Posted 4 years ago
RichmondLori
(358 items)
Vintage 1970 STATIC-MASTER Brush model C-30 with instructions and certificate, Brush model model C-30 with instructions and certificate C-30 with instructions.
Here’s a truly weird, wonderful and rather appropriate gadget from the late 1970s with some bizarre contemporary connections. It’s an anti-static brush, used to de-dustify things like vinyl records and photographic film.
So far so ordinary, but there’s a few things about the Staticmaster that makes it rather interesting. Firstly it’s radioactive, that’s right, if you look closely, just behind the bristles you can see a small grating with some brown material deposited on the surface.
This is the radioactive element and it creates a ‘field’ of ionised particles up to an inch or two ahead of the bristles and this has the effect of neutralising the static charge that makes dust stick to surfaces.
Here’s the second surprise, the radioactive material used in the brush is none other than Polonium 210, the same stuff used in the recent horrific poisoning incident that resulted in the death of the Russian ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.
Polonium 210 emits alpha particles. These are very weak and cannot penetrate skin so they are relatively ‘safe’ in the contained environment of the brush head. It is also significant that Polonium 210 has a half life of 139 days, which basically means that virtually all of the radioactivity disappears within a couple of years of manufacture, as the polonium turns into an inert isotope of lead, so these old brushes are now completely harmless.
Featured in Popular Mechanics on page 145
Jul 1963/ 200 pages/ Vol. 120, No. 1/ ISSN 0032-4558/ Published by Hearst Magazines:
http://www.dustygizmos.com/archive.htm#Staticmaster%20Polonium%20210%20Anti-Static%20Brush
a US company called Nuclear Products. Nowadays they are manufactured, along with a wide range of industrial and consumer anti-static products by Amstat Industries.
Why was this brush used for? Clothes brush, maybe?
Make that “what” instead of “why”. :-)
I have added more information. Thanks Watchsearcher.
That’s a super interesting item! Thanks for adding the additional info, especially the part about polonium 210....I had never heard of it but I do recall reading about the poisoning of that agent...gruesomely diabolical!
There used to be things in use by the public that would not be permitted these days, such as your brush...and when I was a child, the best shoe store in our town had a machine into which you would insert your feet wearing the prospective new purchase so the parent could see the skeleton of the child’s feet to assess the fit of the shoe.
I loved going there so I could get my feet X-rayed and see my bones....fascinating fun at the shoe store!
Thank you Watchsearcher, your comments mean alot - especially the help you gave in your first comment. Helped me realize I need to post more than pictures, the details are just as important. :)