Custom neon follows your script

Neon artist Charly Conn, left, discusses the proposed artwork with Allen Darrow, who supplied a concept drawing of his signature on 8¹⁄₂ x11" paper.

With a blade for plastics (Bosch T101BR) mounted in his jigsaw, Charly cuts the ¹⁄₂ "-thick black acrylic that will become the back panel of the custom neon sign.

After peeling the protective paper from the acrylic, he wipes down the sheet with Windex to remove static electricity. The custom vinyl decal is ready to apply.

Charly removes the protective paper from the 48"-long vinyl sheet, then smooths the vinyl with a squeegee. He then sets aside the acrylic.

At the propane-fueled ribbon burner, our artist blows air into the glass tube, preventing it from kinking or becoming restricted while he forms tight bends.

With a full-size reverse pattern on his bench, Charly tweaks each bend in the still-warm glass. He continues pushing air through the blow tube.

After heating the end of the first section of tubing, Charly slides an electrode into the tubing. His blow tube prevents the glass from collapsing.

Using the flat bench as a reference surface, Charly presses the warm tubing into the same plane. "Wide curves take a lot of time to allow the glass to cool before heating another section," he notes.

As Charly finishes up the first section, he mounts a second electrode in the tubing and checks his work on top of the reversed pattern.

Nine trips to the ribbon burner and Charly is nearly finished with the first two letters of the second section. Now, he pencils a mark for a section to heat to begin forming the second R.

The last two letters require a second piece of 48"-long glass tubing. After 10 bends, Charly has the two letters formed and then plans placement for another electrode.

To splice the two sections of lettering, Charly uses an electric glass cutter for a clean, precise cut. He plans the splices to place them on what will become the back side of the lettering.

A hand torch heats up the two sections of glass-tubing union. Once again, the blow tube and cork prevent the interior of the glass tubing to be joined from closing.

After joining the two sections of tubing, Charly checks the letters against the pattern one final time. He creates a full-size pattern like the one above for every sign passing through his shop.

After removing air from the glass and then pumping in argon, Charly burns-in the lettering to achieve full brightness.

Charly brushes on a fast-drying block-out paint, formulated for glass and high in pigments, to the tubing between neon letters. When illuminated, this creates the illusion of separate characters.

For a finished look, Charly edges the acrylic back with 1"-wide acrylic trim. He uses a heat gun to create tight bends. To weld the band to the acrylic, he flows on a thin bead of methylene chloride.

After drilling a ¹⁄₈ " hole in the acrylic, Charly attaches clear 1³⁄₄ " tube supports to the sign. This design, using about 17' of tubing, gets two supports on the arrowhead, and 13 tube supports total.

With the neon tubing secured on the tube supports, Charly fits an electrode boot that joins an electrode and a specialty cord capable of handling high voltage that leads to the transformer.

Allen couldn't be more pleased with the final products—so tickled, he asked Charly to build an identical neon sign for his shop. "It's exciting to see my autograph in neon," Allen says. "I love almost every neon sign I see, but no one has a sign like this!"