Frank Adam wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Honest John wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Honest John wrote
wrote

whatever those "t's" mean.

Those Ts simply refer to the luminous substance used in the watch
to make the hands and dots "glow in the dark". I believe the Ts
stand for Tritium, the amount of Tritium used is above a certain
industry established limit for this slightly radioactive substance.

Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, the one after
deuterium. Unlikely that thats in a watch to make the hands glow.

Then what substance is in "Tritium tubes" that make
several makes of watches hands glow ????

Those are actually glass vials, and it isnt
really that practical to do the 'dots' that way.

sigh

Heavy breathing has been banned in here.

Now don't you think that arguing with a regular alt.horology
user about these things is just plain silly ?

Might be if I had actually bothered to look that individual up.

Then again, I often do point out the stupiditys in the posts of even
the stupidest, mainly so other readers wont buy the bull****.

"Besides radium, there are several other methods of making "glow
in the dark" watch dials. There are various non-radioactive phosphor
compounds that will glow in the dark after being exposed to light.
Some modern compounds can glow for 10 to 15 hours after a relatively
short exposures to bright light. Tritium, like radium, is radioactive,
but it is much safer. Tritium, a form of hydrogen, has a reasonably
short 12 year half life so it doesn't have the long term dangers that
radium has, and it decays into harmless helium. The beta particles
that tritium gives off can not even penetrate the outer layer of dead
skin on your body, let alone the watch crystal and watch case."

source: http://elginwatches.org/help/luminous_dials.html

And yes, the 'T' means Tritium on watch dials.

How about a cite on the chemistry of that.