little bit of an update... as you can see, this issue with gauges has sparked my attention... I took the liberty of sending some swabs away from my gauge dial to the University of Leeds Radiation Protection Service after some calls back and forth about the issue of the gauges, they have offered to test the swabs to see what / if they are radioactive, and if so what dangers they pose. I did some research and it appears despite age, you can still agitate the luminous particles by use of a black light, so you can see what potentially is coated with the radium.
Now then, i was initially under the impression (that you will die quickly of cancer) if you open the gauge as the white segments were all radium painted.......here is what a Mk2 gauge looked like when it was new and the paint glowed
yes thats right..... the 3 pip segments nd needle tip
here is the same gauge without blacklight
note the segments that glow are an off brown colour... so points to avoid are two very minute segments and the tip of the needle.
Iam awaiting the results from the lab, however the Dr of the department who specialises in this area said the following, and I quote
"I wouldn’t worry overmuch about contamination. If there is any left the amounts will be really small, and will be on the bench or your coveralls…and there’s far worse things in garden soil and take-away food"
Each person needs to do their homework on any gauge of this era before messing with it, if the white paint is an off brown its highly likely radioactive so be careful out there and exercise caution / common sense at all times kids.
i watched a youtube video of someone testing a spitfire altimeter out of its case everything on the gauge was painted with RLP and the gauge max'd out at 1 Milli sv / hour
here is the link, enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xirtUF-iJXA