Here's the beginning of a fun project that has been eating away at me for some time. To date, the only person that has procar neon art from me is Carl Woerner.
Rather than get hyper-technical turning jpgs into vectors, I started by enlarging images to the desired size. In this case, 48" length. Then I hand draw over the top with width of neon tubing (10mm here), tweaking as needed.
Neon is bent in reverse so it is 'flat' and readable from the front. Keep in mind that neon tubing is 3 dimensional. Excess glass portions are then blocked out (specialized rubbery tar/paint) on the finished piece. Glass underway:
Couple favorite torches include ribbon burners (different lengths and adjustable) and a knife point cannon fire. Cannon provides intense heat without much deflection, so it is perfect for welding glass together and preheating short bends, before transferring heat to a ribbon. The above photo shows what started out as 4' sticks of 10mm tubing after shaping. Although white on white, you can see letters taking shape before being welded together.
On the bombarder being processed. Notice they're still backwards, face side down. Yes - they are two different colors; white and clear glass with straight argon fill. (Closest to replicating 'chrome' feel in neon having more depth. Downside is that when placed with other colors or in direct sunlight it washes out.) Processing requires burning atmosphere and impurities out of the tubing under vacuum with (sometimes) more electricity than it takes to kill someone in an electric chair. When the glass reaches 275 Celsius it is about done... Fun stuff!
Slightly more legible now burning in:
See how some areas are brighter than others? Fresh off vacuum pump being processed, the tiny amount of mercury injected in the tube hasn't vaporized yet. The areas that are brighter have higher concentrations of mercury. An hour on the burn-in transformer will even everything out.
August marks 20 years I've been bending glass for those wondering what I do. Chasing coaches is a hobby. Matter of fact, I'm headed away from the shop tomorrow for another goose chase. Will finish painting and mounting these Eureka scripts next week and update completed works.
Superior logo up next. Thinking white and red on those as there are a lot of Superior ambulances out there...
Rather than get hyper-technical turning jpgs into vectors, I started by enlarging images to the desired size. In this case, 48" length. Then I hand draw over the top with width of neon tubing (10mm here), tweaking as needed.
Neon is bent in reverse so it is 'flat' and readable from the front. Keep in mind that neon tubing is 3 dimensional. Excess glass portions are then blocked out (specialized rubbery tar/paint) on the finished piece. Glass underway:
Couple favorite torches include ribbon burners (different lengths and adjustable) and a knife point cannon fire. Cannon provides intense heat without much deflection, so it is perfect for welding glass together and preheating short bends, before transferring heat to a ribbon. The above photo shows what started out as 4' sticks of 10mm tubing after shaping. Although white on white, you can see letters taking shape before being welded together.
On the bombarder being processed. Notice they're still backwards, face side down. Yes - they are two different colors; white and clear glass with straight argon fill. (Closest to replicating 'chrome' feel in neon having more depth. Downside is that when placed with other colors or in direct sunlight it washes out.) Processing requires burning atmosphere and impurities out of the tubing under vacuum with (sometimes) more electricity than it takes to kill someone in an electric chair. When the glass reaches 275 Celsius it is about done... Fun stuff!
Slightly more legible now burning in:
See how some areas are brighter than others? Fresh off vacuum pump being processed, the tiny amount of mercury injected in the tube hasn't vaporized yet. The areas that are brighter have higher concentrations of mercury. An hour on the burn-in transformer will even everything out.
August marks 20 years I've been bending glass for those wondering what I do. Chasing coaches is a hobby. Matter of fact, I'm headed away from the shop tomorrow for another goose chase. Will finish painting and mounting these Eureka scripts next week and update completed works.
Superior logo up next. Thinking white and red on those as there are a lot of Superior ambulances out there...