Tritium in spydercos

It's my understanding that Spyderco got the NRC to allow the use of Tritium in knives at or around 1998. Is this true? If so, is there a paper trail to this effect? What company was spyderco going to try to use to have the tritium insert made?

Thanks for any help.

SOFKnive@aol.com
 
D

DOUBLESTACK

Joined
Oct 19, 2000
Messages
13
Hi,

I remember reading an article about the Military years ago. They had a small tritium vial on the handle. Supposably so that it can be easily found at night if dropped. I guess in the end the tritium was dropped from production. As to who provided them, I guess Sal can answer that one. My guess would be probably the same ones that provide nite sigts for firearms, Trijicon, Meprolight.
I wish I still had that article cause it was one heck of a review for the Military.

Hope this helps some.

Jess
 
Slef modified .....and it turn out to be a great option

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jonny
 
Jonny, where did you get Tritium, and how did you do that? I want to do it to both of my Spyders(Soon to be more. You guys got me hooked).

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"Dream as if you'll live forever, Live as if you'll die today"
-- James Dean

-Jesse Foust

[This message has been edited by scouter27 (edited 11-12-2000).]
 
That is awesome man! How did you do that? I would love to have an insert put into the handle of my Gunting. Maybe I'll take the front sight off of my HK and glue it to my handle
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Please tell us Spydernuts how to do this!
michael


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"For the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword."
Heb. 4:12

"I don't question your existence" God

I Love the smell of Tuf-Glide in the Morning!
 
Tritium inserts are regulated by the NRC; here is the relevant rule: http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/COMMISSION/SECYS/1998-060scy.html

You, as an individual, cannot obtain any radioactive byproducts, such as tritium. Only NRC licensed dealers can do so.

The simplest solution to this problem would be to contact Spyderco directly, and see if they can do a special order for you.

Remember that the relatively short half life of tritium (11 years or so) means that you will have to replace the vial at some point. You might think that they would put excess tritium in the vials so that the half life would not be a limiting factor, but this is not the case; perhaps because of financial concerns, perhaps because of the limits on just how much radiation such vials may contain.

I have noticed a marked variation in the brightness of the same brand of pistol sights with tritium vials, and expect to have to replace some within 10 to 15 years.

Incidentally, the stuff is about as harmless as a radioactive substance can be; there would be no harm if you drank the entire contents of a rifle sight. Tritium is an isotope of hydrogen, so follows the water pathway and is rapidly excreted from your body through the kidneys.

Hope this helps;

Walt Welch MD
 
Hey, Walt, thanks. It would be fun to urinate in the dark and watch it glow
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"Dream as if you'll live forever, Live as if you'll die today"
-- James Dean

-Jesse Foust
 
Scouter27; I hate to ruin your image, but, unlike radium, which does naturally glow in the dark, tritium gives off invisible radiation. This radiation stimulates the phosphors in solution in the glass vial, much as the phosphors in a monitor are excited by the electrons from the CRT.

Thus, you would be disappointed. Sorry.
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Walt
 
That's too bad
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Oh well. Just so I understand, the tritium reacts with something else to glow, right?
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"Dream as if you'll live forever, Live as if you'll die today"
-- James Dean

-Jesse Foust

[This message has been edited by scouter27 (edited 11-13-2000).]
 
What I use is somekind of Glow in the Dark photoluminescence Pruduct and it's radiation-free

It glows for 14 hours after its 10-minute exposure to any light source ,can repeatedly work for over 20 years in stable condition


I think that work really fine for me .....
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jonny
 
Thanks, Jonny. Where did you get it? And how did you do it? Thanks

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"Dream as if you'll live forever, Live as if you'll die today"
-- James Dean

-Jesse Foust
 
Thanks for the info, Walt. Interesting stuff!

There was a thread a long time ago about the Military's tritium insert. You might want to search for it (I'm too lazy to do so right now). If I remember correctly, the insert was originally in the back spacer. However, Spyderco decided that it was too expensive and it never went into production.

I trust that those inserts are harmless, but they still make me nervous. For instance, I carry clipits in the right front pocket, pushed to the far left; meaning that the radioactive substance would spend most of its life about three or four inches from my testes.
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[This message has been edited by cerulean (edited 11-14-2000).]
 
Walt, I am not an any kind of expert about tritium, but I worked on the construction and start up of the New Tritium Facilty at Savannah River Site. According to our training, tritium is quite dangerous if ingested into the body either througn the skin if liquid or inhaling if gasious. We had to dress out when going into any parts of the facility that were functional. We had give bios. (urine samples) for testing weekly.

The half life of tritium is 12 1/2 years. It can be "refreshed" which is what that facility currently does. This refreshment consists of taking two units in for one unit out.

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Roger Blake
 
Well, there goes any hope of glow-in-the-dark urine.
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"Dream as if you'll live forever, Live as if you'll die today"
-- James Dean

-Jesse Foust
 
Hi Doublestack. Intersting question and some interesting answers (along with some really good memories, I'm impressed).

Nice job Jonny.

We looked into it, it became too expensive for us to do it commercially. As mentioned, it is very controlled. We have good sources for the material, it's the installation that was expensive.

I use tritium sights on my hand guns. Very nice stuff. We had istalled a vial in the back spacer of the Militry. the hole in the scales was slightly smaller than the hole in the back spacer, so the vial couldn't come out or be hit by anything. It worked well and was a nice touch. I would still do it the same way as both sides could be seen.

Maybe someday in the future as a sprint pieces?

sal
 
Does anyone know of a source offhand where the saphire tritium gunsite inserts can be purchased? It seems to me that this is a relatively simple undertaking. Simply cut or drill holes in the G-10 (or FRN, Micarta or steel for that matter) preferably using an end mill for exact sizing, and loc-tite or epoxy in the tritium vials in place. One vial for the left side, two for the right or however you see fit. I see this as especially desirable on the Military or G-10 Police as both tend to disappear in the dark at the worst possible moment!

Ben

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"If you're upside down and burning, you probably went too fast."
 
Thanks Sal,

On a side note, part of my job in the military is to work with radioactive materials. Mainly Americium 241 and Nickle 63 that are used in chemical agent alarms. I have been trained in handling titium as well because most of the procedures are the same. The military uses tritium in thier pistols and artillery sigths as well as some instruments. Every 6 months a leak test is made on all tritium items. If a leak is detected as well as if there is a supected leak or a vial or sight is broken, the Military treats it very serious and the pros come in for a clean up of all possibly contaminated areas. The military does tend to overblow such safety precautions. But I ain't gonna argue even though I do think it is pretty safe as long as it stays in the vial.



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Jess
 
Aquiring tritium vials is probably not that hard. When you order some firearm night sights they are nothing more then the vials which you then have a gunsmith replace the sights with by tapping out the current non-glowing inserts or drilling into the current sights then gluing them in. I'm sure some gunsmith can order them for you and possibly have them installed as well.
Brigade Quartermasters (wwww.actiongear.com)
or most surplus stores sell strips of Luminous tape if you want to go that route.



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Jess
 
Sal,
Is there any possibility that Spyderco could just make the backspacer with a tritium vial for the Military? Those who wanted the tritium as an option could just purchase the spacer and add it to their existing Military. I am sure there would be quite a bit of interest and it would keep the cost/logistics down over making a whole new knife. What do you think? Jason
 
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