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NOLANeon

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  • Name
    JS
  • Company
    Noname Neon
  • City & State
    N.O.LA
  • Gender
    Male

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  • Company Type
    Vinyl & Digital Shop

Quick Company Info

  • Equipment
    Welch 1376 10.6 cfm vacuum pump , SVP pyrex manifold and diffusion pump , 20K bombarding transformer , all necessary gauges for processing

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  1. Glad to see you guys back to making th videos. Good video Kgirl, keep 'em coming!!!
  2. Thanks Gary , but if I built it I think just about anyone could . As I see it , it told me how to build itself - all I had to do was look at it and envision a little bit . I knew what I wanted to do and how the burner worked . From there I just had to make a parts list and fab up a few pieces and tinker around with it . In my experience with ribbon burners , the economizer handle has to be in the midway position for the burner to work . Am I right on this ? When the handle is in the up position you just get a fluttery useless flame . Yet when it's all the way down you get full throttle . I didn't want to have to use one of my hands to constantly adjust the economizer so the lexan strip is there to stop it against the force of the door stop spring you see in that picture. The spring is there for the throttle pedal to go wide open and then bounce back to mid position . Yes I know I'm lazy ! They say necessity is the mother of invention , right ? Well , necessity must have a father as well and his name is aggravation ! Many of us glassbenders are known for our occasional bouts of moodiness and irritation or maybe this is just me I'd say this figures in partially in my creation of this contraption and I'd never be without one again . The really good thing about it is that , the way I've got it set , I don't have to come back and adjust the air and gas to get a small heat or a full length heat . All I've got to do is hit the throttle and pull out the slide. The tire rim is ugly but the good thing is that it's made out of mild steel and is easy to drill into . The guys I was working for didn't have one and thought I was nuts but had never seen mine in action . So I just put an igniter part on theirs with the on off foot pedal mounted to the table under the burner (table mounted ribbon burner). The igniter was a coroplast hand paddle over the switch also on the table mounted right under the table top . It didn't have a throttle so I had to always adjust the air and gas back and forth according to the types of curves I was doing . When I was finishing mine up I had a little taste of serendipity - when I mounted the throttle pedal it just so happened to be right where the valve stem came through the rim originally I was amazed when the copper wire fished perfectly through it and lined up with the economizer handle At that point I felt I'd really kind of pulled off something unique but maybe some dead glassbender of yore has already invented one of these ! We'll probably never know that one . If you have anymore questions or want some more pics let me know but as I said , all you've gotta do is look at it and think and envision and anyone could build one .
  3. I'm wondering how much luck you've had finding any . I'm assuming you are using it for unusual/ artistic applications . Someone on ebay has some but they want a lot for it . I remember saving a link a few years ago to a company in lithuania or perhaps Croatia that had uranium glass but when I emailed them I never got a reply. That link may still be in my old computer and I'll see if I can find it . A friend of mine gave me a small piece of the old clear orange . I don't even know what it was called but when you fill it with argon/hg it turns a very intense lime green color which rather baffles me but looks awesome. Does anyone know what this glass is called and who made it ? Good luck with your hunt.
  4. This is the on/off pedal . The copper wire going up turns on the gas and has a spring midway up which isn't shown. The string turns it off . This shows the pulley which reroutes the shoestring to shut off the gas ( I guess this is pretty obvious but I want it to be clear!) This the aluminum ring siliconed in place with the wire attached by a screw which then ties into the ingnition wire . Underneath is the spring loaded electric brush which makes the contact for the secondary . The other trans. lead is bolted to the rim. Ignition wire A lexan scrap used as a stop for the economizer handle I installed to keep it in the mid postition for small curves and a spring to keep it under tension for my foot pedal which kicks it into high for long curves. I'm planning on fabbing up a piece of angle iron and welding or bolting it into place with a thumb screw or the like to set the handle in place in the future . So far the lexan has worked fine though. The throttle ! :) I realize that maybe some will think it's a pile of junk but it's served me well for over 2 years now . The shoe string hasn't even given out ! As I said , I know it needs some improvement and this was a prototype of sorts but it's done alright . I hope it can save some of you some money . I had fun putting it together ! I'd say I probably put in 4 hours on it all told once I had all of my parts . How much do one of the fancy factory jobs cost anyway ? I know someone whose solenoid quit on them not that long ago . I don't have a solenoid or any other relays to fail . You wouldn't need to put the stop or the gas pedal in I suppose but mine is hands free. I'll continue to tinker with it and hope to get it closer to the floor once I have more room . For now I need it to roll . I could get rid of the tire rim for some metal plate I suppose but I don't feel like it right now !
  5. I don't have any relays at all on mine . Afer years of turning everything on by hand and being damned tired of the cumbersomeness of it I came up with my own "Rube Goldberg edition" ribbon burner . Some of you may laugh at it once I post some pics but it cost me about $20 to put it together and some tinkering . I had an old 3500 volt transformer laying around which I mounted to the base of the burner's stand which rolls by the way since my bending area is small . I bought a bracket and made a pedal out of a 2 by 4 and also mounted that to the base under the economizer handle in just the right place. I had a piece of aluminum angle and eyeballed it into the right place too under the pedal on the side I stand on and mounted a momentary switch there so the pedal could hit it when depressed and I screwed in a self tapping screw as as stop to lessen the wear on the switch . I then bought a small pulley to shut the gas off when pressing the other end of the pedal and attached an old shoe string to it . The "on" end of the pedal was attached to the gas shutoff valve with some stripped 14 gauge house wire I had and in the middle of that I attached a spring so the pedal would travel farther than the gas valve and retract when released . Also the momentary switch is spring loaded too so you not gonna get shocked . I then siliconed an aluminum ring I cut out around the base of the burner head as a type of clock style contact - you know , like t hey'd use in a neon clock to make contact with a revolving assembly and used a floating contact out of an old air mattress blower to make contact with the ring . You could use something besides this like maybe even a spring loaded tube support with one of the transformer leads attached to it somehow. I then ran a glass tube through the middle of the ribbon head and bent some more house wire up and ran it through around to the far end of the burner for ignition . All you have to do then is wire up the primary of the transformer through you momentary switch and it 's ready to roll . I did install a stop on the economizer to keep it set in the mid range because I also installed another foot pedal to kick the burner into high mode (all out ) . I'll have to post some pics if you'd like but I've been using it like this for years and it works great . I just have to screw around with the pedal once in a while and really just need to get a better foot pedal . But it is basically hands free - no fumbling with turning on the gas adjusting the economizer or burning myself with a lighter . james
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