Lum-Tec powder + Epoxy= Poor Man Night sights

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I have a bottle about that size of the same powder stuff somewhere in a box in the garage. It came with one of those kid "mad scientist" sets where you can make
some kind of blobby slimey stuff. The powder it came with was added to the blob and made it all glowy. I never added the powder and instead kept it in a glass jar
like pictured above in a box of knick knacks I kept as a kid. Hmm...I recall that whole set being a couple bucks at Toysrus. Phosphorus powder sure has came up
in price in 20 years!
Forget Gold or Platinum, phosphorus powder was the money maker I should have invested in.
 
Wow, half the price... Wonder if its as good?... i'll probably order some up.

I only bought this brand because a friend got a watch of theirs and it was impressive!...Damn thing looked like he had his cell phone on in the movie theater!... so i looked into it.

I have a video uploading of the results... did 6 or 7 guns today.... Very happy with the results.

JOe
 
I think an even better application would be adding night sights to pistols like the P22, Micro Eagle, or the Kel-Tecs that don't have night sights as an option.
 
Did you mix it with the epoxy or put the epoxy on the gun and sprinkle the powder on it?

It looks like it works really well.

Is it safe to handle or what precautions should be used? (ie. gloves & mask)

I have been super gluing glow in the dark decals on my guns but they don't give off that kind of light. Nice!
 
Pretty sweet this, chemistry applied.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorescence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europium
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanthanoid

I'm going to have to dig some more to understand exactly why electrons don't drop back to a stable energy level right off, been a while since uni organic, but I suppose somethings are just hard to understand, like super-saturated solutions. Be sure to at least give a glance to the MSDS.

I wonder just how significant the glow when approaching the advertised 12hrs mark and just how fast "extremely fast" is.
 
The Lum-Tec site says

This is a special 6 layer application of Superluminova applied over a chemical coated white base, causing an incredibly bright luminescent light charge.
Click to expand...

Gotta wonder if six coats pver a white base with a very clear epoxy/nail polish might do even better...

The site for the United Nuclear stuff says it stays for 12 hours, whereas the Lum-Tec claims 24.... not that claims mean much.... got a picture from 8 hours later? (usual night hours)

I will be keeping an eye on this thread....
 
I ran this by a friend of mine who has a Masters in chemistry and retired from the Paint Pigments division of DuPont Chemical a few years ago.

I referred him to United Nuclear's website, not Lum-Tec and here are his comments.
------------------
Ciba and others were introducing these a number of years ago. To get maximum efficiency you need to know the UV characteristics of the carrier that you disperse the material into to make a coating.

Yes they can stay relatively bright for more than 12 hours!! The emergency trunk openers on newer cars are pigmented with the green.
------------------
 
I ordered some of the powder and also the preparerd paint from United Nuclear on Tuesday. They emailed me later that day saying both had shipped, so ought to have it by the weekend. It's coming USPS.
They were quite a bit cheaper at $10/ounce than that eBay store for Lum-Tec at $40 for 2 grams.

Someone asked how to mix the stuff - U.N. says you're supposed to add the medium to the powder, not the powder to the medium.

There's a lot of info on the United Nuclear website indicating how to and what you can use the stuff for. It will even withstand temps to about 1200 degrees F. so it can even be used in some ceramic glazes for some interesting pottery effects.

This stuff has been around for better than 10 years, but I suspect it's popularity now is due to the fact that manufacturing costs are coming down far enough to make small quantity sales practical.
My Chemist buddy says that most of the world's supply of naturally occurring Europium comes from China. Go figure.
 
KSCCH:

So is that the exact same stuff as LumTec?

It's definitely cheaper, but is it as effective?

I looked around on United Nuclear's page but I'm still curious as to if it is as strong as LumTec....

Any info you have would be appreciated.
 
Kingofthehill,
What ration of powder to epoxy did you use for the sights? How did you apply the mixture to the sights? I want to try this but I want to do it right the first time.

- Eric
 
c919 said:
KSCCH:

So is that the exact same stuff as LumTec?

It's definitely cheaper, but is it as effective?

I looked around on United Nuclear's page but I'm still curious as to if it is as strong as LumTec....

Any info you have would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
c919,
To answer your question accurately, I'm not sure if it is the same. It IS based on the same rare earth element Europium but I'm not sure how their forumulations differ.

