FEBRUARY 8, 2018 // 15
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22
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Hungry
Harbor
GrillE
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ding
503.325.7414
bakedak.com
#1 12th Street, Astoria, OR
503.755.1818
www.camp18restaurant.com
Favorite stop to & from the Coast
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3 8TH & L, ON THE S EAV IEW BEAC H APPROAC H
3 60-642-7880
V ALENTINE’S DAY DINNER FEB 14
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3 13 Pa c ific Hw y, Do w n to w n Lo n g Be a c h, W A
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–– OPEN DAIL Y! ––
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304 37th Street | Astoria, OR 97103
503-325-7768
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O
ur of
ns
EDWARD STRATTON PHOTO
Bob Pershing, who helped make a neon sign for Workers Tavern, also worked with Astoria
Brewing Co.
Continued from Page 4
“After the war, there were a lot of them
going up,” Pershing said of the neon signs,
adding that his father bent a lot of neon
tubes for Wunola.
Neon lights consist of a glass tube,
heated and bent into the desired image and
filled with the noble gas, plus an electrode
at either end. An electric current knocks
the atoms of the gas out of orbit. Electrons
collide with each other and are sent back
to atoms, creating energy and light. Other
noble gases besides neon can be used for
different colors — pink for helium, green
for krypton and blue for argon. Often
sign-makers will use a powder coating to
create a certain color scheme.
Many of the gas-lit signs started disap-
pearing by the 1970s as businesses changed
and turned toward plastic-faced signs
backlit with fluorescent lights, Pershing
said. He makes signs for companies across
the U.S., including Regal Cinemas and the
Tillamook Cheese Factory. Most of his
work these days has migrated to LEDs, or
light-emitting diodes.
“They make an LED like neon, but it’s
more expensive,” Pershing said. “I do see
LED replacing neon.”
Part of neon’s relative demise is related
to a global movement away from mercury,
a toxic chemical element commonly used to
make bright, multicolored gas-lit signs. The
U.S. has moved to limit the use of mercury
commercially. The Minamata Convention
on Mercury, signed in 2013 by the U.S.
and nearly 140 other countries, will phase
out the manufacture, import and export of
many mercury-infused products by 2020.
DIANA KIRK PHOTO
Bob Pershing with Ramsay Signs gives a tour
recently of the shop to show visitors how
neon signs are produced.
Along with Workers Tavern, Pershing
has done neon signage for Astoria Brewing
Co. and the Labor Temple Diner & Bar. CW