Restoration Neon

They're radiant... Alluring... "With those huge neon signs, Vegas became this fantasy."

Colorful... "This is the pink neon lighting up..." Some would say beautiful.

"It's pretty incredible.

"People visiting the Boneyard, they laugh, they cry."

When neon lights up the night, there's nothing like it, and when Las Vegas does neon, it's bigger, flashier and more fabulous.

It's the Wild West; there's no one to say you can't build that massive sign.

Now when old signs come down, some are getting a chance at new life, restored and reborn, on Restoration Neon.

Las Vegas, Nevada: Home to exciting night life, entertainment and gaming, a city illuminated by dazzling, hypnotic, larger-than-life signs.

(Mark Hall-Patton) We have a different sense of signage here because we're interacting with an area where signage defines the business base of the community.

Whether on the Strip or Downtown, the glowing neon of behemoth marquees has been part of Las Vegas' DNA for over half a century.

(Danielle Kelly) The experience of neon in Las Vegas is so specific, and there are many factors that contribute to that like the landscape and the air quality.

There isn't a lot of moisture in the air, so the neon is extremely visible from far away.

It's a beautiful confluence of events that allowed for this city to really utilize neon as a part of its visual identity.

But design and technology evolve.

Old signs are taken down, replaced with new.

Some have been lost to history; others come here to live out their days as icons that helped create a city.

Welcome to the Neon Boneyard at the Neon Museum.

People visiting the Boneyard, they laugh, they cry.

It's pretty incredible.

Every year, approximately 70,000 visitors take one of 16 daily tours to see the museum's collection of signs from the 1930s until today.

If someone has a memory of Las Vegas rooted in a personal family experience, when they see signage from that location and they can share histories and their personal history about that experience, it's very moving.

Many of the museum's signs, like this La Concha Motel sign or these signs installed as public art, have been restored to their full glowing glory.

(Michael Shulman) The neon of Las Vegas is the cherry on top.

It is a truly magical city.

This is neon at its best, an otherworldly technicolor dreamscape.

(Helga Watkins) People just like to look at it.

I mean, you gaze at it and it's wondrous, and that color palette is much bigger than the color palette that you can design with when you're doing something for print.

So the gamut of color that neon emits is much greater than we encounter even with digital media.

Neon first arrived in Las Vegas in 1929 on a sign at the Oasis Cafe.

The Las Vegas Club put up its towering neon sign in 1930.

A few years later in 1933 came the Boulder Club.

The Boulder Club Downtown was just a tall sign and actually was 10 feet above the roof.

The Boulder Club was trying to set itself apart from the Northern Club and the other ones down there.

It was the two blocks of Fremont Street where all the casinos were.

It wasn't just the Boulder Club.

It was the Boulder Club with an image, with something that really caught the eye.

As Las Vegas grew, signs sprouted up everywhere, and the use of neon skyrocketed.

Really you see the use of neon expanding as the sense of the city's identity being an urban entertainment destination along with the growth that happened simultaneous to the construction of Hoover Dam.

That is really when the city's identity as an entertainment destination was formed.

(Paco Alvarez) Las Vegas was not the first place to have neon.

Neon came to the United States back in the 1920s.

But neon became a major part of this community, especially along Fremont Street, as people got off the train to come and visit either Hoover Dam or to come to the casinos.

As you walked down Fremont Street, the bigger the sign, the more likely you were to get those customers into your casino.

On a mission to preserve the history and culture of Las Vegas, the Neon Museum has restored 13 signs.

Now they're about to add two more: This Jerry's Nugget Casino sign and this Liberace sign, two treasured Vegas originals.

It's early.

Workers arrive to remove the Jerry's Nugget Casino sign from the Boneyard.

Are you going to lift it up at all or just... Project manager Richard Kirsch and his team are from Yesco.

(Richard Kirsch) Today we're going to be picking up the Jerry's Nugget display, lifting it out of the yard and taking to back to our facility where it's going to be completely refreshed, remodeled and reset out here to illuminate in its former glory.

Step number one: Carefully lift the sign, weighing 600-700 pounds, out of the Boneyard.

It's a dangerous process.

One wrong move and this historic sign can come crashing down.

Fortunately these guys are pros, and they expertly lower the sign onto the flatbed.

We're all loaded up.

We're going to head down Las Vegas Boulevard to get the sign back to the Yesco yard and shop, get it unloaded and prepped for its paint job.

