Hello I'm J. S. Pilliteri the webmaster for "The Yule Lights collection" and would like to introduce myself to this forum. Perhaps someone can help me with research and light set repair.
I bought 15 GE lighted bells in September 2008 at a yard sale for only $2 dollars! Shows there are still bargains to be found.
As you can see in the photo, these have a C-7 candelabra base bulb cemented inside a plastic glitter coated bell.
After testing them, 7 were burned out, so I had to try re-lamping the bells.
My first discovery was that the old bulbs can be removed easily if the bases are soaked in water for 10 minutes. The next step is to re-lamp the bells with modern bulbs.
My question is what adhesive to use to cement the new bulbs in place? I notice that the old adhesive is
transparent and is still pliable after all these years. Also the glue can be peeled off the plastic, so it's not a solvent cement maybe it's a latex adhesive. I'd like to use the same cement as original.
If anyone has re-lamped these bells please let me know. You may reply through this forum or the e-mail link. Thanks J.S.P.
Update 10/15/08
Tried using elmer's glue-all to cement a bulb in place and it works great! I like this glue because being water based it can be de-bonded by soaking in warm water. That way when the bulb burns out again, it's easy to replace. I've also used it to cement the bulbs into bubble light bases. There is a detailed procedure on my website.
Go to :
http://fp.enter.net/~jpill612/page2/ge_bell.htmJ.S.P.