Here's my preliminary report on the stuff. I got the one ounce bottle of powder and the already mixed 4 ounce bottle of "Europium UltraGlow" paint from United Nuclear in the mail Saturday.

The paint is quite thick and easy to work with. Just shake well and use a toothpick, piece of piano wire or a bent paper clip to apply a drop of paint to the white dots (on white dot sights). According to the instructions, it should be let dry for 24 hours.

I applied 3 drops of paint (out of a well-shaken 4 ounce bottle) to the 3 white dots on my Benelli "Nova Tactical" shotgun sights, took it out into the sunlight for about 10 minutes and let it sit over night in the dark gun cabinet. They glowed VERY bright green immediately after being brought indoors, but this morning the glow was pretty dim. It was, however, only slightly dimmer than the Tritium lamps on a Glock 19 I used to have. Granted the sights on the Glock were over 10 years old and approaching the end of the useful life of the Tritium.

I also applied some of the paint to the sights on an older Smith & Wesson 469 that I recently acquired . It originally had a white outline rear sight and a white bar on the front sight. Using a piece of .025" piano wire that I made into an applicator, I put some of the paint on the white outline of the rear sight and laid a strip of it into the groove of the white bar on the front sight. I sat it in a window so it could absorb sunlight all afternoon and placed it back into it's normal place on the nightstand by the bed.

It was still glowing reasonably bright when we turned out the lights, but by morning it was down to the same brightness as the dots on the shotgun sights.
Not as bright as I had hoped for, but still useable in darkness. Even without my glasses, I was able to pick up the front sight and align it with the rear quickly.

The 4 ounce bottle of paint would be sufficient for several thousand (maybe more) sets of sights as only a couple of drops are needed in each application.

Tentative conclusion: Nowhere near as good as Tritium night sights, but with care can be applied by anyone and if recharged by sunlight or UV on a daily basis, they could be useful. Not sure I'd trust them as a primary, but on a backup gun or HD shotgun they could be very useful. Especially if some means of automatic exposure to UV light could be arranged. One of the guys on the Kasas Concealed Carry forum had the idea of using a UV lamp on a timer inside his gun safe. I did try flashing them with my white LED flashlight for a couple of seconds, and the super bright glow from that lasted about 30 seconds before dropping back down to a more subdued but still somewhat useful level.

Still, $10 (plus shipping - came to $18.95 total) for a four ounce bottle of the paint isn't overly expensive and you'll have enough to repaint the sights with it if needed for a at least a few years :) I can't comment on United Nuclear's offering as compared to Lum-Tec as I don't intend to buy any of the Lum-Tec stuff at over $40 for a 2 gram bottle, just to experiment with.

I haven't tried mixing any of the powder with a carrier such as Elmer's glue or clear epoxy yet so nothing to report there. I'm going to leave both bottles out in the sunlight today and see how long the stuff actually glows from that exposure.
 
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Has anyone tried multiple layers, as they do in the factory (according to Lum-Tec's website), on these things yet?

Not that I have seen posted here.... I would be interested to know if that makes it work any longer or brighter...
 
fluorescent black light produce quite a bit of UV, or some aquarium bulbs, etc, should have a label on the bult, xeon bulbs and like halogens also pump out a lot too, ie non LED tac lights. Cool stuff.
 
Anyone else try either product? I am trying to figure out if it would be worth it to spend the money on the Lum-Tec powder or just get the other stuff.

Kingofthehill: You never mentioned how you applied the stuff. Did you mix the powder into the epoxy and then apply it or put the epoxy on the sights and sprinkle the powder on to that?
 
With the United Nuclear stuff, you have to mix the epoxy into the powder, not the other way around. The same goes for any other binder/medium you use. Mix the medium into the powder as this is supposed to give the best distribution.

Elmer's glue appears to work quite well. I used a 1 part powder to 2 parts glue mix and painted some business card stock (white background) with the mix. After it dried over night, I set it out in the sun all afternoon to soak up the rays. It glowed bright enough to see quite nicely and in the morning was still glowing at about 1/3 the original brightness.

Haven't had time to try the epoxy yet.
 
Awesome. Thanks for the report.

I think I'm still leaning towards Lum-Tec. It just seems a bit stronger than the United Nuclear stuff.
 
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