Are long time glowing glow-in-the-dark paints still available?

[4L4AGU]

longlast.jpg

Hello.

I'm doing an antenna tuner in the "retro" way, so I want my dials and knobs to light in darkness. Sure, I can do it with leds/etc, but all this requires power supply, and also has no that stylish look. I checked amazon and bought a couple of paints from there. They all dissapointed me. First of all, most of them are semi-transparent, so you need to carefully apply at least 4-5 coats, to have some solidness. And most important problem is, none of them glows for more than 15 minutes. On attached photo you can see a Rust-Oleum "Glow in the dark" paint just after 5 minutes of light exposure - barely visible.

So, I'm seeking some good, glow in the dark paint.

I know that radium paint is not manufactured any more, and tritium threated ones aren't sold online, but I'm keeping hopes, maybe there's some solution?

[G4LNA]

I really must make sure I read titles properly, I read it as glow-in-the-dark pants, there's me thinking I'd love a pair of strides that glow in the dark, then I read the title properly

The trouble is the glow in the dark paint is only giving out the light it has stored, hence the 15 minutes life span, I shouldn't think they make the radio-active stuff any more.

[K8ERV]

Would this work? A lot of things (like laundry soap) glow under UV light. Might look cool.

TOM K8ERV Montrose Colo

[KF5FEI]

Never seen glow-in-the-dark pants, but the logos on my wife's car seats glow in the dark. But there was that one movie with the glowing condominiums...

None of the modern paints / pigments I have seen glow for too long, even after exposure to a really bright light. As Tom mentioned, you might have some luck with the glow or UV paint and perhaps some eye-safe UV LEDs.

The old watches and aircraft instruments had hand-painted radium dials and were not particularly healthy for the painter or the user. Modern "tactical" watches use tritium capsules and they will glow pretty bright for years. I even had a digital watch back in the 80's that had the tritium capsules for backlighting.

[4L4AGU]

Yes, I know a lot about radium paint. Since I work in a scrap metal business, dosimeter is my pocket tool, and often we've encountered quite strong radiation coming from dials and switches.

The problem is, that I have compass, which glows for a quite long time, with strong color, but is not radioactive! it was made in mid 80s, and still rocks. Dunno what paint was used in it. So this is why I asked, maybe there's still some source of such paint.

The UV reacitve paint requires source of UV, which itself will require battery power, which I want to avoid totally.

[KF5FEI]

Yes, I know a lot about radium paint. Since I work in a scrap metal business, dosimeter is my pocket tool, and often we've encountered quite strong radiation coming from dials and switches.

OK, so you could collect and scrape the radium paint off the dials, etc... and soften it up with some solvent and re-use it. Just kidding -- you might get into some deep you-know-what for that.

You must have power for the radio, so why not pinch a bit for the UV light source? A couple of LEDs are not going to zap your power source in five minutes.

I assumed you had already Googled glow paint -- but maybe not. I found this within a minute:

http://coolglow.com/1/51/51/Glow-Pai...FWVvTAodR1EA_g

http://glowinc.com/detail.aspx?ID=2

http://www.unitednuclear.com/index.p...ex&cPath=28_45

[4L4AGU]

I bought almost all kinds of glowing paints available online. None of them works fine. Now I ordered this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o01_s00_i00 let's see how it will work.

Radiation is very strictly controlled here - even highways have special gates, which monitor for any car, transporting sources of radiation, and even plain household waste collector cars are automatically checked, before they dump waste into disposal facility. So any fuss with radium paint will be badly terminated

Regarding the leds, technically that is not a problem, but it will require separate wiring and also won't have that classy look. Also, purple glow of leds will be visible, I was not able to find UV led, which is invisible for bare eye.

[KF5FEI]

Get some of those glasses with the little light bulbs and change them out for UV LEDs -- they'll be behind your field of vision and light up whatever you look at. I think superbrightleds.com has the UV LEDs -- just make sure they are eye-safe.

[KB4QAA]

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/RUS...HE27?Pid=searc

Grainger carries Rustoleum safety luminescent paint in green and yellow. $34.70 per spray can.

[4L4AGU]

Have you tried it by yourself?

I'm asking because I have another glow in the dark paint from rust-oleum, which does not lasts even for 2 minutes!

http://www.amazon.com/Rust-Oleum-214...brush-on+paint

The picture in first post is made using this paint, in 5 minutes after it was exposed to 500W UV lamp for 1 hour