You'll of course have to be careful when doing something that a dekatron is not designed for, as Jon says there is always the risk of wrecking it by destroying the electrodes or accidentally creating a conductive path between electrodes you don't want a path between. Always put a current limiting resistor in the circuit, calculated for the current you expect the gap to ignite at and turn the voltage up slowly and then back somewhat when you get a glow. If you don't get a glow where you expect it it can sometimes have ignited inside the structure as there might be a point inside/between the ceramic wafers where the path forms. Doing this with low lighting conditions also helps as you can then see more easily if you get a glow somewhere else than expected. Trying to regenerate a dekatron is not an exact method but you'll have to rely on what has been described for other valves and also what can be read about how to prime neon lamps and similar elements. I have the same experience as Jon with the orange glow, but then for the Z505S - outgassed ones which almost don't run at all get a more orange glow but ones with proper filling have a blueish/prupleish glow.
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