The trick with the hands is to wash one's hands after handling the hands. Apart from that, there's probably little to worry about. Do the hands still glow in the dark?

The site in Hunters Hill, NSW where the radium was processed for this purpose is still a no go zone apparently.

I was thinking that we had covered the topic of radium before, and we have.

https://vintage-radio.com.au/home.asp?f=1&th=1034

...and look at that, the first post has a photo of a 563MA, the very radio and clock being discussed here.

Thanks everyone.

Motor in mine was very badly cooked. I managed to rewind it to run on 12v and it runs fine out of the mech (which I've stripped, cleaned and lubed - when I was a kid I used to fix alarm clocks) but it's unreliable in it. I was about to do another strip of the motor when Vintage Pete came up with a donor radio sans knobs. So I'll have a look at that one.

That Smiths clock is a very cheaply designed piece of kit and I'd be surprised if there are any still around that run reliably if at all.

Thanks for the reminder Brad and others about the radioactivity. What is the half-life of Radium anyway?

Marcc, would you sell the clock you have, if I need it? It's the same one.

Funny this should pop up.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/unbelievable-true-story-of-the-radium-girls/news-story/a9aa05584388eae1eb8ed76cca016495