What did you make today?

[gvidas]

Originally Posted by glatt

That is sweet! You do all the glass work and everything? How do you fill it with neon? Where do you get the neon? It needs a ballast, right? How did you get into neon sign making?

The school I'm at has a nice neon shop, which makes everything easier -- I got into neon here, through an art class on the topic about 4 years ago. Recently I realized that (although often extremely frustrating) it's one of the most satisfying things I've ever tried.

The glass comes in straight tubes which you bend into shape. 99% of what I use is donated off-spec tubes from EGL, one of the main producers of neon products. Once bent you seal on electrodes, which give a vacuum-tight electrical contact through the glass. The whole piece is then connected via glass tube to the manifold, a system of valves which let you control how much vacuum is in the neon piece, as well as measure in an appropriate (minute) amount of neon / argon. Before adding the neon, you bombard the piece to remove impurities, moisture, etc: pull the tube into a light vacuum and apply a lot of electricity (~15kV @ 200-800 mA.)