Speaker 1: All right, well, welcome to the Paul Junior Podcast. Today,
I have Mark Provenzano from Never Ending Neon, and uh
Mark is is quite an artist. He's done all the
neon in my shop, pretty much everything that that you
see when I post these little videos that go around
the shop, the Hudson sign, the service sign, and probably
my favorite sign of all this this Pegasus horse, which
is extremely rare and unusual.
Speaker 2: Welcome Mark, Thanks, Paul. I'm glad to be here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So let me tell you, man, it's been really interesting
working with you. I look through the years of building motorcycles,
I'm always looking for people who have unique skill sets,
and unquestionably neon is a unique skill set. Bending it,
the nuances to it, tracing it, knowing the skill of
it is very difficult thing, as I understand, to master.
Speaker 2: I've never tried it. But we've talked about this.
Speaker 1: And uh so I'm always looking out there for trades
that are kind of dying, like there's no one coming
in behind you. So tell me a little bit about
like your background it is, uh, it is dying.
Speaker 3: When I got into neon, I guess nineteen eighty three.
I learned from three masters. I got very lucky and
the guy had taught me.
Speaker 2: He uh.
Speaker 3: I wasn't sure if I wanted to do neon. And
then an article came out in the Bergen Record and
said in the whole country there were only three hundred
glass blowers.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: And I said, let me, let me look into this.
And when I read about it, I dove into neon
one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: Then was it the art or the opportunity?
Speaker 2: I think it was the art. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I never knew I was an artist until I started
doing neon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I really can't draw.
Speaker 1: And so and this guy, he taught you basically everything
you know.
Speaker 2: No. I started with the.
Speaker 3: Dick Ryan up in ten Flying, New Jersey. He had
a little neon shop in the back of his house
and I came in there. I think I went to
school for a year. I mean every I was doing
two three hours a day for a year.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: And even then I was barely good enough to get
a job. Because when you go into a neon field,
a lot of kids don't know anything.
Speaker 2: And when they come in.
Speaker 3: Your your boss or the new place you're working, they
want you to have experience already.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: The only way to get experience is to get out
there and right.
Speaker 1: And that's a common problem even today with any trade.
It's like, if you know, no one really wants to
give you a shot, but they want you to have experience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then the only way to get experience is
to get in fires and get there in the trenches
and fail a lot, to be honest, and that's what
you have to learn from is keep going on and
keep going and just learn from your your past.
Speaker 1: So you kind of came into Neon through necessity, really
looking at it as an opportunity to have well income.
Speaker 2: Well, I was.
Speaker 3: I was in college and I wasn't really sure what
I wanted to do, and all of a sudden I
had a summer job working for a sign supply place
and I got to know the old time glassblower. I'm
telling you, Dick Ryan and a couple of my friends
were already going there and they were practicing. They said, Hey,
come on down, you'll Dick Ryan and you'll teach you.
And I'm like, I don't know if I want to
bang glass. And next thing you know, I saw that
article I told you, and I dove into it one
hundred percent. And those two guys who got me started
they actually worked for me.
Speaker 2: Later on, years later.
Speaker 1: Really, and you probably had some good glassbenders then, huh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my buddy Johnny was as good as I am. Yeah,
but Arthratis killed him. How long does it take to
get good?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Because I'll tell you from my perspective, Like when I
look at it, right, I have a skill set. Right,
I can't bend glass just yet. Maybe we'll get to that,
maybe I don't. But then when it comes to you know, welding, grinding, fabricating,
coming up with ideas approaches, troubleshooting, all that stuff has
been a special skill set that I have. And I
know what it took for me to kind of get there,
at least from a mechanical standpoint. And I started with
my father when I was geez twelve years old, painting,
you know, dipping rallings and a big vat of paint,
sweeping the worst, dirtiest jobs. I did that for years,
and I worked my way up to on the side,
I would start practicing welding, and eventually I got good
at that, and once I was able to master some
of the start, it is it is and and then
you know, from there, you know, I got opportunities to
build some rallyings, make some other stuff, and then I
became a full time fabricator and that probably took me
a I don't know, I'd say probably at least a
year of being around it to get into the bigger
stuff like rallings and stairs. So what's it take to
actually become a neon bender.
Speaker 3: Well, the first job I got was in the biggest,
one of the biggest wholesale sign shops in the whole area.
And I was thrown right into the trenches. You know,
remember the Castle Casino down to Atlantic City. Yeah, fifteen
foot letters castle.
Speaker 2: Wow. I had make three sets my first job. I
looked at that.
Speaker 3: There's no way, I'm looking at it like a giant,
like it was Chinese.
Speaker 2: I was like, how am I going to do this?
And I was ready to quit.
Speaker 3: And my buddy John, who worked for me like years later,
he worked for the Science Apply place, and he had
delivery there and I'm there, I'm ready to leave, I'm
ready to walk out.
Speaker 2: I'm done.
Speaker 3: And he pulls up to the garage and he sees
me and he starts laughing and I started laughing, and
I'm like, and I didn't walk out, So I give
him credit because I was ready.
Speaker 2: I said, I'll find something else. What was it? Just?
Speaker 1: Was it just trying to figure out how to approach
the job in general, or just the enormity of it.
Speaker 2: You know, how to approach it?
Speaker 3: How to Yeah, I had to make a pattern of
a fifteen foot letter I'm looking at you know when
I learned.
Speaker 2: I learned on little tiny letters. I'm like, what do
I do here? Right?
Speaker 3: And you know, I've actually noticed you when you were
building a bike, you had the same look on your face.
