You can also get some pretty high wow-factor visual effects with Super-LumiNova that have much better permanence than they would have with radioluminescent pigments Bovet has used the material to great effect in the Récital 22 Grand Récital, as has MB&F in the Black Badger collab version of its Starfleet Machine. ![]() Still, it is a disadvantage of the material relative to the always-on glow of radioluminescent solutions (which is part of the appeal of Luminox and Ball). The disadvantage of Super-LumiNova in comparison to radioluminescent material is of course that its brightness fades until it's recharged by another exposure to light.Personally I've found that with most of the sports watches I've owned over the years, if my eye's dark-adapted the watch remains legible, with some difficulty, through most of the night. But do you guys have any thoughts? Does anyone else own one of these and know about its dial? Thanks for your help.Strontium aluminate is a much more efficient phosphor than zinc sulfide – it's about ten times as bright and glows about ten times longer and the color can vary between various shades of green and blue, with blue supposedly producing the longest glow time, and green offering better brightness. I could be creating a false dichotomy here, and I won't know for sure until I've measured it. I've attached a picture of it, by the way it's a Seth Thomas Echo 3E. The question is, can the zinc-sulfide in a radium dial deteriorate to such a level that, while it still glows from being exposed to a very bright light, it does not spontaneously glow from the radium? If the answer is yes, then I may be in trouble but if the answer is no, then I'm probably safe. My dial glows in the dark when a light is shined on it, a property of zinc-sulfide, so it probably contains some zinc-sulfide. Thus, if it was a radium dial in 1940 or whenever, it's still just as much a radium dial today, and if a radium dial doesn't glow in the dark of its own accord, then it's because the zinc-sulfide paint has deteriorated. My reasoning is that any radium in the dial when it was made is still there now (the half-life is something like 1400 years). That said, I'm concerned because the clock looks to have been made before 1950 and it does glow in the dark. (An insufficient but necessary condition for ruling out radium).īasically, the dial behaves exactly like the non-radioactive glow-in-the-dark stuff that they put in vampire teeth for Halloween costumes. No dead-giveaways, like "sterile," non-oxidized areas around the numbers or brown spots on the crystal. While I didn't press my eyeballs right up to the glass, I strained but still saw no glow.ģ. The dial becomes very dim in less than 5 minutes and is completely dark after well less than an hour. The glow isn't brilliant, but it's certainly visible.Ģ. ![]() The dial doesn't glow unless it's held very close to a bright light. I'm going to take the thing to my college's physics department to see if one of them has a Geiger counter to point at it, but meanwhile I have embarked upon a thought experiment that you all may find interesting, and I am questioning whether the dial has radium. In my defense, I didn't realize that it was luminescing until I happened to position it in the sunlight, I hadn't thought about radium dials in a while, and the case's seal is anything but airtight (hence why I'd consider pitching it if it has radium). ![]() When employers learned of the deadly effects of radium, the company claimed to discourage lip. The Waterbury Clock Company placed women into the role of dial painters based on the belief that women had nimble fingers and did well at precision tasks. ![]() That said, I had a momentary lapse of reason when I got my vintage alarm clock (not a watch, sorry if it's not exactly on-topic) in the mail today and opened it up to wipe off the inside of the crystal. The story of Waterbury’s Radium Girls provides unique insight into women’s history. I'm aware of the dangers of radium dials and the associated dust.
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