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Mini Light Color Wearing Off


Mark Belgen

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I have blue iccicle mini lights that were originally blue, but the color has worn off in varying degrees, so now the lights are somewhat whitish blue.:)

What can be done to make these lights blue again?

Also, is there anything that can be done to prevent it from happening?

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Mark Belgen wrote:

What can be done to make these lights blue again?

Blue sharpie can put some color back on the bulbs, at least touch up the clearest portion.

Mark Belgen wrote:
Also, is there anything that can be done to prevent it from happening?

This is one place that LED lights shine. They actually put out blue light, and the diffuser lens is only blue for daytime appearance. As long as they run, they should not shift color substantially.

Short of LEDs for blue, I haven't seen any good answers.

There are some other answers like color caps, but the pricing may not be much better than LED, and they won't be as permanent a solution.
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Blue is THE WORST color for fading. Feel lucky if you got 2 good seasons out of them before they need replacing.

Spend the money for LED's in blue.

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Blue Sharpie looks great until it rains. If you're careful to clean the bulbs with alcohol first, the Sharpie color MIGHT last almost the whole season. Might... Been there, done that. Get blue LED's.

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I have heard of people only purchasing white lights and using a "stained glass window" paint. Not tried this myself, but I may this year for a college logo I want to try.

Brian

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I tried that one year. It was a royal pain in the ass and made a sticky, gooey mess. Color was very pale and cracked/chipped off as soon as the weather got cold. I say again the problem can be solved once and for all with blue LED's. Given how long they last compared to replacing minis every year, they'll pay for themselves even before Jeff Millard can come up with another reason to prefer incandescents. :D

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We use a spray paint by Krylon "Stained Glass Color" for glass (http://www.Krylon.com), we use this product on clear flood lights, which are cheaper than buying colored flood lights. The stuff is expensive, about $8.00 for a 6 oz can, but the product is great and translucent, meaning each coat applied actually changes the hue or depth of the color. I ordered three colors online a couple years back, I use it every year and still have the original cans, so it does last.

Another nice feature of this product is you can blend colors ( spray blue then immediately spray yellow makes a nice green) We have bulbs the we have used for several years without any fading or chipping.

I have not used it on mini's yet, as I figured it was cheaper just to buy new strings versus repainting the string, but after lasts years available selection of lights, I might just have to give it a try. I'm sure it would work great.


Also: Krylon states it's available at Michaels, but after checking several stores which had no stock, I did end up ordering it from a online vendor.

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I bought NO blue minis for the first time ever this year. The only LED's I did purchase were blue, that seemed like the only answer to the blue fade for me.

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dougd wrote:

I bought NO blue minis for the first time ever this year. The only LED's I did purchase were blue, that seemed like the only answer to the blue fade for me.

My Blues never make ONE season.
I use Dougd's method myself and buy Blue LEDs
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I think I have enough new blue strings in stock to replace the whole display, but it still pains me to throw away perfectly good light strings just due to paint flaking... I may try the Krylon stained glass paint idea.

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Has anyone tried a blue nail polish? Seems to me like you might be able to get the right tint and opacity since there are so many colors variations available. Not sure how it would handle the cold though.

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RickWIlliams wrote:

We use a spray paint by Krylon "Stained Glass Color" for glass (http://www.Krylon.com), we use this product on clear flood lights, which are cheaper than buying colored flood lights. The stuff is expensive, about $8.00 for a 6 oz can, but the product is great and translucent, meaning each coat applied actually changes the hue or depth of the color. I ordered three colors online a couple years back, I use it every year and still have the original cans, so it does last.

Another nice feature of this product is you can blend colors ( spray blue then immediately spray yellow makes a nice green) We have bulbs the we have used for several years without any fading or chipping.

I have not used it on mini's yet, as I figured it was cheaper just to buy new strings versus repainting the string, but after lasts years available selection of lights, I might just have to give it a try. I'm sure it would work great.


Also: Krylon states it's available at Michaels, but after checking several stores which had no stock, I did end up ordering it from a online vendor.


What a great idea!!;)

I did not know that Krylon made a spray glass paint. I have tried the regular stained glass paint. It works well if you bake the glass at 300 dF to set it, but that is a tremendous amount of work for mini lights.

My display this year got all kinds of compliments for being more dramatic and dynamic than the other homes, which I couldn't understand why as I haven't changed anything. When I looked at the other homes, they were using LED's. They look like glow in the dark kinds of lights.:?

So I need to keep using my incandescent mini -lights until someone makes a blue LED iccicle and light string that has the same 360 degree candle light output as the incandescent mini-lights. So I am definitely going to try this.:)
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