Speaker 1: So you're going, You're going, he could be daunting at times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you'll just stare at it for an hour and
go and all of a sudden you'll be like, that's yeah,
what happened?
Speaker 1: Okay, because one day it hit me. It's interesting, took
me like three years of bending, but by that time,
you already knew how to bend glass. You knew how
to use the torches and and the forges or well.
Speaker 3: Neon's a funny thing because after you know, working their year,
I was not very good, and I'm thinking, am I
ever going to be good at this? And then you know,
repetition doing it again and again and again, and one
day it hit me and I never looked back from
that moment.
Speaker 1: So they kept you employed for a year and you
weren't that good at your job. Basically, really, wow, that's
a really good thing. I'll tell you why, because I
think in today's day and age, a lot of people
will try something for a very short period of time
and not be able to pick it back up, like,
not be able to get it. Maybe they're not inclined right,
and then they just give up. But I think maybe
to your point, if you hang in there long enough
and it's something you really want to do, I think
people are more resilient than they give themselves credit for it.
I think true people in general can do more than they.
Speaker 2: Think they can do.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, I agree with you there because a
lot of people I started with. I mean I was
going to school. There were like fifteen people and only
three of us came out of that class. Oh really,
and uh both of them work for me? Was it
a conventional like class? Like you just like look in
the paper and it's like, no, you went to where
the guy's shop was. I knew the guy, okay, because
I delivered Neon supplies to him for like four or
five years, so you work for a distributor before you
learn to bend neon.
Speaker 1: Oh so that was your That was interesting, So that
was kind of your.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: And if you told me then that I was going
to be a glass blower thirty years from now, I'd
be like, no way, really never thought i'd be.
Speaker 2: A glass blower. So wait a minute.
Speaker 1: So coming into it, that's interesting because you probably knew
all the different size tubing, the gases. You probably knew
the ins and outs of the equipment, not as much
as you think, because neon's a funny thing. You'll see
like one of my parts and you'll have no idea
what it's for, and you go years not even knowing
what it's for, and all of a sudden you're in
that sign shop and you see that part that you're
never being used, and you're.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, wow, that's interesting. It's a funny thing.
Speaker 3: How many aspects of this business there are the unbelievable amount.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: So walk me through what it is to bend neon
because I'm super curious, like, what are the stages?
Speaker 2: Right? What is the process like?
Speaker 1: And don't leave anything out because I know there's like
a vacuum, and there's gases.
Speaker 3: And there's different There are two processes to neon. First the
fabrication of the tubes and then you've got to process
the tube and put the gas in. So there are
two things that you have to do. One can't live
without the other, okay, so you got to get proficient
at both of them because you could be the best
glass blower in the world.
Speaker 2: If you have a terrible pumping system, it's not gonna do.
You're not gonna make it. You're not gonna make it.
Speaker 1: So like, basically, because we've done this here right where
you took like this service sign here, which we have
the time lapse and the video coming out. So basically
you have to what what's the first step.
Speaker 3: Well, you got to do the design, so you got
to look at it and figure out how you're gonna
make it, and you do your pattern. While I'm doing
my pattern, I'm like, oh, okay, I'll do it this way,
I'll do it that way. And you're creating a puzzle.
This is what you're doing, and you got to figure
out the puzzle. And every Neon sign is a puzzle.
Like if you go to my my Facebook page, never
ending Neon. The first page is a Neon motorcycle and
it's pretty big. It's like five ft long. It took
me almost a week to figure out how to make it. Really,
and you got to put all these pieces and make
them separately and then figure out how to get them
wall in there.
Speaker 1: And don't you generally make things backwards the way your
bends are, so basically you're always working backwards backwards like
reverse almost like words.
Speaker 3: I've learned how to read backwards because of it. It's
pretty interesting. Never thought that, Yeah, because everything I do
is backwards.
Speaker 2: Me too, though.
Speaker 1: That's that's good, that's interesting.
Speaker 3: So so you got to you got to do that design.
And once you get your layout and you get it
old lad, and I have I transfer the I do
it on tracing paper first, and then I got to
transfer that to uh. I use a fiberglass like fireproof paper, okay,
and I transfer everything to that.
Speaker 1: That way, you can lay the hot glass right down
on it and I don't burn a hole in my table, gotcha.
But once you do that, then you got to sit
there and go, okay, figure out how to make it
this way and make it work because a lot of
times I'll start, especially an intricate design. I'll start it
one way and I'll go hmm. In the middle of
doing it, I'll go, well, maybe if I do it
this way, it'll be better. And nine times out of
ten it is better.
Speaker 3: And once you do that and you get good at that,
and you get your puzzle together, you got a whole
vacuum system where you got to You gotta pull a
vacuum in the tube because neon can only work in
an atmosphere by itself.
Speaker 1: So pull vacuum means no oxygen.
Speaker 3: No oxygen, no air, nothing. And I deal with this
thing called the bombarded. Bombard is high voltage. It's got
to get that tube up to five hundred degrees of
the interior temperature. And what that does, It vaporizes all
the impurities inside the tube, okay, and the vacuum pump.
Speaker 2: Pulls out those impurities. And I guess about. You got
to wait about ten minutes and then your tube is.
Speaker 1: Ready because it's pure or it's it has no eminence.
And then you could introduce what what gases do you guys?
Speaker 3: Well, there are several gases they use, but mainly it's
neon gas, which is red right like your Hudson sign.
That is the color of neon gas.
Speaker 2: Is that what this is too? Okay?
