Some of the old timers know that I have accumulated a massive amount of toys in the last 60+ years. Here is one of them: I'm doing some restoring/modifying on it and need some help with the red emergency light. I have fixed the electronics for the blinking LED: 10 second video here(ignore the OCC chatter in the background. TV was on): http://s255.photobucket.com/albums/hh137/jhanlon303/pedal%20cars/?action=view¤t=flashing_movie.mp4 and now I need to re-tint the plastic globe. It sat outside my man cave in Colorado for a year and the sun was less than kind to it. It faded. A lot! What I need is some advice on tinting it on the inside. It is some antique plastic and a replacement is $81USD and not the correct one. A bit steep for my frugal self. I know people tint tail lights to redo the red but I'm coming up with a blank on how to do it. Thoughts? Ideas? john
I'd recommended vacuum forming a piece of transparent red acrylic (delvies is a great place to get acrylic) over the old part and just cut it to fit. The end result will be a bit larger, since you are making a plastic glove to cover the old part, but it should do the job nicely. Or if you are up for some extra work, just make a mold of the part, and then vacuum form the mold to get an identical part in shiny new plastic. In any case it is pretty easy to build a DIY vacuum forming table using pegboard, a shop vac, and your oven. Edit: Another thought is to track down some of the pigments used in children's stained glass kit, and just swirl it around the inside of the light.
Solved....http://www.extremeautoaccessories.co.uk/products.php?section=1193 I'm dead sure you'd find something like this state side. Edit: Worst case and they don sell it over there i can always get some and send it to you. double edit: Bad idea, pressurized can on a plane, maybe not
^I retract my previous statement and recommend this, leave it to the Asian to make things way more complex than they need to be. I doubt you will find a simpler solution.
It would have been perfect if John was making a lens up from scratch. I saw a guy do this for some custom break lights for a bike, looked amazing when it was finished.
I can't find an original replacement and I wrote search engines for a living. I need to fix this one. john
You could try Rit dye with a little bit of warm water. Alternatively, you can try mixing a small amount of red pigment with denatured alcohol. Either of those should tint the plastic without becoming too opaque. Testors has clear colors available in spray can or bottle, so if all else fails that might be worth a try. If any of these fail to produce the dark enough red, you could always couple it with a red LED on the inside. EDIT: Here you go: Using Rit dye on plastic.
