Even now amalgam is very hard to beat as a filling material.