I found this large glass cover, or dome at a thrift store on sale for a dollar, and the minute I saw it I knew that I wanted to make a monster fake vacuum tube.
I used E-wire to make up the glowing cathode element. I am sure that different colours, patterns, or alpha numeric characters could be used in the display.
I managed to fool my father, from a couple of feet, that it was a real vacuum tube. He had worked with tubes when he was a young man, and at first sight was shocked by the size of it.
The final tube is about 13 inches or 32cm (see D cell battery in picture for scale)
I used E-wire to make up the glowing cathode element. I am sure that different colours, patterns, or alpha numeric characters could be used in the display.
I managed to fool my father, from a couple of feet, that it was a real vacuum tube. He had worked with tubes when he was a young man, and at first sight was shocked by the size of it.
The final tube is about 13 inches or 32cm (see D cell battery in picture for scale)
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You will need the following parts:
1 Glass dome (I think this came from a clock, and was Thrift store find at one dollar)
2 ABS Plumbing pipe coupler (four dollars at a hardware store)
3 Luminescent wire, EL wire , ( I bought this at Ikea for a few dollars)
4 Scraped computer hard drive and mounting rails (Free!)
5 Scrapped computer parts ( I used the screws, drive rails, stand offs and other scrapped bits, all free)
6 Black Arborite, or black painted, wood half an inch or 1.5 cm thick (Ikea for three dollars)
7 Large nails ( I used nine, six inch nails and cut the pointed ends off)
Tools:
Drill
Hot glue
Screwdrivers
Jigsaw
Things to consider:
Make sure you have your glass dome with you when you buy your pipe or pipe coupling.
You want a snug fit. I had to sand out the inside of the pipe to get the glass to just fit.
I wanted to be able to remove the dome, but you could glue it if you need to.
1 Glass dome (I think this came from a clock, and was Thrift store find at one dollar)
2 ABS Plumbing pipe coupler (four dollars at a hardware store)
3 Luminescent wire, EL wire , ( I bought this at Ikea for a few dollars)
4 Scraped computer hard drive and mounting rails (Free!)
5 Scrapped computer parts ( I used the screws, drive rails, stand offs and other scrapped bits, all free)
6 Black Arborite, or black painted, wood half an inch or 1.5 cm thick (Ikea for three dollars)
7 Large nails ( I used nine, six inch nails and cut the pointed ends off)
Tools:
Drill
Hot glue
Screwdrivers
Jigsaw
Things to consider:
Make sure you have your glass dome with you when you buy your pipe or pipe coupling.
You want a snug fit. I had to sand out the inside of the pipe to get the glass to just fit.
I wanted to be able to remove the dome, but you could glue it if you need to.
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I bought some polycarbonate wine glasses to make some fake tubes for my steampunk projects.
It was one of those things that just had to be, maybe the clock has to be as well. Please post pictures if you make a clock I would love to see that.
Check out this on EbayEbay You can get enough domes for your project at a reasonable price and all the same size. Hope that does not set off a bidding war!
You'd get bonus points for mounting an old crackly AM radio in the base :)