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neon: it's alive!
Aug. 18th, 2004 11:48 pmAt 18:00 tonight:
![[CZ sign, glass shaped but not cut]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/42b9c4d57741/172642-210980/splorg.org:8080/people/tobin/projects/neon/cz_shaped2.jpg)
At 21:00 tonight:
![[CZ sign, glass shaped but not cut]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/8e3776e19f2f/172642-210980/splorg.org:8080/people/tobin/projects/neon/cz_alive.jpg)
It's for Casa Zimbabwe. Or the Czech Republic. Or it's the starship Enterprise.
neon lab II
Jul. 28th, 2004 07:53 pmIn the first lab (last week), I learned how to make splices. This week Dennis taught me how to make 90 degree and 180 degree bends in the glass. Compared to making splices, making bends is quite simple. Splices are quite difficult to get right, but the bends are pretty easy to get. It just takes a little practice to make them nicely. (They do splices first intentionally so that everything else will seem easy.) I made something like a dozen 90 degree bends and three 180 degree bends. The 180 degree bends didn't come out well, so I still have to work on that.
To make a 90 degree bend, you measure out one tube's width in either direction of the center of the bend. Mark these on the glass on what will be the "inside" of the bend in pencil. Heat this whole region uniformly until it's glowing a nice red (the graphite in particular glows red). Then you pull the glass up out of the fire, and, moving both hands, bend the glass into position, with the bend pointed straight down (so that it doesn't sag off-axis due to gravity). While bending, blow into the hose to inflate the "kink". Then place the bent glass on the table (on top of a metal screen on top of your pattern) and adjust it to be perfect, and let it cool.
![[sample 90 degree bends of varying degrees of wellformedness.]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/480ac4bb9103/172642-201151/splorg.org:8080/people/tobin/pictures/ucsd/neon_w.jpg)
neon lesson one
Jul. 22nd, 2004 10:09 pmThree hours in the neon lab tonight for my first tutorial! I got my 'toolbox' (which is a toolbox full of various goodies) and then set to work with the first lesson -- joining glass. Basically you take a glass tube, cut it into little pieces, and then try to put it back together again.
The tubes are surprisingly strong, but if you score them ever slightly with a metal file, you can easily and cleanly break them into pieces.
To join two pieces of glass, you put a cork in the end of one of the pieces and you attach a rubber tube to an end of the other piece, and this tube leads to your mouth. You heat the exposed ends of the tube pieces in the flame until they're glowing rather brilliantly, and then you bring them together. By varying the air pressure and by pushing and pulling gently and with repeated cycles of heating you can fuse the glass back together.
But it's quite tricky. Blow too hard or while the glass is too hot and you'll blow the glass up into a little balloon (!) just as if it were some thin plastic. Then it will rupture. The glass becomes quite fluid, so you have to be careful not to stretch or bend it unintentionally.
I did a bunch of trial welds, and got one or two that I was happy with. It's tricky!
