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Re: "Crackle Neon"
Welll, it's been about 6 years since I made some (and didn't make a whole
lot, mind you) but I recall that:
- Lead glass was all we used
- glass CULLET works best as the filler glass -- this is what you
get when you take molten glass out of a furnace and pour it into a bucket of
water. Y'all have a glass furnace, right? :^)
- bombarding was difficult but not impossible. I believe we did it
numerous times at low amps (150 mA?), rolling the tube around between cycles
-- this way the arc more-or-less spread around the whole tube. At that time
I used heavy-wall plastic tubing to connect the tubulation to the manifold,
fascilitating the rolling. Obviously an oven is the "real" way to do these...
- In use a 10mA transformer works best; Actown now sells a 5,000
volt core-&-coil. Overheating will be pretty severe otherwise.
- For a good time also try a neon + mercury mix and the following
combos:
1) marbles -- roll 'em through and where the space is
constricted the light turns red.
2) longish sections of tubulation (3-4"), w/ spacers
to create "open" areas, forming a sort of internal "gatling gun" effect
3) NOT sparklers...
-Ted Pirsig