Speaker 1: So the horse is neon gas.
Speaker 2: That is the color of neon gas. Okay.
Speaker 1: So that's a clear tube that glows red. That's what
neon gas does, glow red.
Speaker 2: And it's funny. People don't know. Neon is just a nickname.
Its real name is cathode lighting. People don't know that.
What is it?
Speaker 3: Cathode cathode lighting, and that is the general name of it.
Now you have other like when you get colors like
the blue that has argon in it, and argon working
with a little drop of mercury because the mercury when
it vaporizes.
Speaker 2: It brightens up the argun.
Speaker 3: Uh Like, if you don't put mercury in the tube
like that, it'll light dull.
Speaker 1: So like an eye dropper mercury or is it a gas?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Really, yeah, you don't realize that. And every fluorescent bulb
has a little drop.
Speaker 2: Of mercury in it too. Really, it's the same.
Speaker 3: Guests they use argon in you know, interior lighting and
roll the lights on the street, which now will become led.
They're trying to oh sorry, sorry, they're trying to eliminate
the old fluorescent bulbs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so tell me about that, because I'll tell you
I've seen LEDs, you know, through the years building motorcycles.
LEDs have been actually a very good thing in certain cases,
right from lighting and you know, you get up under
the fender, you could really work with light. You could
change them. Now, they do all kinds of things, but
in my opinion, esthetically they do not replace Neon.
Speaker 2: They just don't have.
Speaker 1: The same characteristics, the same aesthetic, right, They just don't
sell like Neon does. Neon is such a unique thing
to me, and like I said, you know, I got
really I probably could have went that route, but I
would have never been able to look at it because
I love what Neon does, the way it glows, the
way it makes you feel, and the way it makes
advertising pop out.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: LED light is a directional light. It only goes one way.
Like if you see most signs, it just lights out
out right. Neon is three sixty yeah.
Speaker 1: And I guess that's how you're able to light out
and light back this right here.
Speaker 3: If you had LED, the horse wouldn't light up. It
would just you wouldn't see that interesting. It would be
dark actually, Now let me ask.
Speaker 1: You a question you mentioned earlier. What when in eighty
three would you say there was only how many people
in the country, like three hundred people. Do you think
that number has gone down or do you think it's
maintained about the same.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 3: Well, social media has helped it. You open up and
I got to meet most of the glass blowers throughout
the whole country, okay, because there is a page dedicated
to just glass blowers, and I could go in there.
Let's say I need like a piece of material.
Speaker 2: I can't find.
Speaker 3: I'll go in there and I'll put anybody have any
of this? Ah, And then you'll find a guy from
Montana says, yeah, I got some of that.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's interesting. So you guys kind of network amongst
yourselves because you aren't kind of a rare trade out there.
Speaker 3: We had to, Yeah, because certain places about Lord Neon,
oh really, North Jersey, Bergen County. Almost every town has
out Lord Neon really because the reason, well, I guess
in the late eighties early nineties, everybody got on the
Neon bandwagon, and people who didn't understand and didn't know
the installation we're putting up and malls and all of
a sudden there was a mallfire. The Neon burned down
a mall up in Central Jersey. I can't remember which one,
but they changed all the laws then no kid, and
they changed the codes they had. They had a whole
section of the Electrical Handbook with the codes, and they
had a whole section for Neon. And I asked them,
I go, what glass blowers work with you on, you know,
getting this together, and they said none. I said, so
you created a code without anybody, you know, experts, with
no experts because I questioned things they did which were
crazy and fell upon deaf ears.
Speaker 1: I've seen this in like historical areas where you have
all victorians, and I think Kate May's won. They don't
even allow much for signage, never mind neon. So I
could see why in some cases they'd want to keep
up the esthetic historically, but to just eliminate it all
together in a more industrialized area, that seems kind of
like like they jumped the gun, you know, But I
get it to a certain point. But I've also seen neon.
I think I was just looking at I want to
say it's Japan and certain parts, certain countries have just
neo yeah, spec or Hong Kong.
Speaker 2: That's what that's what it was.
Speaker 1: Hong Kong is like and it's a giant piece of art.
Speaker 2: It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 3: There are many Neon factories that went to Hong Kong
to get their stuff, to get their glass, like all
these little things you see on the shelf in the Walmart,
little like palm trees, that's all from China.
Speaker 2: Really, they just they just mass produce it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's been another battle I've been fighting
because those products from China are so much cheaper, hard
to compete with.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: But they're more cookie cutter. They're not doing this service
act or this horse so is that.
Speaker 2: But that is a percentage of my business that I've lost.
Speaker 1: Really, the smaller custom stuff that you could just go
buy a Christmas tree shape Neon whatever.
Speaker 2: Yep, oh, yep.
Speaker 3: Interesting, it's a battle I've been fighting. But the going
back to the mall, they changed all the codes and
they made Neon safe ever since nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 2: That's when they.
Speaker 3: Changed the codes. And you've never seen a Neon fire since,
and all the towns.
Speaker 2: Don't know that.
Speaker 3: So if you go for permit, let's say paramus first
line on their permit.
Speaker 2: No neon first line.
Speaker 3: But a lot of towns would make the half the
vendors in town take down their neon stegn. It's been
in their window for twenty years not bothering anybody. So
uh in Short Hills that they did a class action
lawsuit against the town and they won.
Speaker 2: Really, so it is.
Speaker 3: A state law that you are allowed to put a
neon sign in your window and the town cannot stop you. Interesting,
but nobody went to the towns to tell them this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mentioned, is that right? So they just saw
it was still no one was educating them, basically, and.
