Tue Oct 29, 2019 8:12 pm Author: Duncan York
Hi Rob,
Thanks for the response. Your response pretty much echoes the experience I’ve had while trying to discover neon for myself.
I do find it incredible that literally no one can/will provide actual information.
Neon, so we are told, is quickly becoming obsolete and a dead art; everywhere I look there are stories of how sad it is that neon will “cease to be” in a few short years, or that it’s expense because crafts men are “so hard to find” and “the skills will be lost I’d new people don’t train and replace them”.
I found several “art” articles with interviews by artists like Richard Wheater and Julie Bickerstaff, both of whom were claim to be “happy to help and always available for a chat” with anyone interested in learning neon. I also know that (in Richards case at least) grants to help “keep neon alive by teaching new people the skills“ have been awarded.
This all gave me hope: maybe these people we’re different and would/could help? Sadly not. I’ve contacted them both - more than once In fact , and I’ve received no reply at all from Julie and a response that bombarding transformers will be “available soon for about £20k” from Richard! Which is a ridiculous amount of money - they cost a quarter of that in America and China.
What irks me is: I’ve worked with glass for many, many years. The move to neon, for
me, is a simple one. I need the equipment to gas and prep the tubes and that’s it. I already have the glass blowing, bending, joining skills and I was an electrician for years, so working around high voltages is fine by me.
Like you, I found all the equipment to be American. There is nothing here in UK. You literally can’t buy anything, and no one seems willing to spend any time helping anyone else get starte! There’s NO other field I know of like this: about 10 years ago I wanted to repairing a vintage radio; Within two weeks I’d found people to help. Valves use - lethal - voltages, and no one in the vintage radio crowd had a problem telling me anything I wanted to know, so long as I understood the risks and promised to be careful; the Tesla coil I built was the same - the tech community helped with anything I asked.
Its weird to me that even Welding is the same - I learned to weld a few years ago from some local engineers who had a meeting once a month; they were happy to pass their knowledge on. The live steam model engineers were the same - I got a second hand lathe; cuttings tools; materials; compressor; milling machine, etc. at reasonable cost, very easily and I learned to use them (and still am learning) from kind people who love passing on their hints and tips.
These things are all difficult to master in their own way and they all use high temperature or dangerous machines or lethal voltages - so it’s not that neon is difficult to teach and it’s really not a complex science.
I’ve come to the conclusion that, unfortunately, Neon has become a fad - people who CAN do it, want to keep it to themselves because they can charge for their “skills”; courses teaching neon for £350 a day “intensive” are all a joke: you learn how to bend and cut a hollow glass tube! You can do that at home for less and you’d still own the equipment after you finish so your money would be better spent.
Until I find someone who genuinely knows how to make neon and who is prepared to demonstrate the bombarding and gassing, all I can do is wait, or, guess at how it’s done and try to make my own equipment: gassing is easy enough, the equipment isn’t particularly specialist for piling a vacuum and pressurising a tube, thankfully.
bombarding however... that requires a 20 000 V transformer that goes to an Amp. To build something myself from a pole pig is possible, but honestly I’d rather have the correct gear and know it works.
The fact that I’ve contacted several manufacturers who list bombarding transformers, but their uk prices are insane (as you said) is sad. How can I buy a bombarder in USA for £3000, yet it’s £15,000 here in uk? That can’t be right!
The other advantage to USA is, the have second hand gear coming up constantly. You can get a full set of pump, transformer, rods, gassed, etc. second hand for £2000. That would never happen here.
It a sad fact that there are actually plenty of people here who’d love to give Neon a try. It’s only made prohibitively expensive by something... it’s a 100+ year old technology and it’s almost impossible to get into! Nothing else is like this.
Maybe there’s a business To be made here: Importing and selling all the gear to make neon at a reasonable price and selling it on with a 3 day training course. I’d buy it!
I bet China make some crazy transformers for cheap. All it needs is someone who knows what’s required to import them and package them with the pumping gear and they would have people queueing up.