Once the sign is secured, they hit the road.

Located on Las Vegas Boulevard North, Jerry's Nugget is a neighborhood casino known for great food, great service and old-school friendliness.

(Jeremy Stamis) We're really proud about our food, and we're really proud about our customer service.

(Joseph Stamis) We do what we have to to maintain that family-oriented atmosphere.

This casino is a family business now managed by Jeremy and Joseph Stamis and their father, Angelo.

(Angelo Stamis) Jerry's Nugget opened in 1964 in November on a Thursday night.

This is our 50th year.

Two Greek immigrants started the business after moving their families to the rapidly growing gaming Mecca of Las Vegas.

Both men were named Jerry.

Jerry Stamis was my father, Jerry Lodge was my uncle, and that's how we got together and opened up Jerry's Nugget.

When we came to town, we hardly had any money.

We were looking around, and in those days the Bonanza Club was across the street from where we are now and doing big business.

So we said this will be a great spot for us to open up.

When Jerry's Nugget opened, this was the original sign.

The sign was lit up, and it would be blinking.

We were really fascinated and excited that we had the opportunity to be in the gambling business.

We were pretty young, really didn't know anything about gambling.

I remember opening night we got beat for a little money, and I thought to myself, boy, I'll be happy when six months go by and then I'll really understand gambling.

The sign was taken down in 1996 as part of a major property renovation.

We have the big tower now that says Jerry's Nugget, the oil well derrick that stands 150 feet.

Jerry's Nugget is restoring this sign as a way to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Las Vegas is not much more than a century old, and we've made it half of that time period.

It's wonderful.

It means a lot to say we've been here.

We've seen the good times, we've seen the bad times, and we're going to continue to be here.

It's emblematic of a young city embracing its history.

People that live in Las Vegas are beginning to understand that there is a history here.

Now we have a core group of residents that really want to know how we became what we are and have a nostalgia for parts of our history that may not be that far back for other parts of the world, but here they really define what we've become today.

At Yesco, the crew offloads the Jerry's Nugget sign into the shop where restoration will happen in five basic stages: Prep, painting, hand-lettering, neon fabrication and finishing.

We're at the Yesco facility.

We just brought it into the shop where tomorrow we're going to start prepping it for repainting.

At the Neon Boneyard it's a new morning, and a new crew from Jones Sign is removing a second sign, a sign from the former Liberace Museum.

The sign is important because it is his signature.

Every time he signed an autograph, he used that graphic with the little piano and the candelabra, and he'd do it in a second.

It was amazing how quickly he could do that without even lifting the pen off the paper.

Robert Manes and Larry Hernandez make up the core restoration team.

They carry the sign out in pieces, careful to keep the thin, easily damaged sheet metal from bending out of shape.

(Robert Manes) We took it out of the Boneyard, and we're loading it on the trailer.

We're going to take it to our shop.

It's in pretty rough shape.

The Liberace sign is a very large what's called a "channel treatment."

It's a logo that's essentially a line, and it's not something that was designed to be a sign, so that presents particular challenges.

It didn't emerge as something for a sign.

It started out as for print, and it has many of the characteristics of design for print translated into signage.

Originally constructed to hang on a wall, the crew will have to create a steel skeleton to make this pliable metal rigid enough to hold neon.

Neon is pretty fragile, so the sign's gotta be pretty rigid to hold the neon and keep it from breaking.

"Okay.

Are we ready to roll?"

The team heads back to the shop where restoration takes approximately six stages: Prep, metal reinforcing, frame welding, paint prep, neon fabrication and finishing.

We're going to build a frame to mount it solid and rigid.

We'll break all of it down.

We'll take the paint off, primer it, repaint it.

We have to make a pattern for the neon so the neon can start getting bent.

It will look pretty nice when it's done.

It will look like a new sign.

"That's its home for a month."

Today we're going to start breaking down the electrical on this old sign.

We're going to get rid of the old neon but save it to make sure we match the color.

We're prepping this display for the paint job and stencils for the neon before we start sanding it down.

At Yesco, workers dive into stage one, prepping the sign by stripping the electrical and removing the hardware.

We're going to try and save all these.

We're going to try to keep it as old school as we can, keep it as original as possible.

When it goes back out there, it's going to look brand new.

The crew makes an unexpected discovery.