Speaker 3: The big glass manufacturer, their sales rep he was one
of the big guys in the industry to keep it going,
And I told him, I said, why don't you go
to towns and educate them on this. I go because
they're not getting neon, which in the long run affects
you because nobody's buying those neons.
Speaker 2: Of course.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's not just the original sign, which is great, right,
it's also repairs. If there's no neon signs, then you
have no work to repair, right, So I mean it
probably it's kind of a trickle down. So let me
ask you a question. What's the lion's share of your work?
Is it stuff like I bring you these original pieces,
or is.
Speaker 2: It these days? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I am I Right now I have a I
just got a restoration up in a long branch. It's
an old moving sign, but it's pretty big. It's like
thirty feet long, five feet high, and it's got old
neon on it, really, and they want to bring it
back to its original you know self.
Speaker 1: And it will be in its original position. It's not
just like like what I have here, No, it's it.
Speaker 3: Is an actual legitimate business, have been in business like
one hundred years. So they want to put their old
sign up. And uh, you know that's where I know
my future is right here, is restorations because new signs there,
they're led windows signs are coming up everywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah I can see that. Yeah, they're hard to compete with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're one third the price. Yeah, and it's that's
even harder to compete with.
Speaker 1: So then this is your bread and butter, because no
one with an original sign like what I collect is
ever going to put LEDs on it, not ever, because
it just it hurts it as a matter of fact,
these signs a lot of like this horse I had
for years without Neo on it until we started talking
and you did the pattern and did the neon, and
I'll tell you, uh it really I think it increases
the aesthetic, of course, but it also ups the value
because the person who you might sell it to doesn't
have to do that, and they're very unfamiliar. Mostly people
are afraid of neon. I will say this, it's fragile.
I'm afraid of it. It's I don't like to go
near it because I break everything like I would. Yeah,
like you know, like especially, Neon's easy to break.
Speaker 2: You ump it, you know, trust me.
Speaker 3: I'm I should have gone into demolition, and here I am.
I chose to trade that delicate. Yeah, yeah, so I
had to learn how to be delicate. And I just
look at it this way.
Speaker 2: Neon. You treat it like a baby. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And if you treat it like a baby, you should
never have a problem, right, you know, except for once
in a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah. How often does stuff break?
Speaker 3: I mean it depends on where it is, yeah, and
who's around it. Because I worked with one shop, they
had this guy working there. Every time he picked up
a piece of neon repair for my shop. He'd come
back five minutes later because he broke it, and I go,
you better stop doing it. They're gonna think you work
for me.
Speaker 2: So let me ask you a question.
Speaker 1: What's what's dangerous about neon? I know it's got what amps?
Are the amps dangerous?
Speaker 2: It's high voltage? High voltage?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, And that's only the transformer inside the neon.
Speaker 3: Yes, And that is the key to making neon safe
is to use the right materials and properly put it together.
Because a lot of guys just you know, you should
see some of the signs and come through. Oh my god,
no idea how they haven't closed fires?
Speaker 1: Like even down here, you mean they're you mean they're
put together poorly or they're just the way they're wired
isn't proper.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like right down the road here, remember the Grasshopper
used to be a restaurant on the north side of
s too, Like okay, it's a different place now, but
they had an old Neon sign outside and had old
neon on it.
Speaker 2: And I had to.
Speaker 3: Do a service call and I come in and I
opened it up and I said to him, I am
not touching this thing. I said, I got to rip
this apart and rewire this whole sign because everything in
here is a fire hazard. And the day I'm supposed
to come down here fix it, the owner of the
company calls me up. He's like, sign's on fire. I go, well,
shut it off. And the fire department they had to
come down and you know, hose down the sign and
did you start over on it? I did some things,
but the fire chief I had to give him a
lesson in neon because I explained to him what happened
here and he said, I never even realized that.
Speaker 2: Ye, And that's, like I said, education.
Speaker 1: So aren't some of the like standard norms of electrical
function applied, like what an electrician would be.
Speaker 2: Familiar with, or electricians are afraid of? Neon? Also okay,
because it's it's a different um how do way? How
do you phrase it?
Speaker 3: It's a different way to use electricity that they're not
familiar with. It's not like regular house wiring. It is
a different level. It actually steps up the trans The
transformer takes the one ten voltage and jump steps it up.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, now will that jump out at you? Could that jump?
Could could it jump off the transformer in a bad situation.
Speaker 2: Not usually, No, unless you're in the back of the
sign and you're right near your heads right in there. Oh,
trust me, And that's happened. Have you gotten hit? Yeah? Really,
it's not fun.
Speaker 1: Where where like do you know where the electricity went in?
Speaker 3: It happened too. It happened two weeks ago to me
really where I was doing a repair and somehow the
cord was in the plug and I touched the wire
and the plug went in because I didn't think it
was plugged in, and I'm likely it just went through
my Yeah, through your chest, through your chest and you
lock up a little bit. But it hurt for like
two or three days really, and I went on, man,
like your bones hurt, like almost arthritic. It's just a
weird kind of feeling.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've had that with welding, you know, especially Bade. Yeah,
back in the day, man, when we stick welded. Sometimes
you go like climb up a column or be on
a ladder and and you be carrying the stick and
sometimes at ground and that would it would ground out
and then it would just go through you and you
could get stuck in that position. It could be very
dangerous if you if you're in there long enough. Now,
usually it just zaps you and then you're on a
ladder or right, that's the problem if your fall, the
fall will you right now? So I've been shocked little
shocks dozens of time, maybe you know, hundreds of times,
to be honest with you, but nothing like what you're
talking about, because.
