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RE: Vacuum Gaps

Subject: 
        RE: Vacuum Gaps
  Date: 
        Sun, 6 Apr 1997 21:44:02 +0300 (EET DST)
  From: 
        Kristian Ukkonen <kukkonen-at-cc.hut.fi>
    To: 
        Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>


On Sat, 5 Apr 1997, Tesla List wrote:

> I Think that you will find that Neon sign companies employ tubing
> benders, not glass blowers. They never make glass to metal seals. They
> are only required to make simple butt joints when they connect the
> electrodes, which come already installed in a short piece of glass
> tubing.  Neon tubing is thin wall soft glass, which makes it easy to
> Storey Clamp

That's not an absolute truth.

ALL the neon shops I've visited that make their own tubes (rare
nowadays) 
have a pro glassblower - who usually does other glassblowing when he is
not busy with neontubes. Some of them even can work with quartz
(oxyacetylene flame) and one neonshop in Tampere does glass-metal seals
(they have special ovens for this).

Sometimes offering a bottle of booze will get the glassblower do a great
job with difficult glasswork.. Applies for that shop in Tampere. :) That
bottle is a LOT cheaper to acquire than to pay for a "real" glassblower
in
some scientific equipment company (about 150FIM/hour!!!!!). 

These glassblowers are a really good source of information on old
techniques that have something to do with glass. I once had a great
discussion about the manufacture of _precision_ mercury thermometers.
They
had to stop manufacturing them as digital thermometers become cheaper -
EVERY Hg thermometer had to be "calibrated" by drawing a unique scale
and
vaporizing extra Hg etc. etc.. Good old days!

Anyway, don't underestimate the possibilities of neonsign companies!

  Kristian Ukkonen.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Kristian Ukkonen       |  Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the
law |
| kukkonen-at-alpha.hut.fi  |_____  Chance favours the prepared mind 
|-------
| http://www.hut.fi/~kukkonen |  Fear is the mind-killer  |---------
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