It seems fitting to address this as my first blog post for the Neon Maker’s Guild, some of you may have read a version of this story on my personal blog page (www.novioljourneys.com) or heard it during one of the talks or presentations I have done for various groups. Nonetheless, it is fitting to reiterate some of it here and sum up by explaining why it is relevant to the guild.

I don’t know when I first encountered and became fascinated with neon signs and art. Likely it was during a family vacation as a kid. I have some vague memories of green zig-zag glowing tubes along the eves of some old motel we stayed at. I also vaguely recall the light buzzing of its exposed, and obviously not 100% properly functioning transformer. I can’t say for certain exactly where this was, or when it was… but most likely it was when I was somewhere between 5 and 6 years old… maybe 7. By the time I was in third grade, I ended up with a book that described how to build Tesla coils using neon transformers as the primary source. The photos in the book showed similar art-deco cased transformers to what I recall seeing at that old motel someplace in the past. This is, as far as I can recall, the likely first encounter with the glowing beauty of bent glass… it is also around this time that I moved past the simple electrical projects of my first and second grade years and began to build and tinker with many little high voltage projects such as Van De Graaff generators and Tesla coils… I was, and still am, “THAT” kid.

A decade or more passed and then I was in my freshman year of college. One day I saw a posting on a bulletin board in the commons: “Custom Neon Signs” with a phone number to call. My roommate and I thought it would be incredibly cool to have our own neon sign in the dorm. So I called and asked. Anyway… I naturally inquired about what it would cost to have a polite, lowercase, script writing neon “fuckoff” to hang on the wall. Why not, right? (Naturally you wonder WHY that, right?… well, you see, amongst my friends, this was a common greeting or comment. An odd term of endearment as it were. I still smile when a friend tells me “fuckoff” all run together as one word like that.) The price I was quoted was about $150.00… which, at the time, was a lot of money and completely out of the question. All was not lost in our quest for dormitory neon, however.

I understood how these things worked and correctly assumed that the labor of shaping the glass was the real expense involved, followed by the transformer and other materials. So I asked, “How much would it cost if I bent the glass and had you put in the electrodes and fill it with gas?” The response was that it was not nearly that simple. I said, ok… ”but how much?” After some back and forth, the man told me about 12 bucks, plus a transformer. “OK! Twelve dollars I could do! That’s what I want to do.” Again, I was told it was not so easy or simple but that if I wished, I was welcome to come over for a shop tour and to see a little of how neon signs and art are made. Naturally, I took him up on the offer and my roommate and I showed up within an hour or so.

When we arrived at his house and entered his shop, which was in the old Four-Square style garage building behind the house–whose address was “509”… I was confronted with the closest thing to a real “Frankenstein’s lab” that could exist in modern day. Torches and burners on articulated stands… layout benches… an elaborate high-vacuum manifold made entirely of glass… and a 10KVA power pole transformer mounted prominently … it was and still is, most impressive.

Steve, the owner, then demonstrated a few basic bends and torch techniques and discussed the overall process from start to finish. He also dispelled a common myth by demonstrating that glass was not nearly as fragile as we all believe. (I still perform the same demonstration for others when I make a double-back bend and bang it on the bench… and I often get similar looks of disbelief from others.) I then bought a pound or two of 10mm clear glass (about 8-10 sticks, each four feet in length) and took them back to the dorm with the intent of making something.

I tried a variety of burners and torches, even an altered campstove–all improvised and while functional, not really ideal for the task. I struggled. Steve was correct that this was not nearly as simple as one might be lead to believe. After trial and error… mostly error… I eventually did manage to create something: A simple mountain. Took it back to his shop, and he welded in the electrodes, pumped and processed the unit and filled with Argon and a drop of Mercury. Argon with some Hg added makes a beautiful brilliant blue. There is nothing quite like it. It was amazing and punchy… (on a related note I think part of why I like Van Gogh’s work and old Cibachrome prints is related to my love of neon–the contrasts of color are similar to me.) And it lead to finding an original 1935 edition of Miller & Fink’s “Neon Signs” book (THE how-to book of the era) … and then more creations… including some for others… and this eventually lead to setting up my own shop, careers in the sign business and in other areas where this valuable knowledge could be carried over to other projects.

Those initial visits to his shop and the quick lessons offered and questions answered, I later learned, was a VERY BIG DEAL at the time. Benders of a half century ago often did not want to train others or divulge much information. To this day I do not really know what it was that I said or how I said it, but I got a shop visit and some of my initial lessons, informal as they were, but sufficient to get started. It was, above all else, a kindness.

In subsequent years I have come to realize that I have a talent and passion for this work and for the passing along of the knowledge gained. I especially enjoy building shop setups, solving odd problems, and documenting the history of the technology involved. To that end I have built portable shops for teaching—some using only restored prewar components and tools, advised and consulted for others, and over the last several years been working on amassing a rather large neon related technical library that, while I am far behind on my scanning, now stands at some 14000 files and which I eventually hope to be able to make more widely available.

My hope for the Neon Maker’s Guild is that it will provide a further avenue to pay forward that small kindness afforded me all those years ago and spread good, concise technical and historical knowledge about neon and the related facets that go into it. The days of the secretive neon bender attitude may have seemed like a good idea 50 or more years ago, but in this century, our very survival is dependent upon this knowledge being freely available and properly interpreted for use.