If you look hard enough, you can probably find some hazards associated with just about any hobby. You can stick yourself with a needle while sewing, a hook while fishing, fall out of a tree while bird watching etc. Risks increase with hobbies involving power tools, flying objects, hot materials and so on. Collecting antique electronics need not be any more dangerous than other activities if common sense prevails.

The following is a list of things to keep in mind if you should decide to start collecting and or restoring.

Electricity
Keep in mind that you are dealing with equipment that may be well over 50 years old. Frayed wires, shorted components and the like are more the norm than the exception. If you are not familiar with the technology and safety practices for dealing with relatively high voltages, don’t attempt such work yourself. There are shops specializing in antique radio restoration. Many can be located via the internet and you can ship your radio to them for repair or restoration. Keep in mind that you don’t necessarily need to make the radio work, they are nice items just to look at. Most small table radios do not have power transformers, and many have one side of the power cord connected to the chassis. This represents a serious shock hazard for the unskilled hobbyist.

Simple tasks such as replacing a bad tube or cleaning the set can be done by the average person with the set off and unplugged. The key is to only attempt what you are comfortable with and can do safely. If you enjoy cabinet refinishing, ship the chassis out for repair while you restore the cabinet.

Exploding and burning components
Don’t rush to plug in a newly acquired radio to find out if it works. Capacitors in particular tend to dry out or short circuit from age and lack of use They can explode if powered up too quickly, representing an eye hazard if you are not wearing safety glasses. Many old capacitors can be brought back to life by initially powering them up slowly. I’ll discuss how to do this in a later article. Chances are that you will do additional damage by rushing to “see if it works”

Tubes are made of glass and contain a high vacuum. They can shatter quite violently when broken. Some of them also get hot enough to cause burns while operating. Handle them with care, leather gloves are recommended when extracting a stuck or hot tube.

Picture tubes are another matter all together. Don’t handle them unless you are trained to do so. Picture tube glass may be up to half an inch thick, and can cause serious injury if a tube implodes. Safety glasses (a full face shield is even better) leather gloves, and heavy clothing are all worn by professionals when removing and installing picture tubes.

Hazardous materials
A few hazardous materials will occasionally be found in an antique radio

Asbestos
The “miracle fiber” of the first half of the 20th century. Asbestos is almost non existent in early sets, 1915- 1930. Between 1930 and 1941, it found occasional use as a small heat shield behind a hot resistor or other component. The stuff is far more common in other early heating appliances such as toasters, irons and even in some light fixtures.

There are a few exceptions though. Some early table radios had a wire ballast resistor wound into the power cord. This resistance wire was often wrapped in asbestos fiber. It is typical of a four tube design table radio and the cord gets warm with normal use (see “resistor line cords” below). The cords themselves are suspiciously thick, about 3/8 inch or more in diameter and almost always round in shape. By now most of these cords are frayed, exposing the asbestos fibers.

Some catalin (an early plastic) radios had asbestos heat shields glued to the ceiling of the cabinet because catalin is easily damaged by the heat from tubes.

Asbestos is known to be carcinogenic (cancer causing) and even small amounts can be dangerous if inhaled. If you find or suspect asbestos in a radio (it looks like a white or gray fuzzy, flaky material), take the radio to a licensed asbestos removal company and let them remove the asbestos and vacuum the set to get rid of any loose fibers. Such firms can be found in the yellow pages. Never use a household vacuum to remove asbestos, it does not have sufficient filtration to trap all of the fibers. Never use compressed air to clean a radio until you are sure there is no asbestos. After having an asbestos shield professionally removed, you can replace it with a sheet of Kevlar, available from most electronics distributors.

PCBs Polychlorinated Biphenyls
PCBs are dielectric fluids found in some industrial capacitors. They are almost never found in vintage or modern consumer electronics. They are considered a skin irritant and carcinogenic when ingested. As a precaution, I would suggest not eating capacitors.

Lead
Lead, in the form of solder is found in just about all electronics, vintage or modern. Simple precautions, such as washing your hands after handling solder and avoid breathing fumes while soldering are considered sufficient to avoid problems. New lead- free solder is available and recommended for repair work. Keep solder out of the hands of small children who might chew on it.

Mercury
In general, mercury is not found in antique radios and TVs. It is not found in modern ones for that matter. I mention it here because I am occasionally asked about it. It is hazardous when its vapors are inhaled and it can also be absorbed through the skin. If you should come upon a small mercury spill from a broken thermometer or other source, scoop it up with a piece of paper, place it in a small glass container such as an empty asprin bottle and clearly label it. Take it to your town's hazardous waste collection. Most towns sponsor hazardous waste collections once or twice a year.

Resistor line cords
Used for a brief time in the 1930s, almost exclusively on 4 tube table radios, but occasionally on a 5 tube design. These cords had a resistance wire wound into the line cord for the purpose of dropping the line voltage down to about fifty or sixty volts to power tube filaments prior to the invention of tubes with higher voltage heaters. These cords are bad news. They were intended to be stretched out to dissipate the heat that they create in normal operation. People would often bundle them up for esthetics, causing them to overheat and start a fire. The resistance wire was wrapped in asbestos insulation (see asbestos above). Avoid buying these radios with the intent of restoring them. If you acquire one, have the cord removed and keep the radio for display only. I will discuss ways to modify these sets to operate without the resistor cord in the future, but it is a modification that only the advanced hobbyist or professional technician should attempt.

Obsolete safety standards
Vintage electronics were built to meet an earlier set of safety standards than we expect from modern appliances. This is not to say that the sets were not well designed and safe to operate. To cite a few differences, modern standards require that the power cord be secured with a locking bushing, old standards simply required a knot be tied in the cord so that it could not be yanked out of the set. A potential problem can arise if the cord was twisted a lot, causing wires to break inside the set and cause a short circuit. Modern appliances must be protected by a fuse or circuit breaker, internal or user serviceable. Most older radios had no line fuse. Common sense allows you to enjoy your vintage set, but don’t leave it on unattended. Better yet, unplug it when not in use.