Speaker 3: That you have to learn not to get shot. Yeah,
once you get shot, you're like, all.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, you don't want to do that again, that's sure. Yeah,
I can see that interesting.
Speaker 3: And the different transformers, like the like the old bombs
that you got in this thing.
Speaker 2: They that hurts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a fifteen thousand Bold transformer. I mean the
milliamps those that's what really kills you there. This one's
probably like thirty millionamps. And uh, if you get hit
with an amp, you're dead. Really, so it is the
voltage is higher, but the milliamps that's what gets you.
Speaker 2: That's what kills you.
Speaker 1: No kidding, yeah, now I'm getting afraid of neon. No, No,
I'm just kidding. This thing buzzes, though. I think we
got to put like something in there to quiet it down.
Speaker 3: Well, people don't realize that especially with the old transformers.
There's a corona of electricity about an inch around the tube.
So if you touch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can feel it when you touch it, when
you get close to it, you can feel the electricity.
Speaker 2: Really, you can. Yeah. People get scared by that. They
think I'm gonna liket. You're cute.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, And when you touch it, it kind of
gravitates towards your finger, almost like a you know what
I'm talking about. It's kind of like a Tesla ball
type sort of thing, right, yep.
Speaker 3: Actually, it's some signs, especially how they're installed where they're installed.
Speaker 2: It affects the tube more than others.
Speaker 3: Like you know, I learned, like they put borders in windows,
and somehow the molding is attracted to the electricity.
Speaker 2: So I'll be working on a sign and I'll put
my hand on the molding. It'll be warm. Oh I'll
get a shock.
Speaker 3: Oh really and that will free people out? Oh, because
it charges it Yeah, not I mean smallest amount, but
it's kind of like when you rub your feet on
a rug and touch someone sort of thing, like a
quick little spark. It's not quick, it's if you keep
your hand there, you'll keep getting shot out. Really but
it's a low voltage. Yeah, and that scares people. Interesting,
but you know that's why you got to use the
right materials and how you install it to a major
major difference.
Speaker 2: YEA.
Speaker 3: Like some guys will just throw wires and lay them
in everywhere, and next thing you know, you're getting arcs
and right throwing.
Speaker 2: Or warm up. I know that.
Speaker 1: I know those big transformers could get get harm. They
can get warm. If they get hot, that means they're
going bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But the new ones, the solid state ones that are
in I use in these two. They that's a whole
different creature because the way the transformers made.
Speaker 2: These are all got a circuit board, there's.
Speaker 3: A solid state These have corn coil, which is copper
wrapped around a magnet.
Speaker 2: Right. They're a little bit more old school. Yeah, and
that that gets you. And they're like twenty pounds or
more that that transform was thirty five pounds. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And you if you're on a you're on a ladder
in front of a store and you've got to take
one of these bombs out and sometimes you're like, oh man,
how am I doing this? And you barely get the
thing out of there. Where Now the little solid state ones.
Speaker 2: Bang easy, Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: Well that's good. Technology is coming up. So what's your
biggest what's the biggest sign you ever worked on?
Speaker 3: Well, there were a couple pretty big ones. Uh the
Budweiser Eagle in Newark is.
Speaker 1: Oh that Anheuser bush, that big one in Newark on
when you go to the airport.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's the biggest neon sign I've ever seen.
Speaker 3: So thirty two foot circle. Wow, and there's over five
thousand feet of glass.
Speaker 2: Does that thing rotate? Yep? Wow? It is so impressive.
Speaker 3: It is impressive if you go on the roof and
see what you have. You have this because the electricity,
if you.
Speaker 2: Have it spinning right, you have to have a contactor, right,
which is what like is it like a drags?
Speaker 3: Basically it is the base of the sign, which was
like this big, and that base is electrified.
Speaker 1: Is it like a third row on it for a
train something like that? It's similar, right, because the train's
moving and it's getting powered.
Speaker 3: Very similar actually, And like that's so, I think there
are one hundred and forty different circuits twenty am circuits
on that sign.
Speaker 1: Really light, Yeah, it is how many? How many linear
feet of neon tube.
Speaker 2: Do you think's on that thing? Over a mile? Really? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Wow, there's seven layers. The eagle is the part that's
flying seven layers And.
Speaker 2: Uh who made that sign? Do you know? Originally? Yeah,
I worked for the company Artcraft Strauss in New York City.
They used to do old.
Speaker 1: Times Square really the big stuff, the big stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 3: They did the ball on New Year's Eve, the Time
Square building.
Speaker 2: They had a Neon ball at one time. That was it.
Speaker 3: Well it wasn't neon, it was electrical, but their company did.
Speaker 1: They had a flashing crazy yeah coming down.
Speaker 2: They had to do that whole thing.
Speaker 3: And Uh, I said to my foreman, I go, you
you do something.
Speaker 2: That the whole world goes by?
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, because everybody looks at Times Square Times Square
and he goes, I lost.
Speaker 3: Its luster years ago. But I got to wire that sign.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: I was put in charge of the wiring for the
Budweiser Eagle and.
Speaker 2: Uh like a rewiring or the we had to run.
Speaker 3: They had a giant four x eight panel made by
an electrical engineer and you had to run the wire
from that panel to make it flash, and to make
it you know fly basically, So you had to run.
You had to wire miles of water, and you had
to mark the wire on one end.
