Neon 509 class.

Neon 509….or how I got into doing neon work.

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.

A decade or more passed and then I was in my freshman year of college at Texas A&M.  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.  At the time, it was VERY common for my roommate and other friends to greet each other or tell each other “Fuckoff!”  This was all in fun and the most friendly of greetings or comments.  Silly kids.  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?   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?”    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 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.

Last February my wife, Elizabeth, and I took a trip to the lower 48…flying into Portland, OR…renting a car and driving cross country to various places.  After visits with grandkids in Colorado, we made our way down to Texas to see my sisters and parents.  While down there, we stopped by that old Four-Square garage at 509…..much more dilapidated now than it was then….and long since vacated by Steve and his family….but much to my surprise, the big Bromo-blue glass neon 509 was still there, intact nearly 3 decades later.

Looking back, at the time I had absolutely no idea how big a deal this was.  Neon tubebenders, I later learned over the years, were traditionally very secretive about their trade, skills, and processes.  To have someone offer to even give me a few basic lessons, was a VERY, VERY big deal.  I have been grateful and appreciative ever since….and I have tried to pay it forward when and where possible.  Even after all those years, working in various shops either for a living or as a hobby on and off, I certainly do not know all the secrets ….but I am always happy to try to pay it forward by passing on what I have gleaned from my experiences in order to help the next kid who wants to make a neon “fuckoff” of their own.

And in that vein….expect my next post to be a quick overview of the how neon signs work and the process of their creation.