Tritium

Do you own a GITD like this?

Do trits give enough light to be usefull other than being seen?

For those in Europe it might be interesting that I bought my tritium here:

They have both vials and keyring fobs. Quality is good, shipping is very fast. Less than a week from UK to me in Germany.

If you break one, don't worry. Since Tritium is basically hydrogen, it is diluted almost instantaneously because of the high diffusion rate of hydrogen (around 3 m/s). So just air your room and you are fine.

Very nice pics, everyone! Keep 'em coming :)

In the pictures the trit vials don't seem to be in a container am i right?

anyone has any idea where i could buy some protective encasing for 4mm x 25mm

Another EDCFer, eh? mooshisho, too I believe (or else someone over there has the same very unique user name). I wonder who else?

Over there and in every forum I'm in

I'm

jacktheclipper

( Usually seen wherever paracord is found . )

Nice. I've always wondered what percentage of BLFers are strictly flashlight guys/gals verses EDC gear hoarders. "T.H.Cone" BTW. Only because "cone" by itself was already in use and I signed up there after here so... Oh, well.

tritium is good, glows all the time, and therefore can always be read in the dark, even without external charging. the better gitd is brighter when charged, but does fade. luminox uses t25 tritium, which until fairly recently, is all that could be brought into the US. now however, ball, deep blue, and most recently one model by android use t100 tritium, and the difference is amazing. MUCH brighter than luminox, or any t25 tritium tubes.

Well, they also sell Glowrings where the tritium vial is encased in clear acrylic (it's kinda hard to see because the picture is so dark, but the row at the bottom consists of glowrings).

There is also this glow fob, and the same shop also sells a kit to konvert it from GITD to tritium vial:

Rather pricey though, and no guarantee thet a 4x25 mm vial will fit.

You could build a casing yourself, for example with some acrylic tube from ebay and a bit of clear epoxy to seal the tube. Take a keyring from a fauxton, drill a hole through the tube and your done.

If you want to get fancy, you can fill all the interior of the acrylic tube with Norland 61, a one component UV-light activated mil-spec glue for lenses and optical components. Very expensive (1 ml about 10$ at cpf marketplace), but cures crystal clear (or so they say, haven't bought any of the stuff yet).

Hope this helps.

I contacted the local nuclear facility about buying tritium. Now my phone is tapped and I think I am being followed

L O L

Wait till they discover the many packages you are receiving. Sharp aluminum pieces, stainless steel tubular canisters, dangerous explosive material encased in cylindrical cells, and suspicious electronic chips. You're in big trouble now.

He ships worldwide but the site is not really clear, you can pay with paypal only with insurance postage and shipping cost are quite high. Not a big deal...

Say the company name over and over.....

Yes, I have the sense of humor of a twelve-year-old.

Here's Norman Bates:

By the way, I converted the comic strip to grayscale because it was gory.

I like to think that Hitchcock would have been proud. :)

someone skilled at arguing is a 'master debater'

LOL

It never crossed my mind. A twelve-year-olds humor is fine by me

The amount of tritium in these tubes is not completely harmless, if you were to break them open and breathe in all they contained. The T100 tubes contain between 25 and 100 millicuries of tritium, which is a surprising amount compared to the doses of other radionuclides you might receive in a nuclear medicine study. For example, most people get from 20 to 40 millicuries of Tc-99m for a stress test used to measure the health of their hearts. However, the chances of breathing it all in accidentally are pretty slim, and you would never know the effects. In a heart study, however, you're getting a good benefit from the exposure, and you're getting nothing (but giggles) from the tritium.

In the old days, they used radium for luminescent watch dials, etc. That stuff is nasty, and cost many people their health and lives. Not the people that wore the watches, mind you, but the people who painted the radium and phosphor mix onto the watches. They needed fine points on their brushes to paint the small numbers, and would put the brushes in their mouths about six times for each watch they painted. Unfortunately for them, radium seeks out bone when ingested, and emits alpha radiation, which can be more damaging internally than the betas from tritium. These ladies, now called the Radium Girls, received large doses, especially to their bones, causing many cancers and deaths.

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/06/science/a-glow-in-the-dark-and-a-lesson-in-scientific-peril.html?pagewanted=all

Tritium, though, is a totally different creature. It will not make you into Spiderman, but is pretty cool. I have a tube coming that should arrive any day!

Your friendly neighborhood medical physicist

Read that tritium was used as a stretcher to increase yield in A-bombs. What size vial & color would one need to increase the yield of a ”Black Cat” firecracker?

This question is for educational knowledge only.

No amount of tritium would ever increase the yield of a firecracker, and could be hazardous to your health to try.

Tritium needs massive neutron bombardment from a primary nuclear reaction to start it's fusion reaction. It's use as a "stretcher" is actually as a fusion fuel for multi-stage nuclear weapons. It's also used in experimental fusion reactors as fuel, again under extreme conditions.

The only thing that puting Tritium in a firecracker would likely do is vaporize the tritium allowing you to inhale it. And as mentioned above, that's a really bad idea.