Speaker 2: With the same oh, so you knew where the end was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the same color. So you had to have color
and number, and each wire had its own color and
own number.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: So on the panel you had the number there that
wire went to the sign and you had to toach
it there, so go and sequence the right way. It
was a major project, and I think I don't think
it's working right now because I don't know if there
are any companies that have the people that know how
to make it work.
Speaker 2: Fix it. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 3: The one company they were doing the service on it,
and a friend of mine was on the job and
he was the foreman on that.
Speaker 2: He's not with him anymore. Interesting, so I have no
idea who's doing that.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess you really can't talk Neon without talking
Las Vegas, right, I mean, is it isn't that like
the Neon capital at least of the country, or or
it was.
Speaker 2: It is the proving ground for Neo.
Speaker 3: Interesting, the new product comes out normally Vegas is the
one that uses that product, and then it spreads out
from there. Through the country and the world actually really,
but they had a town ordnance.
Speaker 2: I believe that.
Speaker 3: Every you had to have at least like twenty five
percent of your signage had to be Neon.
Speaker 1: Amazing, so the opposite of the problem you had around
here with them not allowing it, right.
Speaker 3: I almost moved to Vegas twenty five years ago, really,
and somebody in the industry said, you're in a place
where they need skilled glass blowers. He goes, you would
be wise to stay where you are, And I didn't.
Speaker 1: Move because I can see that maybe there's a concentration
of glass blowers and Neon guys in the Vegas area
at least at one time, maybe because there was so
much the service and people were still putting it up.
Now a lot of those old buildings they've knocked down
the golden nugget, all these right, although the old Vegas
is where everything used to be.
Speaker 3: The Riviera had to best Neon display ever, Yeah, and
you just I don't know where they put that.
Speaker 1: But there is a Neon museum in a sign museum
in Vegas, and they've saved a lot of these giant signs.
Speaker 2: They have some property.
Speaker 1: I haven't been to it, but I've seen stuff online
about it pretty pretty cool man preserving history.
Speaker 2: Years ago it was a little lost on me.
Speaker 1: Now I have a great appreciation for that stuff, you know,
because it's it's American history when you.
Speaker 2: Think about it, definitely a museum. Yeah, but you that
place is funny.
Speaker 3: You have different prices for daytime viewing and nighttime viewing.
You paid ten dollars more to see it at night
with all the lights linking right.
Speaker 2: It really well.
Speaker 1: The thing is, if neon creates an experience that you
can't get with pretty much anything else, not light bulbs,
not LEDs, you know, it has its own it has
its own soul, I would say, in my opinion of
just creatively, it just it jumps out at you.
Speaker 3: Just a friend mine, who's are artist that I've worked with,
Actually a piece of neon in Venice, Italy right now.
Really And the guy I worked with, he dealt with
iron and he would build like, you know, tubes of
iron and he would.
Speaker 2: Build something and I would go.
Speaker 3: Along the iron with the piece of neon and pretty
good stuff. And he said to me, and I've never
forgot he said this to me, like fifteen twenty years ago.
He goes led comes from a factory in China. Neon
comes from your soul. Yeah, And I went, wow, that's
very true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could see that.
Speaker 1: Well, there's an art to it, right, It's an art
form in and of itself, whether you're patterning or coming
up with something completely original like the motorcycle you did
totally and I and you know, me being a custom
guy and having a design in mind, you know, I
could really appreciate that. And I got to tell you, like,
when I look at neon and neon signs, there's very
little of that kind of stuff out there in any
capacity and in any form.
Speaker 2: Now there's like sculptures and things of that nature.
Speaker 1: But when you think about signage with neon attached in
the level of Americana, it reeks. I would say, right, yeah,
there's nothing that rivals it in my opinion from an
esthetic standpoint.
Speaker 2: Very true.
Speaker 3: Like Root sixty six is a great example. Over the years,
all you know it was built on neon signs. Root
sixty six you have the motel sign with you know,
some kind of a bear out in front neon and
or anything. And I guess about fifteen years ago they
started a government program to repair old Neon a root
sixty six to bring back that American if.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. I'd love to hear that.
Speaker 3: I almost went down there just to see if I
could get in on that.
Speaker 2: And actually now they're probably a lot less glass blowers
than there were then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I think you're all right, right, especially since
LEDs have taken a big they've made.
Speaker 2: A big dent in it, you know.
Speaker 3: And as far as learning goes, man, I don't know
where the future of Neon's going because there are very
few people that are learning this straight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that that's a common problem, I'd
say in this country. Maybe globally, but I know for
here in the States. Through the years of building motorcycles,
mostly for large corporations, right because that's my bread and butter,
And I've met with these companies and the only thing.
Some of these companies were roaring, just growing exponentially, and
they hit a wall. And the reason they hit a
wall is they could not get anyone to come in
a skilled workers and so their growth was stunted by
the fact that they couldn't find anyone to work. Meanwhile,
people are starving and there's no one to work, and
that's become a big problem. I see that shift right
now in this country. I feel like we're starting to
come back into working with your hands more pride as
an individual, but also in the country. And I'm really
hoping that that people start to learn to bend glass
and do neon.
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of people quit because it's really
really hard.
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 3: Some some days we're torture. When I was learning, I
would think, there's no way I'm going to get this.
There's no way that I made a million bends and
they all are terrible, and I was like, how am
I going to get this? And like I said, one day,
like you know, like a switch and then because it goes.
Speaker 2: But what you got to learn is.
Speaker 3: To get the right temperature of the glass when you're
bending it. And a lot of times you think that
it's ready to bend.
