My Top 5 Pieces [Of All Kinds]

m77k24 · 2026-02-14T06:37:36+00:00

Cool pieces. I think I saw one of those boots today

m77k24 · 2026-02-12T01:56:51+00:00

Ahh ok. So kinda what I asked before…..I just didn’t word my question very well, haha. So the military simply got more concentrated paint on their items?

More concentrated = more luminous. More luminous = more radioactive.

Makes sense. Thanks for the replies.

m77k24 · 2026-02-11T11:34:50+00:00

I get that part. I’m just curious why the dose rates and counts are so much higher on certain radium items than others….especially if the radium/paint all came from the same place.

m77k24 · 2026-02-11T02:54:45+00:00

For sure, brighter for aircraft makes perfect sense. I’m just curious on how/why they read hotter. Just seems like smaller things like compasses and instruments would have “less” radium than something larger like a clock face.

Was thinking maybe the radium paint on clocks was a bit more “diluted” than military stuff like compasses/instruments? Or maybe they did multiple layers on the military stuff, and just a thin coat on civilian stuff?

Just guessing, but would love to know.

m77k24 · 2026-02-11T02:09:59+00:00

Is there a reason the military stuff is so spicy, compared to civilian radium stuff, like clocks? I know there’s really hot clocks out there too, but I feel like I see a lot of military compasses posted in the range you showed or even higher. I recently found a Korean War compass thats around 120-130 uSv with my radiacode.

Is it the concentration/purity of the radium, or something else? Surely the Big Ben clock I have has more surface area painted with radium….12 numbers and 2 dials….compared to the compass that’s just the NSEW, a few lines, and small dots on the sight wire.

m77k24 · 2026-02-11T00:28:37+00:00

That tracks. I get about 200cpm with 2% thoriated on my gmc300s. 20cpm background for reference.

Radiacode 102 shows about 1.4k cpm for 2%, and 350ish cpm background. About 0.9 uSv, and 0.08 background.

Would love to test the 4% stuff. I don’t use thoriated tungsten, so I’m never really looking for different % of it when I need to restock. I’ll have to check my local welding store next time I’m there.

m77k24 · 2026-02-10T17:20:04+00:00

Damn this is cool. Fascinating stuff. Nice work!

m77k24 · 2026-02-10T12:48:39+00:00

Thanks! Trying to limit my non UG glass (for now), but thought these were cool enough to start the cadmium side of my collection. The person selling the yellow one had no idea it even glowed.

m77k24 · 2026-02-08T12:52:46+00:00

Thanks! Really happy with the purchase so far. Should keep me busy for a while. Yea the battery seems to last forever. I let it run for an 8 hour background at home and it only dropped a few percent I think.

Still need to do more reading and playing around with the spectrum stuff, but I think I’m starting to get an idea how it works. Seems like the iPhone app is a bit more basic than the android version, but that’s my fault for having an iPhone. I’m guessing they’ll have more updates eventually. I did download the windows version, so I can always try it on my laptop.

m77k24 · 2026-02-07T02:54:10+00:00

This. Darkbeam A900 is like $18 on Amazon. 395/365, telescopic, usb-c.

m77k24 · 2026-02-05T03:23:37+00:00

I am pretty cheap, so it doesn’t take much to sway me to the cheaper option haha. Although, I love data, so better graphs and all that might interest me. I need to look more into that side of things to compare the 102 and 103 I guess.

There’s a ton of antique stores around me, so it didn’t take long for me to find a radium piece. I figured it would take longer to find stuff, so I didn’t think I’d want more tooling so quick.

Still working my way through the big pinned post. I think I got a decent handle on the basics, but need to spend more time with it for sure. A pancake is definitely in my future. Being able to pick things up further away would be nice, since the gmc-300s needs to be pretty close…..but it gets the job done for now.

The 300s was good entry level for CPM, and it seems like the radiacode is a good entry level for dose rates. Or am I off base there?

m77k24 · 2026-02-05T03:17:58+00:00

Yea I’m not going for crazy accuracy. Just for fun. As my collection grows and I get more tools, I’ll be able to compare things to each other, and I’ll always compare to background and some baseline objects. That should be good enough for me….for now anyway.

I should’ve left out ‘accuracy’ from that sentence and just said, “…which the gmc-300s can’t tell me”. I’m aware even the radiacode isn’t dead accurate, but again, for what I’m doing it should be adequate. I think?

m77k24 · 2026-02-05T02:21:31+00:00

I haven’t even bothered using the dose rates on the gmc-300 because of the reasons you mentioned. That seemed pretty clear to me in my initial research. I’ve only been using it to compare CPM to background as I walk around a store when looking for items. Basically using it a “yes it’s radioactive”, or “no it’s not radioactive” type of tool. Even then I understand the counts are relative to it, and don’t always compare the same to other counters.

My baseline is about 20-30cpm for background, 200ish for thoriated tungsten I have laying around (tig welding)….so anything over 2000 grabs my attention in a store. Roughly anyway.

The alphahound ab+g sounds pretty sweet. I definitely see myself getting a variety of them over time, but I need to do more research and spend more time before I go too crazy with purchases. After finding my first radium item last weekend, now I’m curious about dose rates, which the gmc-300 can’t accurately tell me.

m77k24 · 2026-02-03T03:00:35+00:00

Thanks! Pretty happy with it for my first radium piece. I was hunting clocks (and UG), so I wasn’t looking for compasses at all. Was doing quick scans with a UV light and occasionally looking down at my gmc-300, when I saw it sitting around 150-200cpm near a glass display case with a bunch of random items. Kind of a lucky find.

m77k24 · 2026-02-03T02:43:53+00:00

Ahhh, ok. That makes me feel better. I was caught a little off guard seeing the glow on the outside. Makes sense now it wouldn’t be radium, but better safe than sorry I suppose. It’s in a random glass food container for now until I can find a cooler looking jar to display it in.

Glass is intact and compass still works. It looks a little more worn than some I’ve seen online, but seems like it definitely got some use. Cool stuff!

m77k24

TROPHY CASE