Hugo Holden
Veteran Member
I worked in a CRT re-gunning plant for a while, the toxicity levels were fairly low. Generally dislodged CRT phosphor tends to be flakey rather than dust because of the Barium Silicate binders and the aluminium backing. The same with the internal Aquadag. It is ok to handle the electron gun structures, they are made of high purity metal. You don't want to do that with new ones as it can leave finger marks from sweat. Like many things an alarmist approach and paranoia about chemical toxicity is not warranted for a broken CRT, no more than any common garden vacuum tube. The main thing is avoid cutting yourself on the glass, sweep up and dispose of any fragments & flakes wear gloves and/or wash your hands. If you insist on poisoning yourself, you could if you tried very hard, but you would have to get all the flakes and butter them onto your sandwich, so I would suggest not doing that. If you are taking CRT's in and out of sets, its worth wearing some polycarbonate safety glasses. And, many of the metal bands on small CRT's 12" or less are mounting bands, not "implosion bands" and they can be removed with little risk, that is if the glass does not get scratched in the process. I have removed these many times adapting various CRT's into VDU's.
The main place where human Chromium toxicity turns up is at the Electroplaters (for obvious reasons of chronic exposure). Then there are metal allergies. As I recall Men have a higher incidence than women to Chrome allergy, and in Women I think it was Nickel. Thought possibly due to the backs on wrist watches containing Chromium.
Often it is the case than common sense is better than any amount of fear. In all cases of problems involving poisoning and chemical toxicity, with certain super lethal exceptions requiring only minuscule amounts, it is always a combinations of the factors of dose amount, route of administration and duration or chronicity of exposure that determine the outcome. This is why when people work daily in industrial situations, with ongoing exposure over many years there can be major problems. But an occasional contact with the substances are little of a worry. A classic example of this is Carbon Tetrachloride.
The main place where human Chromium toxicity turns up is at the Electroplaters (for obvious reasons of chronic exposure). Then there are metal allergies. As I recall Men have a higher incidence than women to Chrome allergy, and in Women I think it was Nickel. Thought possibly due to the backs on wrist watches containing Chromium.
Often it is the case than common sense is better than any amount of fear. In all cases of problems involving poisoning and chemical toxicity, with certain super lethal exceptions requiring only minuscule amounts, it is always a combinations of the factors of dose amount, route of administration and duration or chronicity of exposure that determine the outcome. This is why when people work daily in industrial situations, with ongoing exposure over many years there can be major problems. But an occasional contact with the substances are little of a worry. A classic example of this is Carbon Tetrachloride.
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