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Patriot_1776
Patriot_177622-Sapphire II
22-Sapphire II
September 10, 2026
Question

Thought I'd make a nuclear lightbulb for fun. Pretent it's radium...

  • September 10, 2026
  • 5 replies
  • 93 views

I’d wanted to model one of those twisted flouresent light bulbs for a while, thought I’d do it for fun.  Only, instead of a simple barrel shape like they are, I made it look (though not measured) like a normal incandescent bulb.  I actually HAD a watch with radium numbers and hour and minute hand tips that was given to me as a kid by my grandfather (RIP).  When the big radium paranoia happened in the late ‘60’s or early ‘70’s my mom made my dad throw it away.  Bummer.

 

    5 replies

    KenFarley
    KenFarley21-Topaz II
    21-Topaz II
    September 11, 2026

    I bet someone could make one of those if they were an insanely good glassblower and then fill it with neon. Don’t know the chemistry but they could probably even get it to glow in that green.

    Not a lot of traffic on this site, since the switchover. Can’t say I like the interface. You can’t ever tell what a particular message is referring to, especially in long threads. Most of the messages are the usual pile of complainants that Creo != SW. Don’t know about you but back in my heyday, I was using 4 different CAD packages at the same time and dabbling with one more. None of them acts the same, but that’s how it is. If they’re paying me, I’m gonna do my damnedest to figure it out. Oh well.

      Patriot_1776
      Patriot_177622-Sapphire IIAuthor
      22-Sapphire II
      September 13, 2026

      ‘Sup Ken!  I think how they would do this (like the real ones), would be to heat just the round end, bend that end 180deg so then the long tube is u-shaped, then clamp that end and heat up the middle, then twist the 2 straight ends.  Similar to how they make decorative square steel vertical fencing with a twisted section in the middle.  Once it’s twisted, let it cool enough to hold it’s shape, then repeat.  For this style they’d have to have a form to make it “lightbulb shaped” instead of the cylinder the normal ones are, but I just did this for fun.  It’s funny, I always wondered why this kind of green is always associated with radiation when in fact a critical mass glows a light blue (Cherenkov Radiation), but I think I figured it out:  This is the green glowing color of radium, most people’s first look at a radioactive material in the ‘50’s or so.  Back in the late ‘60’s or early ‘70’s, my grandfather gave me a watch with radium on the numbers and watch hands.  I thought it was the neatest thing.  Then my mom got paranoid and made my dad take it away and give it back to grandpa.  So, even though many people now are not old enough to ever have seen radium glow they just thing radiation is green.

       

      Yeah, I miss the Olde Days when people like Tom Dirriwachter, Brian Martin, and others were on here, and we actually shared ideas and models.  I think we’re a couple of the few Gurus that are left.  For probably almost a decade now, lazy people just come on here to get OTHER people to solve their problems for them….instead of learning to do it themselves.  It’s the pathetic state of the world today.  Nobody actually KNOWS anything, they just Google EVERYTHING.  They don’t work for it either.

       

      Took me 5 features to make this, learned a valuable new trick along the way.  WooHoo!

       

      My buddy has a 3D printer and some awesome glow in the dark filament this color green, and I’m going to make a base for this in white with the radiation logo (in that green) on it that looks like one of those cheap ceramic light bulb bases you use in a garage or something.  I’m gonna have him print it.  I think it’ll look pretty cool glowing at night in my home theater room!  I’ll probably even sell copies of it if I can get it printed like that in quantities.

      KenFarley
      KenFarley21-Topaz II
      21-Topaz II
      September 13, 2026

      One of those “What If...” vids done by Randall Munroe was about if humans all disappeared how long ‘til all the lights were out. He proposed that the final human-made light source would be the blue light emitted by the radioactive cores submerged in water - something like centuries later. He also mentioned that the radium watch glowy bits (I had one of those too, a Timex? Waltham?) are a result of the radium exciting phosphorus. Oh my, two great things that go great together? Just not for your health and your watch bezel.

      The curly light bulb also looks like a funky wine chiller my parents used to have. Or a crazy loop someone could add to their liquid cooled PC system. Maybe an unusual wort chiller for the home brewer.

      Yeah, I am tired of the “do my homework for me” things. Or the “Creo sux it’s not exactly like the thing I used before”. When Martin Hanak retired this year I said “Uh oh, who’s gonna figure out esoteric licensing troubles, or install problems, or all the other things he did?” Probably no one. And Doug Schaefer - it was sad when he said he was on to other things. The latest thing seems to be AI stuff. Ugh. Too much artificial not enough actual.

        Patriot_1776
        Patriot_177622-Sapphire IIAuthor
        22-Sapphire II
        September 14, 2026

        Dayum, didn’t know that, I wish them well.  Welp I think a perfect indication of all this rot is the fact that only you and I are talking about this.  I would have thought that someone else might have found this interesting.  Oh wait, it’s not solving a problem they have so they don’t have to do the work.  Nevermind...  Sigh….

        BenLoosli23-Emerald III
        23-Emerald III
        September 14, 2026

        Cool image.

        I would guess that any neon sign shop would be able to shape a small tube into that final shape. Doing a 3D printed job of that would look cool. My granddaughters have a 3D printer, they make bracelets and dragons.

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