I have zero experience with neon, zero neon tools, and zero motivation to get either of those two things. But, I do have an interesting idea if anyone wants to try it, I think it would be an enjoyable experience for others on this platform as well. This isn’t technically a neon sign, but it uses neon-making supplies. To be crystal clear: I don’t want anything to be sent to me. Keep what you make and just post some cool pics of it. The plan consists of three short tubes constructed as follows:

• A 20”/50cm straight tube filled with a mercury gas mix, with half of the tubing clear and the other half white phosphor
• A 20”/50cm straight tube filled with argon fill only, with half of the tubing clear and the other half white phosphor
• A 20”/50cm straight tube filled with a neon fill, with half of the tubing clear and the other half white phosphor

I know that the tubes with just neon and just argon will likely not illuminate the phosphor pure white, but this is part of the experiment and I think it would be cool to see how the different gas fills affect the phosphor colors. The tubing diameter and length doesn’t really matter, but 20” would (in my opinion) be a pretty good size to look at. I was also thinking of maybe making another half-coated tube with some approximate penning mix (99% Ne + 1% Ar), but I don’t know if this would run well on a neon sign transformer due to the much lower voltage drop (try it if you want). If you have any other gases you want to try that would be pretty cool too.

Again, this is just for entertainment/educational purposes and I am not asking anyone in particular to take on this task, but if you are interested let me know, and keep us all updated in the comments. I do have another idea for someone who can do neon signs, but I will wait for after this one as it is quite the challenge.

Hello, yes this wouldnt be difficult at all for me to do, Another favourite of mine is filling a tube with neon and mercury then running it on DC to make it red and blue

@Multisubject: Why you want half-coated and not clear tubes? Clear tubes are better for your use.

@Multisubject: Why you want half-coated and not clear tubes? Clear tubes are better for your use.

I think it would be cool to see the different gasses affect the color the phosphor illuminates. You would still see the pure gas color in the clear part.

Hello, yes this wouldnt be difficult at all for me to do, Another favourite of mine is filling a tube with neon and mercury then running it on DC to make it red and blue

I totally forgot about that!!! I have only ever seen one picture of this effect but it looks super cool. I wonder what that would look like with a phosphored tube, but that is a project for a different time lol!

Also: What the heck kind of glass is used for neon-making? I hear conflicting things. What material is used for the wire feed-through?

Also: How do you put mercury in the tube? Do you just pipette the some in there, or is there some sort of safer way of doing it? Do you just have a big bottle of mercury layin around?

This stuff really fascinates me! Let me know if you are looking for other ideas of stuff to do because I have drawn out just about every idea under the sun. I hope I’m not being annoying…

I practiced neon making a bit, too.

Different glasses are used. Mostly soft glass of COE9. May be lead glass or specialty strontium based lead free, or even generic soda-lime. Sometimes colored Italian glasses. French and probably Spanish neonmakers use Pyrex COE3.3 too. Colored Pyrex (Boro) exists, but is rare. I have some.

Dumet for lead-ins in soft glass, tungsten rods for Pyrex. No need for DIY, ready-made electrode assemblies are available for purchase, still.

Mercury is usually added by so called mercury traps. A small drop of mercury (circa 100mg) is placed by a syringe in a small bubble blown in a middle of 'tublulation', 6mm tube connecting the lamp to vacuum manifold. A disadvantage of this is if lamp cracks when pumped, mercury may get sucked into the manifold. Usually, some arrangement is added to the manifold to catch most of it in this case.

Some safe methods were tried, but did not generally survive commercially:

- Small glass capsule at the electrode dosed with mercury and having a dumet wire melted in. Opened by brief application of the discharge to this dumet wire after the tube was pumped, sealed and aged a bit.

- Small metal balls filled with mercury which are opened by a small specialized induction heater.

- Small rods of specialty amalgam (said to be zirconium amalgam) decomposed by heating briefly by again, applying a discharge after the lamp is sealed off.

I don't like working with mercury at home and when I need an UV emitting fill I use xenon as a substitute.

Neon making stuff is very cool, sure!




 

I think it would be cool to see the different gasses affect the color the phosphor illuminates. You would still see the pure gas color in the clear part.

Actually best looking combinations in this case are made of contrasty colors! Some classic ideas of combining clear and coated areas are:

Neon fill & green willemite phosphor - red in clear and orange-yellow in coated
Neon fill & blue tungstate or rare earth coated - red in clear and nice pink in coated, pretty.
Mercury or xenon + red YOX phosphor - blue in clear and pretty rose pink in coated.
Also bright orange phosphor when combined with mercury fill looks great in that case too.


Think of phosphor play like spirals for possibilities!

 

Different glasses are used. Mostly soft glass of COE9. French and probably Spanish neonmakers use Pyrex COE3.3 too.

I hear soft glass is very hard to work with and often cracks, but maybe the tubular shape helps..?

Yep Pyrex is more forgiving in that respect but electrodes are more expensive and you need oxygen burners to work with it.

The secret with soft glass is wall thickness. With thickness of around 1mm the tube becomes kinda 'self-annealing' cooling in the air with some reasonable speed and not creating significant internal tension. Usually does not crack too much until technique is terribly sloppy or material is bad itself.

Oh I see, so thinner glass doesn't really crack as easily.