Radium in Watch Parts - Conundrum

[Former_Member]

Hi all,

I had intentions of making jewelry with old watch parts and I amassed a gigantic collection of old watch parts, movements, cases and in some cases - whole watches, etc. I even thought I might want to repair a few - for nostalgia sake - as my grandfather used to carry a pocket watch all the time and I have a couple of his old watches.

I had some designs sketched out that would use old watch parts. And then something odd happened that gave me pause for concern... Some of my hair was falling out. I chalked that up to stress at the time - because I was restarting my small business and I was really worried if I was going to make it work or not. It probably *was* the stress - and not the watch parts I was sorting through. But I remembered the story about "The Radium Girls" - and I put two and two together and started looking into whether my watch parts could have radium. Short answer: Yes. But so do most old timey pocket watches... They didn't stop using radium 'till sometime in the 1970s.

These also gave me pause for thought:

http://www.vogelein.com/vogelein/2009/01/steampunk-crafter-public-servi.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE34ycdZg0g

There's another You Tube video that demonstrated that a friend had constructed steampunk jewelry out of parts that had radium and were very "hot" (radioactive).

So now I feel like I'm in a real conundrum. I have a gigantic box of watch parts, watch faces, gears and whatnot - but now I'm worried about Radium - and not just the radium on old faces and hands - but also the Radium paint that flaked off of those hands and faces and now can be in a fine powder or even cause whole movements to be radioactive.

I thought about getting a really good geiger counter. But I keep arguing with myself about this - thinking, "If I need a geiger counter to do my job - then I'm doing the wrong thing!"

So then I thought "well, maybe I can just use photos of the gears, beautifully engraved watch parts, etc." - but that would require someone *else* to be exposed to the radium potentially and that worries me too.

I came up with a solution that I'm okay with in many ways. I thought that if I wanted any gears or parts in my work - I can always fabricate them, by using a jeweler's saw or possibly by using a laser cutter or similar. I'd like to use images of watch parts and such - but it's not as if images of watch parts aren't available! I wish I could get the watch parts *I* collected photographed properly - but I worry about exposing someone else to the radiation risk.

I wish I could just use the parts directly - but I feel it does pose a real risk and not one I'm willing to take, considering that my family has a history of cancer (so our family is predisposed for developing cancer) and I also have small children at home whom I don't want to expose to the radiation.

So now I'm stuck on what to do next. How to do get rid of the parts responsibly? I'd like have the parts photographed at least. I don't have any ideas of making a profit on the parts. But I do want whoever gets them next to be aware that old watch parts can and often are contaminated with Radium paint. Old Elgin watches are beautiful - but they have that problem, that their faces were often painted with Radium paint, to make the numbers and hands glow.

So what do you guys do? How do you cope with the risk for old watch parts to have Radium paint and/or radiation risk in working with these things?

[Former_Member]

I have an easy test you can do with photograph paper. All you need to do is place a set of watch parts on photograph paper or even place the paper under a thin wood tray and leave the parts on the tray after the exposure. The exposure time will vary, but the longer the paper has to expose itself to the parts the better. I have heard that 24 hours is a good time. You will need to make sure you are only using red light in the room and to keep the paper covered like any film. There are usually one or two public dark rooms and exposure labs in any city, you just need to find them. The parts that are irradiated will be outlined on the paper once the paper has been fixed with developing chemicals. Then you can pick out the contaminated items and turn them over to a hazardous waste company. The other option is to just let the waste company have the whole box but then you loose any usable parts.
NOTE: I have not done this myself, I am referring to the experiments done by the investigators of the Radium Girls' deaths. The book that would be most helpful (and where i heard about the experiment) is called "The Poisoner's Hand Book". This book may help with the finer details and the photographic paper and lab time is much cheaper than a Geiger counter. Good luck and I hope this helps.

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