One of the last neon light sign makers in the city is 53-year-old veteran Wu Chi-kai. Master Wu has been in the trade for more than 30 years now, having first gotten into the business through a summer job when he was just 17. “My dad was a neon lights installation worker, and one summer, he said to me, ‘Why don’t you take up a job?’ so I went to work at his company,” Wu explains. But the teenager did not exactly follow in his father’s footsteps. “Dad knew that working outdoors—especially in high places—is dangerous, so instead, he arranged for me to work in the workshop and make neon lights.”
Wu was a keen learner and quickly grew familiar with the craft within a year or two. Once a client has sent in their design, Wu would use gas heaters to warm up glass tubing and mould it according to the design. When the shape is set, electrodes are installed in the ends, and air is pumped out from the tubes so that neon or argon gas may be pumped in. Pure neon gas is used to produce shades of red and orange, but one may be surprised to learn that most other hues are purely mixes of argon and mercury and don’t have any neon in them despite its name.
These signs were built to last for a while—around a decade—though they would lose their luminosity over time. Considering the amount of custom labour and time put into them, with orders taking weeks to months to make depending on their size, it’s a pretty economical viable option in the long run. Different workshops also source their materials from different countries such as the States or the UK. This explains some of the odd patches of colours in signs as repairs may have been done using materials from another place or workshop.