See how it's compact?

You can see an old rotator.

They find an old motor inside the sign, suggesting it once rotated.

This whole cabinet in the old days used to rotate.

This entire unit used to spin.

Now of course when we put it back in the museum, it won't be spinning because it's not sitting on its height.

Next the crew creates a paper template of the "Jerry's" lettering.

(Tom Day) What we're going to do is take some carbon paper and rub it over the edges of the letters, and it should pick up the outline of that letter.

This pattern ensures the team can precisely recreate the design after they sand off the old hand-painted letters.

Though once commonplace, today hand-painting signs is rare.

Kevin Kelly, operations manager at Yesco, is one of a few remaining craftsmen with hand-painting experience.

Kevin carefully follows the carbon pattern, tracing a more distinct outline for each letter.

(Kevin Kelly) I'm going to create a new neon pattern itself, so the neon will come in the center of these letters.

He also draws a guide for the neon tubing, knowing that even small mistakes can make it difficult to accurately recreate these letters.

Kevin's final step is creating perforation holes.

This is an old-school perforating wheel.

I'm actually surprised I was able to find it.

I've had it for probably 30 years, and it's run a lot of miles around the edges of letters.

We'll take a sock filled with powder, and we'll pat the pattern and allow the powder to seep through the holes in the paper and transfer onto the cabinet, and then we just paint it with our lettering quills.

Yesco has been an integral part of the Las Vegas sign industry for nearly 75 years.

Yesco was founded by Thomas Young in 1920 in Ogden, Utah.

In 1945, Thomas created the first Yesco branch in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Yesco has created some of Las Vegas' most iconic and memorable signs.

Today the company operates on the cutting edge of sign technology.

We fabricate anything from illuminated LED displays to electronic video screens to some of the biggest signs you'll see on the Strip.

Here at their Las Vegas facility, they design and fabricate signs for locations all over the country.

Welcome to the main shop floor.

This is where everything begins, in the steel department.

Now we're going to take you to the paint shop.

This booth has an overhead crane that can carry the structural components into the booth, set it down to be painted, pick it back up and take it out and move it down the road.

This where we drop all the LEDs, wire up any lamps and illuminate the displays.

Although modern signs use LEDs as a more cost-effective and efficient form of lighting...

LED diodes are pretty much taking over the world of how signs light these days.

...the world's fascination with neon is as strong as ever.

We call this the glass room.

This is where we fabricate all the neon tubing that we put in the signs.

But before this Jerry's Nugget sign gets new neon, it gets prepped for new paint.

At Jones, the crew evaluates what it will take to bring this damaged sign back to life.

Mark Whitehouse is the senior project manager.

(Mark Whitehouse) The sign is in pretty poor condition.

It sat out in the sun and the elements for quite some time.

You can see the little metal tabs in the sign.

That represents an incandescent bulb sign.

They discover the sign featured bulbs at one time in its history.

Someone at one point changed it from bulbs to neon.

Now they have to make a decision: Use bulbs or neon for the restoration.

Photographs give them their answer.

What we're going to do is do the neon restoration.

To remove all these existing mounts, we need to lay the sign flat on the ground so we can make a pattern.

They grind off the old wall mounts.

Since it's an older sign and we're not building it from scratch, we have to do it the old way which is take a thin piece of paper, lay it over the sign and use a pencil to go over the edges of the sign.

We need to know exactly where our sign is going to lay out.

You see how it moves one way or the other?

As they lay the sign flat, they run into a problem.

The flimsy metal has bent beyond their ability to determine the sign's correct layout.

Over the years things get tweaked, they get bent, they get pushed together, so right now we're trying to get the layout correct.

I need to know if this had an arch in it or if it was straight.

It's a big challenge with refurbishing any old sign or probably anything that's from the past.

Once again, photographs come to their rescue.

Yet they soon discover an even bigger problem: A letter and the piano portion of the signature are missing.

We have to go back to the museum and see if we can find a missing piece that's on top of the piano.

With just weeks to finish the restoration, the crew is forced to proceed with pattern-making.

As we build this, it's like a blueprint for a house.

Without this piece of paper, there's not much you can do.

And from that pattern, we can then create several components of the sign.

For instance, the mirrored acrylic that will go inside of the candelabra and the neon for the sign will be done from this pattern, and that will be custom blown and laid inside the "Liberace" channels.

