Dear Sir
Thorium is the most abundant radioactive element on Earth. It has a biological half live of 15 years. Therefore if
you ingest Thorium, half of it will still be present in your body after 15 years. It has a tendency to end up in the
liver, causing liver damage. Wash your hands before eating and after handling Thoriated Tungsten, but then again I'd
recomment that after handling any heavy metal. Thorium does several things associated with GTAW electrodes. It ionizes the shielding gas making it easier to produce a strike. It also raises the melting temperature of the tungsten as an alloy. It also makes the electrode more risistive to contamination (dipping. Radioactive speaking,
the amount of radioactive exposure is extremely low. I used a Ludlum Pancake counter on (10)seven inch long, 3/32,
2% thorium tungsten GTAW rods and got 250 X 10 counts per minute. whole body expossure was calculated to be
9.1 X 10-6 millirem/hr. That's extremely low. Thorium does produce Alphas and gamma rays. It's not as bad as it
sounds. Radiation is part of our lives. Cosmis rays from space bombard our Earth 24/7. Most TVs produce X-rays.
Your microwave oven produces microwaves. Your smoke detector also produces some radiation. Michigan has radon gas
in the soil. For more information on GTAW rods there is a web page that might be helpful.
Dan Pendell
http://www.orau.org/PTP/collection/consumer%20products/weldingrod.htm