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Re: single wire electrode
Posted By: Don Miner In Response To: Re: single wire electrode (SVP Neon Equipment)
Date: Tuesday, 17 August 2010, at 11:15 a.m.
> A little history and trivia: Single wire
> lead glass electrodes were sometimes used
> before the advent of tubulated electrodes.
> IMO it was a money saving effort. Back then
> materials were more valuable than wages.
> Once the tubulated electrode was invented it
> obviously required two wires. I'm not sure
> exactly when tubulated electrodes became
> available, but two-wire lead glass
> electrodes were available at least as early
> as 1935, and most likely before then. Dumet
> wire was also available before that time as
> it was developed for vacuum tubes (radio
> tubes) as well as lead glass electrodes,
> both of which were made of lead glass. Dumet
> was used because it has a COE that closely
> matches that of soft glass. The other
> characteristic of dumet is the glass will
> easily 'wet' to the wire and form a reliable
> vacuum tight seal.> During the first hey-day of neon there were
> a lot of companies offering their
> "magical" rendition of electrodes,
> some of which looked unusual (as has been
> mentioned here) but did not perform any
> better than the next brand. At one time
> there was even an electrode specifically
> made for mercury repairs. When heated it
> released hydrogen into the tube, which
> chemically combined with the mercury that
> was absorbed into the powder and liberated
> it so it could be "pumped out".
> (Can you imagine what the tree huggers would
> do with an idea like that these days?) Some
> older benders may have learned to do mercury
> repairs by pumping the tube once and then
> back filling it with either natural gas or
> propane and bombarding a second or third
> time. They didn't usually know why it helped
> clean the mercury out of the tube, they just
> knew it worked. It's because natural and
> propane gas contains a fair amount of
> hydrogen, so it worked in the same way that
> the hydrogen electrodes did.
Thanks Mark, I always wondered why or how this trick worked. Peace and prosperity to one and all! Don
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