If they can't find the missing piece, they'll have to fabricate a new one, threatening the authenticity of the restoration.

For many, Liberace's ornate signature is the quintessential embodiment of a city built on luxury and excess, a city philanthropist Michael Shulman has grown to love and call home: Las Vegas.

(Michael Shulman) A lot of people talk about less being more.

Las Vegas thumbs its nose at that.

More is more; less isn't more.

There's been plenty of great pianists.

There still are plenty of great pianists, but nobody took it over the top like Liberace.

He became Mr. Las Vegas.

He was absolutely identified with this location.

The Shulman Family Foundation is funding the sign's restoration.

I went to the grand opening of the Neon Museum.

I said dibs on Liberace.

I'm just like, that's the one.

From elaborate costumes to intricate stagecraft, Liberace pushed his performance to new hghts of extravagance.

He earned the name Mr. Showmanship over and over and over.

I mean, coming in like Tarzan in sequins, swinging through Radio City Music Hall, he's wearing lace sleeves and a sequin jacket and his name spelled in diamonds on his buttons.

"The E-R-A, the C-E is on the back there, "are you looking at the buttons?"

Sequin pompoms on the socks.

He had a cape that weighed 200 pounds.

He was about presentation.

He was about flash, flamboyance and all of that and giving the viewers an entertainment experience unlike anything they'd get anywhere else.

What a lot of people forget though is beneath all the artifice was this incredible musician.

Liberace inspired generations of entertainers.

He influenced people from Elvis Presley to the Scissor Sisters, Elton John to Tina Turner.

But for many Las Vegas locals, he was more than an influential entertainer.

He was a neighbor.

The first time I met Liberace was at the supermarket on the corner of Tropicana and Eastern.

I was there with my dad.

I turned around and there's Liberace standing there.

He grabs my cheek and says, how are you?

And I was just like oh, my gosh, Liberace.

(Jonathan Warren) When I first got my driver's license, the first stop sign I came to on Harmon behind UNLV, Liberace pulled up at the other stop sign.

He was the star in the neighborhood.

It was pretty amazing.

We trick-or-treated to his house, and he used to give away the $100,000 bars, those big chocolate bars, and I remember one year he had no candy and he was giving away silver dollars, which was pretty remarkable.

A cherished member of the community for some, a pioneering performer for others, when Liberace died, many were deeply affected by the loss.

His death was devastating in a devastating time when AIDS was thought of more as the plague.

It was really a shame because when he passed away, it was a huge scandal.

He had all these gorgeous properties, and nobody would touch the properties because at that point people thought you could get AIDS on contact.

So they sat there and went to seed.

AIDS was a horror story then.

It still is.

It was a very scary time.

People didn't talk about everybody we lost.

It's almost as if the world missed the mourning of Liberace and others who died in that era.

So for not only this sign, but for many other parts of this legacy to resurface with such vigor is simply poetic, and not only in Las Vegas' history but in our own American culture.

Being able to have a Liberace sign restored in the collection beautifully complements what we try to do at the museum every day, which is share personal stories.

Of course he lived here, so locals talk about how sweet he was, how funny and kind he was.

But he always cut this fabulous figure and his fabulous cars, so everyone has a really terrific story about Liberace and yet he's also really loved internationally.

Just days after starting work on the Liberace sign restoration, the Jones team gets good news.

We're here working on the Liberace museum sign refurbishment.

There's been a recent development.

Today we found this piece here.

It was lost at the museum piled up with other signs.

We got a hold of it, so this is a key component to finish the sign.

It's the descender of the "E" and a piece of the piano.

With all the pieces now in place, the team moves on to stage two: Metal reinforcing.

In the past the channel letters had light bulbs in them.

Each light bulb had its own hole.

We're using neon now, so we're eliminating all those socket holes.

It's going to make it more rigid.

We're also going to add some steel brackets to the back to make it even more rigid when we attach it to the frame.

As you can see, the Liberace pattern is laid out and glued down to a piece of paint-lock metal.

They'll basically cut this around and cut each shape, the pattern of each letter.

Typically to ensure accuracy, a computerized cutting machine takes care of this task.

This is something obviously you've got to do by hand.

You've got to follow that pattern pretty much exactly.

But this sign's distinctive curves are too complex for automation.

One big piece of metal reduced down to that, a couple hours' worth of work.

We'll go see if it fits.

