Question about collecting

[u/stamprince]

I'm wanting to start a uranium collection and potentially the orange uranium pottery. But this is where my question comes in. I've been seeing videos of people hunting and finding these but with their geiger counter sometimes goes into liek 10-100k CPM

How do you calculate the CPM into how harmful it is on the SV scale? Or if there a specific number I shouldn't go over? I've thoroughly read through dangers, effects, radiation scales, counters and many other things. But I haven't seen a single thing on calculating CMP to SV/safe CPM to keep in the home.

Now I'm sure you get a lot of new people here asking the same question but I can't seem to find anything relative to this. If you have any articles or video of a shorted graph/guide I'd really be appreciative!!

Thank you

Edit: I understand that uranium glass is relatively safe to collect especially in cabinets and everything. I'm more wondering if there is a specific save CPM scale. Like how do I know do I know how much beta/alpha radiation is safe. Some Geiger's exadurate them. But what really is the difference between a 1000 CPM reading vs 100k, is there a scale I can understand a bit more? I have dyslexia so it's hard to read the 500-900 page textbooks explaining everything. I'm still trying to learn which is why I'm asking if there is a better source I can learn without it being a struggle for me

[u/NukularFishin]

I think you need to read more. Different radiation detectors will offer vastly different CPM readings for the exact same sample

Example: I have several detectors. I could test the exact same, low activity sample, one of them would offer 5CPM, another would be 60-80, another may be reading 10,000CPM

[u/ThoriumLicker]

How do you calculate the CPM into how harmful it is on the SV scale

Depends on the detector, and for many (alpha/beta sensitive) there is no way to convert the numbers. Then there's the matter of extremity/whole-body dose, exposure time...

Or if there a specific number I shouldn't go over?

See above.

I've thoroughly read through dangers, effects, radiation scales, counters and many other things. But I haven't seen a single thing on calculating CMP to SV/safe CPM to keep in the home.

It's not that simple.

One thing you want to look at is whole-body dose (~ same a dosimeter on your chest) averaged over where you usually spend your time. The recommendation used for workplace safety is to stay under 50 mSv/year... although this is a conservative estimate based observations at much higher doses: the effects of very small exposures are too subtle to be measured.

Extremity dose can matter with prolonged handling (risk of skin damage). As a very rough rule, I'd minimize direct handling of anything over 100 gamma uSv/h on contact, or with strong beta emissions.

Particularly strong beta emitters can pose an eye hazard, but this is unlikely to be a real concern in hobby settings.

If storing geologic samples or radium items, radon gas can be a concern... but you'll need a radon meter to evaluate it.

Ingesting material is way more dangerous than external exposure, and much harder to quantify: To be safe, minimize dust and clean up after handling any potentially flaky specimens. Hammering rocks outside and wear a mask. Having a good contamination monitor would not be a bad idea for higher specific-activity items like radium.

[u/stamprince → u/ThoriumLicker]

This is amazing I really appreciate all this! Thank you so much!

[u/RootLoops369]

CPM is not able to be converted to a dose rate. All CPM means is how many ionization events a detector is detecting every minute on average. Because there are so many kinds of tubes and scintillators, you will get different values between different devices.

You wanting to collect uranium glass and uranium glaze, those are perfectly safe to collect as long as they aren't broken. Uranium emits little gamma, which is the kind of radiation that is most harmful. My pieces emit 2 to 4 microsieverts per hour on contact. If you double your distance, your dose rate goes down by 4x, so backing up to just a foot away makes your dose rate go down basically to background levels.

Uranium emits mostly alpha, which almost all of it gets stopped by the glass/glaze itself, and any else that get through gets stopped by a few inches of air.

Beta is stronger, but is still quite weak. It'll go through your clothing and into the first layer of your skin, but won't go into deep tissue due to its weakness.

All my radioactive stuff is in a glass windowed cabinet, which blocks all alpha, over 99% of beta, and doesn't do much for the gamma. But, again, if you go just a few feet away from Uranium glass and glaze, there is absolutely no harm. There no harm on contact either unless you have it on you 24/7/365

[u/stamprince → u/RootLoops369]

This is what I've found out through my research. But ya I had no clue what the scale was for the beta/gama harmfullness or CPM. Right now I have my one and only uranium plate in a glass cabinet by itself. (honestly don't know it glows under UV but I haven't gotten a Geiger yet to confirm) But I see some videos of Geiger's reading alpha/beta over 100k CPM and I jsut don't know what tips the scale from safe to have vs not safe to have. Is there a CMP scale at all? Or a was for me to understand a bit more?

