Post #3549418

2026-07-03 04:55 UTC

Its been fun teaching the first weeks class here at Columbus Glass Art Center. Here are my whiteboard drawings for how a variety of bombarder/ choke systems are wired, and how the neon torches work. Katie, my amazing scientific glassmaking TA is upgrading the pump arm. She was going to do more, but the art center has not gotten their usual grants, so no funds were available for glass valves. Oh well, we will just make do with what we have :). And we are making do! I just hooked the manifold up to the vacuum pump and have it sucking down over night. I believe we have hermeticity. It looks like the neon pump line is looking good. We repainted and resurfaced the pump table to make mercury spills super obvious. They couldn't afford the parts- about $225 worth of glass and machined teflon for the dribble proof, retractable mercury injector that Katie could make. I guess stainless steel and glass syringe it is... and the big bucket of mercury absorbent powder. #ohio #neon #columbus

Replies (1)

@JamesAkers@expressional.social 2026-07-10 04:39

I have been pretty busy in Columbus. We are nearing the end of the second #class - using the neon shop and have almost completely set it up. The cheaper electricians take their time. The students are learning to bend nicely. Picking up where this post l left off before, I had the bombarder wired, but when I went to test it on the last day of the first class it had a loose connection- inside the grounded bombarder box, the coil was disconnected from the ceramic bushing above it. We wanted a safety light for when the bombarder was active, so I made one (the first tube pumped) and then when it broke made another, much nicer one. That is one of my favorite #neon reds- Corning Oxblood Ruby. I want to get a residency somewhere and batch a pot of it- a tricky thing to do because its a cadmium selenium glass and those spew heavy metals into the air (expensive hot air scrubber needed). Bullseye glass has one in Portland Oregon. #bombarder #red #ruby #light #favorite #color #

Open ##3708866