So far it looks pretty good.

-Yeah.

A little bit there, a little bit there.

-A little bit of grinding and it'll fit perfect.

Today we're going to get the old Jerry's Nugget sign into the paint booth and shoot the red for the old Jerry's Nugget display.

At Yesco, veteran painter Abel Escobar gets ready to put a new coat of paint on the Jerry's Nugget sign.

(Abel Escobar) Before I do anything, I'm going to blow it out to get all this dust away from the sign.

Seasoned pros like Abel know the most critical part of this paint job is preparing the surface.

This is just acetone.

You have to get rid of all the grime and grease.

Now we're going to wash and degrease it to eliminate dust as well as static from the sign.

We're going to plug the sockets.

Yeah, they're not just Dixie cups for drinking water.

Over the years, Abel has picked up a few tricks of the trade.

This ensures that you're going to have good conduction of electricity all through the sign.

Okay.

We're all done.

Now we're going to seal it.

Sealing the cabinet with epoxy helps the paint adhere to the metal and makes it last longer.

So we're going to start making our paint.

We select the paint color, we put it in the computer, and then we start putting in our toners.

Computer specs guide Abel as he mixes the precise shade of red for this sign.

We go with the exact amount required by the formula.

This is our final color.

After all the toners that we added, this color is supposed to match 2793 red, which is an old plexiglass color.

Now we're going to start spraying.

In the paint booth, he sprays the new coat carefully and evenly, avoiding runs and drips.

We're done.

We're going to let it dry, and then we'll continue with the gold.

Today we're fabricating a structure so this sign can stand up in the Neon Museum.

Before the Jones crew can paint the Liberace sign, they must first stabilize it by adding a rigid skeleton in stage three: Welding.

This sign originally was hanging on a wall, so it had supports about every 6 inches on the wall.

Since it's not on a wall, we're making a frame for it.

Robert and Larry first cut and then weld fortifying square tubing to the back of the sign.

What we're doing now is attaching these, make them all level before I do the final welds, get the structure tacked up and ready to go.

Anytime you're welding, as you know, you keep all your flammables out of the way and keep your eyes covered so you don't get any of this slag in your eyes.

Metal is hot; don't get it on your skin.

If it's not rigid, you see these channels, how flimsy they are?

Any bit of wind or something and this will flex, which will cause the neon to break.

The work is painstaking but vital to the long-term survival of the sign.

We've finished the main shooting of the cabinets.

We've added the gold color to the nugget up top, completed all the red finish, and now we're going to let Kevin do the hand-painting of the original Jerry's letters back onto the sign.

Sign industry pro and Yesco operations manager Kevin Kelley has the experience needed to take this restoration to the next level.

(Kevin Kelley) This is the most fun I've ever had in the sign business.

I miss these days.

Kevin has been working with signs for 30 years.

He started at 18 years old, a time when hand-painting signs was more common.

I'm going to use blue chalk, and I'm going to "pounce" the pattern.

That will allow the image to go through onto the sign itself, and then that gives me something to paint by.

He follows perforations he made in the paper pattern to create chalk outlines to guide him as he paints.

Because the letter is this large, I'm able to use a foam roller.

If I was to use a brush, you'd see brush strokes.

This here is a way to keep it a little more consistent.

Next he uses a roller to rough out the white lettering.

The black outline typically is used to help make a letter pop.

To make the lettering stand out from the background, he paints black borders.

I may have to let this tack up a little bit more because it's reacting with the white.

The white's still not dry enough to allow that black to flow over it.

We're getting a little bit of mixture, it's turning a little bit gray, so we've opted to take the sign out into the sun and speed up that curing process.

"Just put it right behind his truck."

This busy manager has no time to wait for the paint to dry.

It's probably going to be about 106 today, so hopefully it shouldn't take too long to dry.

Some quick thinking and the hot summer sun come to the rescue.

Back in the olden days, in fact some of the original guys I painted with, used what was called a "mahl stick."

Basically they have a stick they hold in the left hand and rest their hand on it and the stick rests here, so you're moving together.

But I developed the ability to use my pinkie and not have to use that mahl stick.

I always looked at it as a crutch and didn't care for it too much.

Working entirely freehand, Kevin finishes painting the black borders.

He may not hand-paint signs much anymore, but this 30-year veteran hasn't lost his touch.

In less than half an hour, he's done.

