WW2 MIL timepieces

[DanO]

Can anyone tell how many rens are emitted from military wrists, the 1/2 life elements emitted, & any other wavelengths that come off the dial?

[DanO]

Can anyone tell how many rens are emitted from military wrists, the 1/2 life elements emitted, & any other wavelengths that come off the dial?

[ljrusso]

Dano,
This is interesting as I also have an old radium watch and it got me to looking.

I am not sure if I will be answering your question to the desired extent but I will let you know what I read here and where I read it:

Web-Site: http://www.uglx.org/radwatch

Radium 226 is the main isotope of radium and is also the one found mostly in watches. It has a half-life of approx 1600 years. It emits alpha, beta and gamma radiation.

A typical radium dial emits between 2 and 20 mrems / hour from the front. Interesting to note that steel cases act as a good stopper so the majority of the particles emitted from the back are gamma rays. Thus from the back less than 2 mrem/hour are emitted.

In case you have a watch with radium dial and wonder why it does not glow anymore the reason is that early on radium was mixed with paint and zinc sulphide to help it glow more. Problem was that the radiation emitted broke down the zinc sulphide which is why many of these types of watches (which were produced I believe from the early 1920’s up until the 1960’s) no longer glow strongly.


Here is an interesting excerpt from this web site: http://alanwatch.homestead.com/page9.html

“Who are those girls seated at the lower left? They are watch dial painters. Radium, a radioactive substance, was mixed with other ingredients to create a luminous paint for applying to the dials and hands of clocks and watches, making them glow. In the 1920s, young women, most just out of high school, were employed as dial painters at an East-coast company. Apparently the pay was pretty good. In order to paint neat and sharp numbers on the dials, the girls were encouraged to occasionally "sharpen" the fine brushes by using their lips and teeth to straighten the bristles. Naturally, some of the paint was ingested. No one warned them of any potential harmful effects. In fact, some girls painted their teeth or applied glowing "makeup" as a novelty to show their friends. In the late 1920s, some dentists began to notice a high incidence of jawbone deterioration among young women, most of whom had worked at the dial company. Later, cancers of the head and neck, anaemia, and other disorders were found, resulting in some early deaths. Clearly the implication was that the radium paint was directly responsible for the illness. The topic still is controversial, and I don't really know the data from a scientific point of view, but my "gut feeling" is that something bad happened here. A book has been written about the subject, "Radium Girls: Women and Industrial Health Reform," by Claudia Clark. Radium has an interesting history: It was hailed as a miracle discovery, and was used in radiotherapy for certain cancers. It made its way into some cure-all potions, and even into radioactive soft drinks! Radium spas existed, where you were supposed to swim in vats of radioactive water, to cure various ills and improve your health.”

Regards

Louis

PS Where in New Jersey are you from? I come from Haddonfield (South Jersey just outside of Phila.)

[DanO]

Thanks a million LJ, its' exactly what I needed & the sites are also good starters. Sorry so late in replying but I have limited time to myself for research horologic. Hope the unemployment situation in Ger. lightens up - its putting a strain on the rest of the world.

[ljrusso]

No worries Dano and glad I could help!
Regards
Louis

PS: It is unfortunate that Germany is carrying a roughly 10.5% unemployment rate which I might add has increased in April for the third consecutive month. Naturally this puts a strain on Germany and also on the world economy as a whole. Although in the broader spectrum, there are other things that put an even greater strain on the rest of the world economically and politically as just the unemployment rate in Germany.
:wink: