Model Train Journal

I have an ancient bottle of green bulb dye. BD-something is the label. Looks like an old perfume bottle with a brush in the cap.
Works well.

I need red and yellow.
Found big amounts in England, expensive.

Where can I find small bottles of yellow and red?

Have a LOT of faded red bulbs I need to fix, and the configuration of my signal bridges on crossovers dictates green and red on one, yellow and red on the other.

TNX

Try an art supply store. It might be sold as glass paint or glass dye.

In my research (and I did a LOT before posting this), I saw that....and read a bit.....some of it doesn't work well...some is decorative (as in, dead bulbs, no heat).

I have a place close I shall check into.

None of my 3-rail suppliers has anything listed on their website I can find.

Try this web site for a description of the products/techniques.

https://www.wikihow.com/Paint-Light-Bulbs

Here is a list of "brands" from that page

Examples of appropriate paint to use are DecoArt Glass-tiques, Decoart Liquid Rainbow, FolkArt Gallery Glass Liquid Leading, and Vitrea by Pebeo

I remember finding some red light bulb stain at a craft shop about 20 years ago. Nasty stuff, stunk while "drying" and it smelled worse for the first couple of hours of bulb use until it "baked".

Stuff is getting harder to find as incandescents are being replaced by CFL's and ultimately LED's. I've successfully painted over warm white LED's with Tamiya clear acrylics which are easily found in most hobby shops. They have the ROYGB, Purple and Smoke. These were meant to tint windows on plastic models and are not meant for something that gets as hot as an incandescent bulb.

Could you use automotive candy enamels?

Roy wrote:Could you use automotive candy enamels?

Some of the reading I did warned about certain paints that somehow caused the glass to pop when hot.

I was really hoping someone had a place and part number for something they had used.

I mean, how long have folks had 1449 and 1445 bulbs in accessories that needed to be painted from time to time?

I'll check with the local shop this week.

Not an emergency.

There were some products listed from Europe that would have worked, even a nice YouTube video doing what you are trying to do. It looks like most of those products have been discontinued as well.

The coloring material has to a) withstand high heat, b) have a coefficient of expansion that matches the glass bulb so it won't flake off or worse constrain the bulb and cause it to explode.

This stuff MIGHT work if the bulb is of low wattage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvp9tBaQWRk

It looks like it's available in US, at least through Amazon and it looks like they have red and green.

DIck Blick professional art supplies carries the line. If there is a dealer in your area you might be abled to find them locally.