Add Category
Posted
Neon signs are designed to catch your eye with their bright, flashy colours, but the craftsmanship that goes into making them largely goes unnoticed.
While some processes have been computerised, most of them remain hands-on.
Glenn Campbell has been working with neon signs since the early 1990s.
"I applied for a job and didn't get it, but the guy they put on fell through and I was next in line," he said.
"There were two old blokes there that were doing it and they taught me. They're well and truly retired now."
Mr Campbell said he spent a lot of time practicing bending, joining and cutting the glass tubes before he was allowed to follow a pattern to make a sign.
"Back in the old days it [the design] was done by hand and maybe an overhead projector," he said.
"Now you generally just print it out, and copy it out onto the fibreglass so it doesn't burn when you put the glass on it."
The glass tubes are coated on the inside with a fluorescent powder, which adds to the colour.
"Any neon signs that you see that are red is just neon gas," Mr Campbell explained.
"Most of the other colours have got argon in them. Argon is blue."
Mercury is sometimes added to blues and greens to make the colours glow even brighter.
"I've made things the wrong colour once or twice," Mr Campbell said.
"Then you put it in the bin."
Mr Campbell said while LED signs had taken over much of the traditional neon sign market, there was still a need for hand-crafted glass designs.
"When I was at Claude Neon [his first sign-making job], we'd be doing it all day, every day," he said.
"Now it just comes and goes a bit. Might not do any for a month or two or three, and then you'll get weeks and weeks of it."
A busy week is a good week for Mr Campbell.
"Straights are a bit boring, so you don't want to do too much of those," he said.
"Bending it is the best part."
Topics: craft, human-interest, people, careers, derwent-park-7009, hobart-7000