Anybody looking for a tubebender? I've always done neon, since getting out of college back in 1981, always worked for large companies, ran glass shops, and can do true miniature (5mm, .75-1"), 3-D, and so on. I was always used for skeletons and worked almost always in rare glass.....the last thing I did was several guitars for Hard Rock and then the shop closed the neon dept (United-Advantage, Oldsmar FL).
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Good time to build your own little neon shop. Alot of good equipment for sale right now. Ive just been doing alot of metal fab. for a local company while I build my own little neon shop. The whole sign industry is suffering right now it's not just neon. It is expensive to live out there so I don't blame you there.
ibonfire. I guess the entire industry is suffering, what with some very big names going under or scaling WAY down. Neon took a big hit, but will never go out, simply because it's such a beautiful form of light, too pretty to be used covered up in a can, Still, it's scary for me because while I wanted to learn other shop duties, I was never allowed to float around the shop.....I CAN sell though, used to always make the lighting presentation to all the clients (national), be it neon, LED, or other, and I'm great at making forecasting curves for any kind of production, based on shop production history, I can also do electrical design, which CAN save a lot of money and maintenance.......
How's business out your way? Where are you located?
I live in phoenix Arizona and business here seems to depend on your specialty. I see mostly that sign companies that specialize in the cookie cutter type signs and service seem to be doing well and outside of a few rough times probably will always do well. The companies that have specialized in custom fabrication on the higher dollar end of the sign business are struggling and the ones who didn't have the resources to survive are gone.
The company I work for by the hour is one of those specialty custom type of shops however they have resources and are bringing in the best automated systems money can buy to compete in the cookie cutter market.
Personally since I also have specialized in higher dollar customs as an employee whether it is metal or glass or plastic or whatever and not always a sign even though it is a sign company I have taken a hard hit financially and mostly work part time based on the amount of work available. Lately I'm often given cookie cutter type jobs to stay busy I'm not very fast at that type of work but they give it to me anyway.
I really enjoy working with glass so I'm building a neon shop and whether or not it becomes successful doesn't concern me much because it is something I will enjoy doing for a living or for a hobby and I've been doing it for 20 years and don't think that will change.
I guess we all have to do what we can to make a living and its never to late to try something new.
I get shown some drawings that I have no idea how I'm going to build what they want and am constantly having to learn to work with new techniques and materials that I've never used before and maybe never will again but the job always seems to get done somehow and the customer always gets what they wanted.
My motto is I'll get it done even if it costs this company every last penny to do it. :)
ibonfire. Arizona is nice, I almost went to work for Fluoresco back in '84 but took a job on Long Island instead (Apollo Neon, now USA Signs of America). I hear you on that "always do neon" thing, I started doing it because I liked it, I'm a political analyst by degree. Didn't know a person could make a living from it, until a local sign shop saw one of my pieces in the window of my apartment, asked me where I got it, next thing you know I find out that I could work for a sign shop making about 3 times what political analyzing was paying, plus I LIKED IT. That was 30 years ago this year.
Lighting will, and must, always be a part of signage, and no one form of it can ever achieve a "monopoly." Sign shops don't seem to realize that proper lighting (electrical) design can save a lot of money, in installation, maintenance and operational costs. It can be the difference between the customer having to ADD another 20A circuit, or not, or having to have thousands of dollars worth of underground wiring put in for that $500 directional sign, or having to send out a service crew every year because the power supply isn't set so it runs as cool as it can, I could go on......
I understand there is definitely a need for electrical engineering but I do have a hard time relating to it because it would be very rare for anything I personally build to need more than 5 amps and 1 amp or less is the normal requirements for the types of things I build.
It used to be different before the electronic ballasts and transformers became dependable.
I learned neon because I had a small letter and install shop and when I say small I mean I didn't even have everything I needed and relied on the kindness of friends in the business to let me use their equipment. I was just a kid out of high school. Anyway I was buying my neon from a local guy and realized it would be a good thing if I learned that aspect also.
The guy new that I was after some of his business but he was willing to take me in as an apprentice anyway. There was a time when all us sign people were friends and helped each other. So I worked for him for an unusually low amount of pay in exchange and also took lessons from another neon guy that owned another neon shop that was a better teacher of neon. So I took lessons at one place and got my practice and work from another while I tried to keep up with the letter business.
Neon was not as quick and easy to learn as I thought it would be even though they all warned me. So I closed the letter business and went full time neon for a while for a couple of places until I was good at it then got a job that I could float around the shop doing and learning everything I could. I never reopened the letter business.
Your skills in electrical engineering (as far as signs are concerned) seem to me like they would be needed in places like Vegas casinos. Do you see a lot of other need for it in the average sign business?
I don't build the really large sign cabinets like 80 footers or anything but the company I work for does and generally they would use those big high pressure sodiums or merc. vapor lamps for something that large. So I guess it could be used in that but do we really have that much choice?
Electrical engineering is something I would like to know more about but in my personal life I would probably only use it for my own experiments in lighting.
Ibonfire. Oh I'm no stamped engineer. Your signs are perfect for 12V supplies, solves a myriad of installation costs, local & national codes regarding power TO the supply, no need for an electrician. Plug the inverter(s) which are not expensive in the size you'd need, into any 120 wall outlet, and run your 12V feeder signs thru-wall, behind wall, under the carpet, in the ceiling, through the ceiling, underground...all legal, and no electrician and a million dollars worth of hardware needed, it's a 12V line, and nobody cares about that, hence all the 12V landscape lighting for sale at all the big-box stores.
Your signs are also ideal for the solar option too.
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