Is tritium radioactive?

Posted by Asi
March 1, 2007 - 10:51AM cet
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Email : asimut@gmail.com

 

 

Well, we all know that sometime in the 40's Radium dials were replaced with Tritium dials. The fact is the Radium dials emit gamma particles and are indeed radioactive to the extent they could be harmful, if not for the user of the watch at least to the people producing the dials or assembling the watches. Tritium enhanced dials should not emit any gamma radiation (only beta, which although is not so dangerous, was also banned in the early 90's) and are in use for diving watches until today.

 

So, decided to test 2 of my tritium dialed watches, the vintage 6152/1 Luminor Panerai and the pre-A 004 Luminor Marina.

 

The test was done with your standard Geiger counter, which can read gamma radiation.

 

 

 

1^st watch tested is the pre-A 004. No reading as expected (some background clutter has no meaning)

 

 

 

 

2^nd is the 6152/1,,,,,,YIKES,,,,,overload,,,,LOL

 

 

 

 

OK, OK don't panic! This reading is done with the most sensitive scale, it is still a very small gamma radiation reading and is not dangerous by any means. But what it may tell us is that perhaps the transition to Tritium involved some kind of "mixed" formula with reduced Radium? Your guess is as good as mine.

 

Cheers,

 

Asi

 

Cheers,

 ~Asi~