And there we go.

About 20 minutes ahead of time.

"In goes the sand."

At Jones, the Liberace restoration crew is ready to sandblast the sign and prepare it for painting.

I got Larry all suited up and ready to go.

He's going to start sandblasting the sign, get off all the old paint and rust and everything.

So Larry's doing the dirty job here.

I'm making him do it.

Protective gear is a must for this job.

It's coming out good; that will do the trick.

Gets down to the bare metal.

We can see any imperfections from there and straighten them up.

(machine blasting sand) More sand... For the Jerry's sign, it's time to create the neon.

This delicate process happens in roughly four stages: Bending the glass, vacuuming, gas pumping and electrifying.

I'm getting ready to weld the electrode to the glass tube.

John Robbins is a skilled expert who has been working with neon for 25 years.

(John Robbins) You put your electrode holder on because you'll burn your fingers if you don't.

Contrary to its name, neon lighting often contains no neon at all.

(Dr. Stephen Lepp) Neon lights are made with neon, and to get other colors, they use other gases.

But primarily the gases used in neon lights are neon, argon and mercury.

Neon emits in the red.

In the case of argon, it has some visible emission lines in the purple, so it's like light purple.

By using red neon or purplish argon and mercury and mixing them with different tints of coating inside the glass, nearly any color can be created.

Neon not only is a light source, it's a very pure-colored light source, and then it has this tremendous range.

So the gamut of color that neon emits is much greater than we encounter even with digital media.

Right now I'm making the bottom curve of the "J" in Jerry's Nugget.

John bends the glass using "ribbon fires" to make gradual bends.

You can make up to 16-inch ribbon heats on this one.

And "cross fires" to make sharp bends.

It's a feeling, more or less, and sight.

You'll know when it's right, and as you can see, the glass is starting to get soft now.

One of the big things to remember is you don't push and you don't pull on your glass.

You have to try to keep it all right there.

Okay.

Now watch this.

John gently blows air into a rubber tube attached to the glass to keep it from collapsing.

And that's how you do it; nothing to it.

Now that I got the letter ready, I'm going to process it and we'll see what color it turns out to be.

When you're pumping it, you've got electricity up to 25,000 volts, and you've got to be very careful.

You can't touch anything over here as far as the glass while it's being charged up because it will knock you down.

First John hooks the glass tubing to a high-voltage vacuum and pump system.

You only make one mistake over here.

Next he zaps the tubing with heat-inducing electricity to clear any impurities.

The electricity reacts with the glass coating, causing it to glow.

What they'd like to have is just neon gas in the tube, and if they just pump neon gas in there, there will be lots of impurities.

So to make the neon very pure, what they do is heat up the glass tube and evacuate it, try to make sure everything's out of there.

By the time you're done, the glass will be close to 550 degrees; the electrodes, about 1,000.

Once the glass has cooled down, John pumps it with neon gas.

If you open it too fast, it'll blow the tube right off the pump.

And there you go.

The combination of red neon and green coating on the glass creates the letter's final burnt orange coloring.

Then we bring it down here and hook it up to a transformer and let it burn for a while.

That will be the color it's going to be for now, and it'll last anywhere from 5 minutes to 30-40 years.

That's how you make orange neon.

To make the neon for the Liberace restoration, the Jones team works with Hartlauer Signs.

Today I'm with Bong Gonzalez, a local neon bender, and we're going to work on bending the neon for the sign.

They've already started bending the glass, and this is the actual neon that will go in the sign, and you can see the pink color.

(Bong Gonzalez) We'll start by heating up the glass.

You've got to heat it up really well.

Bong has 20 years' experience fabricating neon.

This piece is really hot, and what you do is let it cool down.

This is our cooling area.

It cools the unit down to where you can touch it again and then work on another area of it.

He and his team follow similar steps as the Yesco crew.

They forge the glass letters in fire, then inject gas and electrify them, revealing their final pink glow.

Working with neon requires a delicate touch and can be dangerous.

But how does neon lighting actually work?

It starts with inert gases.

Neon is one of the elements; it's an inert gas.

If you think of our atmosphere, oxygen for instance isn't an inert gas.

It's mostly in the form of O-2, two oxygen atoms bonded together, whereas helium and neon and all the inert gases are just atoms so they just sit there as atoms.

Also called "noble gases," inert gases occupy the rightmost column of the Periodic Table.