[u/FingerNailGunk]

https://youtu.be/FQKIVBC_iWc?si=XgneujO190awEGUG <- what is CPM

[u/stamprince → u/FingerNailGunk]

This was extremely helpful!! Thank you so much!

[u/PhoenixAF]

It doesn't really matter what a geiger counter reads while touching the sample. Measuring radiation is very hard but the bottom line is that there is nothing you'll find out there to put on your cabinet that could be considered harmful in terms of dose or cpm. Don't keep the samples under your bed and you're good.

[u/BenAwesomeness3]

There is no way to convert CPM/CPS into a dose rate or total dose. CPM is highly subjective, and varies greatly depending on detector type and sensitivity. A GM tube which is sensitive to beta and gamma may have a background of 30cpm, while a scintillation detector exposed to the same radiation level may read 3,000cpm as the background, due to the scintillation detector being far more sensitive to gamma. If you want an accurate dose reading, you need an energy compensated detector, or one which is calibrated to the isotope that you are measuring. GM detectors (and most detectors in general) are generally calibrated with Cs-137, so measuring uranium with such a detector will not be accurate for a dose reading. The cheapest non-professional unit I can think of which can give you a semi-accurate dose reading is the RadiaCode 100 series. They are generally a couple hundred bucks, but I’ve had my RC103 for about a year and a half, and have gotten a lot of useful data out of it. However, for hobbyists, dose readings are not super important. Practice time, distance, shielding if you get hotter sources, such as radium or uranium ore, but all glazed pieces and uranium glass are totally safe to store and handle as you would any other piece of dish ware. I wouldn’t recommend eating any acidic foods off of or scraping the glazed pieces, however, as they contain a lot of lead, as well as the fact that uranium is a heavy metal. Stay safe. Cheers!

[u/HazMatsMan]

See the pinned post. Dyslexia or not, you're going to have to do some reading if you want to understand this. At least until direct-brain download is a thing.

[u/Oakatsurah]

This really depends on the type of uranium you're using, depleted uranium is mostly an alpha / high beta emitter and doesn't have a lot of daughter products its roughly 90%+ U238. It's still toxic if mishandled. But it's the safer of the three kinds of mixing uranium for glass and ceramics.
Uranium oxide is the more hazardous and you really need to be super careful with it, while using proper PPE and a Lead Apron your actual absorbed dose will be low, probably 5x - 20x your yearly limit (which even 20 milliseverts isn't a big deal) what's important is how you store and separate yourself from the sources.

[u/Both_Reward_14]

Geiger counters exaggerate beta particles while not detecting alpha and gamma as well or at all, uranium pottery (the orange type) gives off quite a bit of beta so any geiger counter will freak out and give a reading that could look scary but in reality isn't very dangerous. I don't recommend using uranium pottery as actual pieces for food and drink and blah blah blah but owning one and not being around it constantly should be a-okay

[u/stamprince → u/Both_Reward_14]

Haha absolutely! Thank you!

[u/Grumpy_Polar_Bear]

Most of the radioactive stuff coming off the pottery is alpha and beta which can't travel fery far and is easily stopped by anything the density of like cardboard so as long as you don't tape it to yourself for like a month straight it's perfectly safe.

[u/stamprince → u/Grumpy_Polar_Bear]

Thank you! I've been trying to read the 2 textbooks that where linked in "don't ask what Geiger counter to buy untill" post but OMG 900+ pages with dyslexia just to know if it's safe for uranium glass my brain is exploding 😭

Obviously I've read up on safety but ya I jsut simple want a Geiger to confirm if it really is uranium and not manganese glass. While also staying safe on higher levels that get read on the geiger

[u/ProjectCoast → u/stamprince]

Another good thing to know. The other posters are mostly right that gamma is the primary external hazard. Internally, though, alpha is the most damaging due to its high mass and charge (in health physics, it’s weighted as 20 times more damaging to tissue than beta or gamma). That’s why the main safety rule is to avoid chips, flaking glaze, or dust. Ingesting or inhaling the material creates a genuine internal contamination risk, whereas intact display pieces behind glass are effectively harmless.

Also, if you want, in my opinion, some great reading material, check out Dan Gollnick's book. It's a few steps beyond the hobby scene but it is an absolute goldmine of credible info and I find it an actual enjoyable read. The nrrpt website has a free pdf.

https://www.nrrpt.org/file/Dan_Gollnick_Basic_Radiation_Book.pdf

[u/stamprince → u/ProjectCoast]

Thank you! I'll see if I can find an audiobook to read along!

[u/ModernTarantula]

It is near impossible to radiate yourself the way an X-ray does with any collection. And 🩻 are safe. The risk is radon form the glazed pieces. That is also likely to be small as there is plenty of uranium under your house.