Speaker 2: It's not. You'll make the bend. You're like, oh damn,
I got to do that again.
Speaker 3: And once once you get that down, you make less
and less mistakes. And a lot of guys I've learned
because I've gone through who I probably have gone through
twenty glass blowers that work for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, it's an intriguing idea until you probably until
you have to try and do it, and then it's
if you're not willing to hang in there like you did,
then you're like, oh, that was a nice effort.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: Most of these guys said to me that they've never
worked for a Neon shop where the owner was a
glass blower, right, so they could get away with mistakes
and not fixing them and putting them in a sign.
And all they care about is getting it done, getting paid.
Speaker 2: Right, moving on.
Speaker 1: They don't care the quality control is not necessarily there,
terrible interest it. Well, listen, I think we're a good combo.
I mean, I got a water jet and all kinds
of design ideas. You know, I was thinking maybe maybe
we could do my logo. I won't cut it out
in a water jet, will paint it out and uh,
you can show me.
Speaker 2: Where to put the holes.
Speaker 1: I'll put the holes right in there, and we could
probably create like a pretty killer PJD logo, you know.
Speaker 3: No doubt about it, No doubt about it. I think
about that stuff all the time. When you know, I
see cool designs, like I mentioned the O.
Speaker 1: C C yep, Like, yeah, the OCC logo would be
good in neon because it's got this continuous uh you know.
Speaker 3: Especially at that the big warehouse that you guys moved to.
You had that big glass window that you had.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we sort of we had a we had
like a it was like a that's a vinyl.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like a vinyl that looked like etge glass.
Speaker 2: But that was like imagine if that was it would
be sick. That would be sick.
Speaker 1: And I think that was at least twenty five thirty
feet long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and you know you had you could
see that from the throughway.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that would really jump out, That wouldn't really Yeah.
Speaker 3: The people that would have been exposed to that because
people think that you all CEC was in California.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's right, the Orange County aspect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so.
Speaker 3: You know, things like that could make a huge difference
on a business.
Speaker 2: Yep. People don't realize that that little Yeah, why.
Speaker 1: It's brand recognition and you're able to see it for miles.
Speaker 2: Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 1: And obviously that's why Anheuser Busch did that giant spinning eagle.
Speaker 3: Well, they had some spectacular Neon signs in Times Square
at one time. This is in the forties, they had
a the Budweiser Clydesdale's in neon and the wheels would
spin Wow, and the horses would look like they're running.
Speaker 2: Wow. And these were It was.
Speaker 1: A life size, full scale yeah. Yeah, see a sign
like that right now, if you had a sign like that,
it'd be worth like a million dollars. Even though it's
so huge you can't put it anywhere, it's still it's
so rare and unusual. So I guess two questions. When
did when did neon come into the country? Was it
late twenties or something like that, like twenty eight or
nineteen o four?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Really, it was invented in Paris, Okay, in the eighteen
ninety World's.
Speaker 2: Fair or something like that, some kind of exposition, and
they had lined the Eiffel Tower with neon. Wow.
Speaker 3: They said there was thirty thousand feet of neon on
the Eiffel Tower.
Speaker 2: Wow. And imagine how that hummed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's funny, that's crazy.
Speaker 3: I have a picture somewhere of a crew doing the
maintenance on the Eiffel Tower neon.
Speaker 2: Wow. And then guys don't even have safety ropes. Yeah. Now,
back then, back then, they just climbed guys like holding on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's crazy. I see iron workers like that from
back in the day, no tie offs, nothing. So how
long does Neon last if you do a good job?
How long could Neon last for?
Speaker 2: Well, their manufactor is involved.
Speaker 3: I mean the glass, the glass, if there is if
there are no strains and there are really perfect bends
and perfect splices, Neon cycle lasts forty fifty years.
Speaker 2: Wow, same Neon. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I have Neon in my shop that is
thirty years old. Wow, and it's on all the time.
I never showed it off. Yeah, So it's it's you know,
if you've got a vacuum system that's really good and
you're bending really well, could last almost forever. Yeah, wow,
as long as you take care of it, you know.
And there's no way an LED sign can last that long.
That long, right, I don't even think they know because
you know when they were LED's came out twenty five
years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're a newer product and they would say they
last forever.
Speaker 3: How do you know, right, Well, you're guessing that they last, right.
Whereas their LED has got little tiny lights in a
like a space like this, it could be one hundred
little lights and they go bad. So over a period
of time, you got spaces of light.
Speaker 2: That start to fall out. Interesting.
Speaker 3: People don't realize that when it's new it looks wow,
but very short period of time. I like beer signs.
Now every beer sign is LED, the ones they're producing now,
the ones from China or all LED. And that has
created a market for repairs because the bars and the
liquor stores they want their neon because the LED doesn't
give the same glow.
Speaker 2: Glow yeah, yeah, I can see that. Interesting.
Speaker 3: And they used to just throw them out. I mean
the distributor used to give every liquor store and every
bar in the.
Speaker 1: Country whatever different brands.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So if you see someone selling a neon sign for
like one hundred bucks, they got it free, right because
I tell them, Like last week, a guy he's like, oh,
I have this knee on that broke. I said, you know,
it's going to be a couple of hundred just to
fix that. He goes, I only paid fifty bucks for this.
I said, that creature is dead. That is you got lucky.
Interesting because now if you go on eBay and you
look up some of the old vintage Budweiser signs, they're
going for two three thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it depends on what they are. Especially the porcelain
stuff does well anything not even that old, just paying
it really Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3: A Budweiser is because they're they're discontinued and they're not going.