I've brought along some gas discharge tubes, or spectral tubes, so we can see the spectrum of particular elements.

Helium is inert, it's the first inert gas, then helium, neon and argon.

Each gas emits a unique color when electrified This is helium; it's got this yellowish color.

Neon has a nice characteristic red glow which makes for a nice sign, so the first signs were just neon.

Mercury and argon both have this light bluish, purplish color.

Neon lighting works when inert gas is trapped in a glass tube and then ignited with high voltage, creating an electric discharge.

The science behind gas discharge lighting may create a colorful glow for signs, but it's also a tool used to study the stars.

If we go back in history, it was looking at these spectra that they first figured out the Sun, for instance, was made out of hydrogen and helium primarily, and stars are categorized by how strong of a spectrum they have in hydrogen and helium and other elements.

With neon fabrication complete for both the Jerry's Nugget Casino and the Liberace signs, their restorations reach the final stage: Finishing.

Now we're blocking out the neon tubing.

What this block-out does is put on a protective coating that helps insulate the electrode where the power connects and ignites the gas tube.

We paint out the back side behind here so you don't get double reflection off the glass.

You'll see he's going to paint this whole back section so you only see this portion of it illuminated, the single stroke of the tube.

(Kyle Rimoldi) We're getting ready to take our rack of neon back over to the shop and start putting it up.

"Moment of truth!"

We've got the neon over here.

We're getting ready to start laying out all our glass stands, making sure the glass fits properly on the sign.

The glass stand is what positions the glass on the actual sign.

The crew ties the neon letters onto glass stands with copper wire.

Breakage is always a danger.

That's usually where it will break, right there on a double-back.

That's usually about the weakest part of your unit right there.

This cracked "J" goes back to the glass room to be remade.

We've been very busy at work bringing the Liberace restoration to a final close.

At Jones, the team has been putting the finishing touches on the Liberace restoration.

We've sanded and prepped it for paint and painted it.

We've cut our gold mirrorplex and inserted that in place.

We finished up the neon and attached it to the sign, wired the sign and got it ready to go.

One last step: Robert installs new transformers.

The neon transformers are what will turn 120 volts into 1,530 milliamps that will run the gas in this neon.

Now it's time for a test fire.

We'll see if it works.

Are you ready to flip a switch?

At Yesco, the crew adds new wiring and new transformers to the Jerry's Nugget sign.

This right here is one of four neon transformers we're going to be mounting in this sign in order to light up all the neon around it.

When they're done, it's time to electrify the gas and light up the sign.

This will be the first time we've turned it on since we've rebuilt it.

At Jones, Robert gets ready to flip the switch.

5-4-3-2-1... What do you know, it works!

It's beautiful.

Everything is glowing good, all the gases, the tubes are filled properly.

It looks pretty good.

And of course pink is my favorite color.

My motorcycle is actually painted pink.

If this does not light properly, we'll have to go in and check all the wiring, which is a painstaking process.

The crew at Yesco is running into problems with their test fire.

We have one point that's not connecting all of a sudden, so we have to take a look and troubleshoot what the problem is.

Only two out of three sections of the scintillating bulbs These bulbs are wired in a certain way where the flasher, each connection point has a little tab.

Once it's tabbed with power, it makes the bulbs turn on so it gives it like a glittering effect.

Yesco journeyman electrician Mario Martinez zeroes in on the problem: A loose wire on the mechanical flasher.

Now two of them just went out.

Did we lose connection on that one tab?

Luckily, it's a quick fix.

It's all working now.

We found a loose wire on the flasher.

We got that reconnected, and we're good to go.

But a second test reveals a new dilemma.

We just test-fired the whole display.

As you can see, the "Jerry's" is flashing here.

This time the problem appears to be even bigger.

We're going to have to shut it down; probably have a bad ground somewhere.

Everything lights up except the "Jerry's" lettering.

Kill it, Mario?

-Kill it.

The crew probes the sign, but all the connections check out.

Finally they determine the problem: To fire up this neon, it'll take more power.

We've figured out what the problem is and why the "Jerry's" letters weren't lighting.

We didn't have enough power brought to the sign.

The next step will be to get the sign loaded back down Las Vegas Boulevard and set at the Neon Museum in its final resting spot.

The next step for this restoration crew: Installation.

Work starts at dawn.

Today is the moment of truth.

