15 Things You Didn't Know About Neon Signs

Neon. It’s one of the most abundant elements in the universe and can be found in the Earth’s crust and in the atmosphere, according to the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. But the coolest fact about neon might just be that it’s produced by stars. During the alpha process in large stars, oxygen and helium are fused together to create the noble gas. Thankfully for Vegas, it can be produced commercially by a process called fractional distillation, aka liquifying air.

The secret’s out. If your favorite neon sign has blue, green, white, purple or yellow colors then it’s not neon at all. When electrified, neon only produces a reddish-orange color. That’s right — neon can only be red or orange. It’s argon, another noble gas, that’s most often electrified to create all the other pretty colors used in 'neon' signage.

So how are other colors made? In the 1920s, phosphor-coated glass tubes were developed and used with electrified gases to produce new colors. Most commonly, today’s vibrant ''neon'' signs are made by adding argon gas to a color-coated glass tube and mixed with a tiny bead of mercury to produce an ultraviolet color. Different colors of phosphor-coated tubes also create different shades of white.

Almost all neon signs are handmade. That’s because the glass tubes used to make neon signs need to be heated and bent using ribbon burners, hand torches and glass blowing techniques to create intricate designs. Simply put, glass tubes are heated and shaped, sealed with electrodes, cleaned, filled with a noble gas and then electrified using high voltage — and all done by hand.