Not sure if any of you have heard of vaseline glass, but in short it is called 'depression glass' by a lot of folks who collect it. It is also known as 'uranium glass.' I am a light collector of it.
It is (was) manufactured with uranium oxide, and is slightly radioactive, but is not dangerous. The uranium oxide was added as a coloring agent, a pale yellow.
Because of the uranium oxide, the glass will flouresce under ultraviolet light. And as I discovered last night, it will also flouresce quite nicely with ultraviolet LED's. My daughters got LED 'spy pens' for stocking stuffers this Christmas, and of course I've been playing with them ever since. You write with 'invisible' ink and then use the LED in the cap to show what is written.
Well, I was sitting in a chair in the living room and beaming the pens around, when all of a sudden my daughter grew very concerned with something in the corner. I discovered that it was the vaseline glass that was glowing when I drew the LED beam across it.
That kicked off a whole hour of play with the LED's and the vaseline glass. The more intense the light, the more intense glow. Black lights do pretty good, but the LED's make the things literally glow with internal fire.
I don't want to hot link here, and I don't have a facility for posting images, but if you're curious about vaseline glass and how it glows, do an ebay search on 'vaseline glass' and you'll get a taste of what I'm talking about.
It now has me thinking: If I get glow paint to paint some 'garden features' in my back yard, and then get some cheap harbor freight LED solar lights, I can replace the white LED's with UV LED's to get some freaky glow in the dark effects.
I figure if I paint some garden gnomes with the glow paint, and place the UV solar lights near them, that should be sufficient to creep out my neighbor who is always peering over the fence at night, trying to figure out what I'm doing with all the flashlights.
It is (was) manufactured with uranium oxide, and is slightly radioactive, but is not dangerous. The uranium oxide was added as a coloring agent, a pale yellow.
Because of the uranium oxide, the glass will flouresce under ultraviolet light. And as I discovered last night, it will also flouresce quite nicely with ultraviolet LED's. My daughters got LED 'spy pens' for stocking stuffers this Christmas, and of course I've been playing with them ever since. You write with 'invisible' ink and then use the LED in the cap to show what is written.
Well, I was sitting in a chair in the living room and beaming the pens around, when all of a sudden my daughter grew very concerned with something in the corner. I discovered that it was the vaseline glass that was glowing when I drew the LED beam across it.
That kicked off a whole hour of play with the LED's and the vaseline glass. The more intense the light, the more intense glow. Black lights do pretty good, but the LED's make the things literally glow with internal fire.
I don't want to hot link here, and I don't have a facility for posting images, but if you're curious about vaseline glass and how it glows, do an ebay search on 'vaseline glass' and you'll get a taste of what I'm talking about.
It now has me thinking: If I get glow paint to paint some 'garden features' in my back yard, and then get some cheap harbor freight LED solar lights, I can replace the white LED's with UV LED's to get some freaky glow in the dark effects.
I figure if I paint some garden gnomes with the glow paint, and place the UV solar lights near them, that should be sufficient to creep out my neighbor who is always peering over the fence at night, trying to figure out what I'm doing with all the flashlights.