We're going to go ahead and get the sign loaded and installed at the Neon Museum today.

They're securing the top and the bottom.

The bottom legs have been drilled to the deck of the trailer.

They're going to put an angle iron across the top so we can put some straps on it to make sure it doesn't wobble while going down the road.

We don't want any vibration to damage the neon.

As the sun rises over the Strip in the near distance, the transport crew hits the road, driving up Las Vegas Boulevard, taking this sign back home.

At the Neon Museum, the crew uses a crane to carefully lift the sign, swing it through the air and lower it to a steel pylon.

It takes experience and a steady hand, but the crew pulls it off without a hitch.

Bolting the sign to its footing finishes the job.

We're installing the sign at the Neon Museum today.

The next morning, Robert and his crew prepare the restored Liberace sign for transport.

I'm proud of it; it's a nice looking sign.

Somebody took a lot of effort to make it originally.

It was a challenge to restore it and try to make it look like it used to look when it was wherever Liberace wanted it.

I like it.

As you can see it's still dark outside, got a full Moon, a good time to work in Vegas.

It's still early so we can drive slow and hopefully don't get run over by all the commuters going to work.

I don't like this; change this.

You got enough to go?

You should have enough.

Take it down a little bit.

Down or up?

What do you want?

Larry, just give me directions.

I can't see him.

You tell me.

Don't let it fall real hard.

With the sign secured to the truck, they head to the museum.

After several weeks and a great effort from our team, the Liberace sign has been brought back to life.

Today we're placing the sign in the Neon Museum.

Robert and Mark go over the plans for getting the sign into place.

So you're putting this up and over the Stardust?

-Yeah.

We're going to swing this up.

We've got two guys on tag lines.

We're going to swing it over the lantern there and try to squeeze it in that hole.

The sign has to be dropped into a narrow space with just about a foot of clearance on any side.

They're going to hold it to keep it from swinging so we can just slide it right in there.

It's going to be a pretty tight fit.

I'm going to come over a little bit.

Robert and the crew carefully maneuver the sign into place.

Is that going to clear, Eric?

Suddenly Robert stops.

The sign is too close to the Aladdin's lamp.

The team agrees to slide it away from the lamp before landing it.

Moments later in the hands of these experts, the job is done.

All signs are safe.

Now it's time for these restored signs to shine.

Welcome to the Neon Museum, and thank you so much for joining us this evening for the unveiling of the newly restored Jerry's Nugget sign.

I want to thank in particular the Stamis family for their generosity in sponsoring the restoration of the sign as well as Yesco for the fantastic work they did in restoring the sign back to its former beauty.

3-2-1... (cheers and applause) To see this sign once again back in our own neighborhood actually is awesome.

When we first built the sign, we thought we really had something beautiful, just like it is now.

It's a great looking sign.

They don't make them like they used to anymore, so I'm glad people are going to get to enjoy it here.

I remember this sign growing up, and I'm glad to see it lit back up again and in a place where people can enjoy it.

Now the group gathers to see the Liberace sign turned on for the first time in its new home.

Thanks to the Shulman Family Foundation and the fantastic restoration work by Jones Sign.

3-2-1... (cheers and applause) I've been doing signs for a long time.

I love doing neon signs.

I take a lot of pride in the work the guys did and knowing a lot of people are going to come here and take a look at it.

It did come a long way.

When I first saw it, it was pretty beat up, and I like the way it all came out.

It was fun working on it.

I didn't know Liberace personally, but I think he would like the sign.

For the Stamis family, this marks 50 years in Vegas and the realization of the dream of a couple of guys named Jerry.

I take a lot of pride in the fact that I'm able to continue on with what my grandfather started.

Fifty years from now, that sign will be there, and it will have its imprint on history.

If my uncle was here right now, he would be dancing.

He would be so happy.

For everybody who helped bring these icons back to life, it's been a journey through history filled with excitement and discovery.

It's very relevant to restore that sign.

People keeping Liberace in sight and in mind is very important for the history of entertainment in this community.

It was a sign that was meant to be shown.

If anybody ever deserved to have their name in lights, it was Liberace.

The difference between before the renovation and now is of course incredible, but it also still looks like the truly original Liberace signature sign.

As these signs take their place among the Boneyard's historical icons, neon in Las Vegas continues to dazzle the eye in a spectacular multicolored dance of light against the desert sky.