Speaker 2: To be interesting. Okay.
Speaker 1: See, I don't really buy any too much beer stuff.
You know, that's a big collectible market, huge.
Speaker 2: I just don't.
Speaker 1: I have a few really good beer pieces, but you
know it's not my Forte.
Speaker 3: A friend of mine I work with, he he collects
beer signs. He has over five hundred beer signs.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Some of them are fantastically valuable and and they're great
to look at. There's an early Budweiser one that's neon.
Uh that's porcelain and.
Speaker 2: It was green.
Speaker 1: Wow, like a green Neon and with a green porcelain,
which is very unusual because you know, Budweisers almost always red.
Speaker 2: I think I did one for Anthony.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, baby, that's a good sign. It's you could
tell how old it is, you know.
Speaker 2: It was. It was pretty big too, was uh like
three by five or something or bigger at least. Yeah,
it's heavy, right, Yeah, yeah, it's old steel. Yeah, you
know there was no aluminum.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, they made everything out of steel.
Speaker 3: And uh that that is like things like that they're valuable,
Like there are some it spuds McKenzie. Yeah, I don't
see any of them anymore. Right, they're a collector items. Yeah,
I could see that.
Speaker 1: That's It's funny that was that was that like mid
eighties basically?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could see that. Now that's how long ago?
Too long ago? Yeah? And what thirty five years ago?
Speaker 3: One I Budwise have signed. It's like got a bubble
face and it's got the Anheuser Bush logo and Neon
on the sign with Budweiser. It's probably like, you know,
seventy eight inch letters. And I saw that on eBay
for twenty five hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: Okay, wow wow, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think some of that stuff gets collectible. People are
looking for it. If it's rare, they know about it
and they want it, you know. All right, Well this
has been super interesting. Let me ask you a question.
What do you think the future of Neon is. Do
you think that it's gonna just die out because no
one's coming up, or do you think people will get
it'll gain interest again.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's hard to determine that because I
thought a few years ago that it would come back,
but all these LED signs came out. Yeah, and a lot,
especially the retail market, they're looking at, you know, to
lower their costs. Sure they get an LED signed for
a third of the price of a Neon sign, but
it just doesn't have the same impact on a lot
of people. And I'm hoping the industry.
Speaker 2: Rallies, rallies.
Speaker 1: What's it gonna take, because see, right, you're saying no
one's coming up. Well, like people aren't really learning it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there are some people like I. I
you know, on that Facebook page I was telling you
for a Neon artists, there are some young kids out
there that are trying and that the problem is they're
being self taught and there is so much that you
don't know.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You need a master to kind of show you the
ropes so you can cut through a lot of the
trial and error.
Speaker 3: I got very lucky. I was in the right place
at the right time where I had three neon masters
I work with.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: One was an expert on bending glass, the other one
was sort of an expert on both and then the
third one was an expert on electrical and I said, boy,
I hope I learned all this from the and it
you know, it's come you know, like when you're when
you're there and it's happening, you don't realize what it's
going to turn into. And it's turned into where I'm
the expert on the job now, right.
Speaker 2: And I thought that there.
Speaker 3: Would be more, but I probably know well about fifteen
glass blowers and I am. There's only two of us left.
The others have gone on to other.
Speaker 1: Careers really and they've moved on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's my hardest part right now because running
a business, I you know, I have to go out
and meet people and you know, sell na, right, but
you're doing it all, but I also have to bend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're doing the sales, you're doing the bending, you're
doing the installation, you're taking the phone calls. And that
is a problem. And you know, it's funny because you
need to do that to maintain your quality, your you know, consistency,
your availability. But at the same time, you know, it's
hard to it's hard to make that work all the time.
Speaker 2: I'm sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of warm me out over the years,
because I don't think I've been on my own pretty
much since twenty ten, twenty eleven.
Speaker 2: I used to have a shop.
Speaker 3: I had five employees, three glass blowers, an installer, and
a secretary entering the phone. And it worked for a while,
but then the industry changed and the work wasn't. I mean,
it also goes by the economy. Also, if the economy
is not doing so well, the last thing people think
of is getting as a Neon s right.
Speaker 1: It's a luxury item kind of exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: And when the economy is cranking Neon is doing well, yes,
people will do that.
Speaker 1: I would say that for a lot of different extracurricular needs, right,
things that are above and beyond groceries and such, they
kind of get shelved, right. And then when the money's
flowing and the economy is good, then people are spending
all kinds of ways.
Speaker 3: A great example is I've done so many birthday presents
in Neon where someone wants a little design put in
their you know, their kids' bedroom, right as a night light.
Speaker 2: If the economy is doing well.
Speaker 3: They'll pay that expense, right, But if it's not, I know,
they're not going to spend four or five hundred dollars
on birthday, right you know when that that like? Right now,
it's been tough because people are afraid to spend their money.
Speaker 1: And we need people to spend up. Yeah, I think
it's coming. I got a really positive outlook on the future,
especially at this day and age. I think we're going
to start charging forward. I think we're going to get
interest rates down. I think that the economy is going
to continue to do well, and so I'm hopeful. Well, listen,
I really appreciate all the work you've done for me.
I love that these Neon signs. They they light up
the space. I love that I got them positioned around
and people come in and it especially kids, they love Neon.
Their eyes get wide, and I really appreciate all the work,
and thanks for coming on.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it. And we'll get you some more Neon in
the future, for sure. Awesome, We'll get some more restoration.
Speaker 2: Thanks Paul,