Last night I bombarded the fattest tube I have ever pumped. At 100mm diameter, 3mm wall thickness and about 5 feet long, its big.
This one is #borosilicate so I had a boro worker shrink it down and make the seals on a glass lathe.

Bombarding this is tricky, as the 19mm electrode glass is only 1.5 mm thick and will heat up more rapidly than the diffuse arc in the larger, thicker tube. To aid in the process, I wrapped the thick tube in the carcinogenic (but oh so insulative) frax blanket- which helped keep the heat in the middle like a jacket while the exposed #electrode extremities could cool down in between blasts from the bombarder.

I started with sorta normal pressures and currents (about 450ma current at about 5 torr of air) and then eventually ramped up to bombarding with about 1100ma of current at up to 17 torr of pressure! The outside took awhile to cool off and #vacuum out.

Gosh I wanna make one with xenon!

#neon #bombarding #big #glass #tube #work #electricity #nyc

Yesterday an today I made some doodles I had been wanting to make for a bit. Doodles with colors of the Rastafari, Mexican flags and the Palestinian flags- all of which have colors that make a nice warm whites when blended together.

I did change some things here and there with color and size choices to make some colors dim and others pop. I feel like in many ways the size mismatches lead to more fun shapes. Lots of Mica to prevent them from self destructing during bombardment.

I wanna suspend all three in an acrylic box. Just waiting on the CNC que and people running around with july 4th deadlines.... and to make another box. Maybe in the coming days off I will make another CNC file for the triple doodle. Independently dimmable channels over wifi perhaps?

Tricky but fun to make, I made sure to listen to music from each of the places while making them and now I only want to listen to Vicente Fernandez.

#nyc #glass #sculpture #neon #small #light #brooklyn #handmade #bombarding #fire

Snagged some photos of the two "N"s after pumping them (but before dipping in black paint). You can see the glass and electrodes get pretty toasty on that bombarder- basically overpowering the tube to heat it up- all the impurities are burned off an sucked out. When the molecules left behind cool off- they contract- making the vacuum even better in the tube before the argon is added :).

Not too much difference in the ANs. I guess I could have made them the same in hindsight. Ah well, it's all up now in the castle- working to set the fancy vibes to sell the fancy things to the fancy folks. And I am on the other side of the country North of Seattle, headed deep in the woods to Pilchuck Glass School :).

#handmade #neon #sign #work #italian #murano #nyc #commercial #science #bombarding #itselectric #highvacuum #brooklyn

Been super busy with work lately. Lots of neon, and some led programming. Here are two neon timesavers. One is combination bends- these two bends on the bottom of this arm part for my boss Patrick's theatrical production were done in one heat- by blocking the ribbon burner fire with my "block" for the straight section.

Excited for Patrick's play. Centered around themes of misinformation and AI, it will be showing in Manhattan, Edinborough and London (maybe more). There will be a larger than life, moving battery powered neon person.

Another speedy trick was making two pumping doublers. This allows me to bombard 4 tubes simultaneously- and pump 10 tubes an hour while distracted with other things (usually that's only 3). If the tubes are too long, the quad pumping won't work however (too much resistance). These ones are all about 3 feet or less.

#neon #production #theater #tricks #bombarding #busy #work #bending #timesaver #brooklyn #nyc #tricksofthetrade #industry

A rainbow sunrise doodle I made the other day! I have a rainbow of some small scraps that I have been mixing in with #sunrise- a nice, bright warm white. I also want to make a rainbow candle with candlelight -another day. Rainbows with these colors tend to be a little green/blue heavy, so the yellowy orange of the sunrise helps balance things out. I should make a red/ orange heavy rainbow doodle- so many to make so little time.

#doodle #neon #glass #bombarding #muranoglass #nyc #sculpture #art