I went to a Flea Market the Saturday before last. First, the creepy doll:

I didn’t buy the doll (not my thing) but snapped a pic of her because she is sooo creeepy. She looks like she wants to kill kill kill.

I did buy an old neon sign, which worked but needed some attention. Here’s before:

and after:

It looked pretty bad when lit because the block out paint between the letters was cracking and a lot of it was missing.

The sign was covered in dirt, and the metal frame and transformer had rust in many places. I decided to clean it up, and Googled for some info on the subject.

You can see in this shot that the tubes are secured via copper wire to posts on the frame:

The transformer had 2 wires coming from it, and they were attached to each end of the neon tube. I carefully disconnected those, removed all the copper wire holding the tubes to the frame, and removed them:

I used my compressor to blow off the loose paint. Then, I carefully scraped at what remained until I had most of it off. I layed it on an old Stargate bezel, sprayed it down with Bleche White and hosed it off after 10 mins or so:

That got it nice and clean.

The info I found online indicated that you could use regular oil based paint instead of block out paint. I opted for Rustoleum flat black.

The info I had said that you should paint the sign while lit. I didn’t want to get lit because I don’t paint very well while drunk. I opted to paint it with it turned off and completely sober. Here’s the back painted:

Here is the frame and transformer painted:

Here it is back together with the front of the tubes painted:

I plugged it in, crossed my fingers, and turned it on. I was a bit cautious as these transformers put out very high voltage. Some people use them to make jacob ladders. It lit up, but looked like total crap (sorry, no pic).

It turns out that you really *should* paint these while turned on. If the paint isn’t thick enough it will let light through. I touched it up while turned on, and it came out pretty nice. Here it is lit up:

I am an idiot, and didn’t take a pic of it lit up BEFORE I fixed it. Just imagine it looking even creepier than that doll and you’ll get the general idea.