How To Make A Neon Blower
If you are experimenting with glass bending, and don't want to pay for an expensive ring compressor (regenerative blower), here's how to make a reliable blower for much less than you would pay at a neon supplier. This unit will provide enough air flow to feed a ribbon burner, a cross fire torch, and a hand torch, at the same time. I had built and tried a few different blowers before I put one of these together, and when I finally did, I was amazed at how simple it was, and how well it worked. The really good thing about this blower is that once you have one, you can collect spare parts so that you can change the blower unit, or the motor as you need to. You are basically set forever, unless you want a larger or more quiet blower.
The main part is the air pump. On the few I have made, I have used pumps from GM cars. I like these because they all mount the same way, and are very plentiful. There is no reason that any Ford or Mopar unit wouldn't work just as well. A friend of mine used a pump from a VW to supply his burners, and it worked perfectly.
The motor can be anything over 1/3 hp. I have used 1/2 hp on a few so far, and those have worked really well.
You can also put one of these together using a drive belt and the wheel/pulley that is on the unit at the time you pull the pump out of the donor car. An inline coupling is far better than a belt system, though. There is no sideways tension on the pulley with an inline coupling, and it is slightly more compact.
Mount brackets for the pump can be made from a piece of angle iron, if you have a scrap yard nearby. If my memory serves me, I think I made my last ones from 4" x 4" x 1/4" steel angle, and I cut them to exact size on a metal cutting bandsaw.
A neat way of mounting the complete
unit is to suspend the whole base from a set of bungee cords. I used a set of
eye bolts (one at each corner), that I hooked the bungees onto. For the air
outlet, I connected a short length of motorcycle inner tube to the blower. This
isolated the whole assembly and a good part of the vibrations and noise were
eliminated.
Note: If you like this blower, but don't have the tools or parts to put one
together, contact me here, and I can have
one built for you for
$200.00 Canadian (approx $160.00 US).
Base: 3/4" plywood, 12" x 18", or cut to suit
Blower unit: Air pump, GM, approx 70's - 80's vintage
Motor: 1/2 hp, 1725 rpm
7/8" x 2" pipe nipple
Two mount brackets
In-line drive coupling
Several bolts, etc
-TT-