Hey ya'll,

Been playing a bit for some time now with pulling custom colors of tubes in the hotshop to make colors an patterns of glass that you cannot buy through industry. The over simplified version of this is to get a bubble of furnace glass hot, put some colors on an stretch it- hooray for tube!

https://makertube.net/w/bEKBhyzXHvPaaJJ9ZZzvf8

But the glass only acts as a filter. If you want say warm white, or green light, you need phosphor. Sure you could dust in the powders, an the static will have some powders cling to the walls of the glass. But if you really want argon mercury bright, you will need some binder action. There are various methods- while initially I read up on some patents and tried to go all eco- friendly with it, it seems the deeper and more toxic your willing to go, the better the payoff. 

https://expressional.social/@JamesAkers/114560105133270647

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https://expressional.social/@JamesAkers/114566321454024778

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My journey might be a little too in depth to post here in its entirety, but I was posting along on my mastodon for a bit. I think the commercial neon workload might slow down here for me- and maybe there will be some money left over to buy glass color bars with a bunch of silver and gold in them- I only want what I cannot already buy from industry. Right now I wanna make a half silver and half gold warm white and pink tube as well as a tube that gradients across in a linear fashion. Just gotta save my pennies to burn a bunch of natural gas and use a bunch of precious metals.

https://expressional.social/@JamesAkers/112845019897623280

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Jacob Willcox (best tube puller I know) an I just submitted a class to Penland on this very topic- New Color New Light. Maybe in a few years it will show up on the catalog.

Is there messaging on here? I do suppose I can chat about phosphor binder formulas. Most safety inspectors would probably frown upon many of these chemicals. Ebay and your respirator along with gloves and ventillation are your friends :)

Just leaving this here. I think I heard through the grapevine that a member was interested.... I figured there may be more than one.

James Akers

Not sure who the other interested member is, but I am definitely interested and have played with some of the processes you had kicked my direction as well as some recipes I got from Tommy in Sweden.  

Furthermore, there are some really good, detailed books on the subject (mostly born out of the fluorescent lamp and CRT industries) and they even delve into the mechanical aspects such as how fine the mixture must be milled to in order to attain good characteristics.

FWIW-- I'd take that tube pulling and coating class if it becomes available, as the more I play around with the stuff, the more I find it enjoyable and interesting.  

Lastly, if you win the lottery, there is a defunct factory for sale that is about 5 minutes drive from my home....you know, if you want to actually produce large amounts of the stuff we can't get anymore.....would be fun to be the glass tubing fairy.

These are two excellent books on the subject.  The one by Ropp turns up somewhat regularly but the other one by Butler is much harder (aka $$$) to find but perhaps you have a good library nearby to borrow it from.

Wow, thanks Robert, I will have to get these books in my hands. I bet my public library could help with an inter library loan- I always love stopping by. 

I would love to be the new Ablon, Willy Wonka of neon. Indeed a winning lottery ticket would help! The next best thing is to just share all the knowledge I can with those interested and with resources. We believe Penland would be a perfect venue to do so!