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#stcloud

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James Akers

I visited Robert Haus, a national neon treasure two days ago in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
I have known him online for years, and he moved from Alaska so now he is slightly easier to visit.

Robert has probably the best collection of historic neon artifacts, especially when it comes to old bending equipment, transformers, catalogs, and other difficult to find oddities. "Neon Archaeology" is his thing and his blog catalogs his journeys,

novioljourneys.com/

His setups were impressive- he has very comprehensive radio and electrical knowledge around neon bombarding systems. FOCI is lucky to have him around. I gave him some hand pulled tubing to play with in exchange for some coffee beans he roasted and some really old rare electrodes. It was so nice to meet him and his wife.

A display box from GE on how they maka a lightbulb. Various glass stems and bulb shapes are in the box going from left to right in various steps of completion with a gold foil descibing how GE controls every step of the process.
Robert Haus' bombarding table, made of wood, with vintage hand torch and a brass manifold. He has a giant variac under the table that is used as a choke for a 7.5kva bombarder coil. Unlike most bombarding systems, this lets him turn it down all the way to less than a normal neon transformer current.
me smiling on the left in my beige Vail sweaterm and Robert on the right with a neon light saber and black and rainbow neon archaeology shirt in Roberts garage shop.
A black GE window hanging transformer still new in box. You dont see this style (or brand) of transformer around hardly anymore. Robert would know for sure, but I would say its fromthe 1940s. Blue UL sticker on the side of it,
#roadtrip#minnesota#stcloud
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