# Anybody put the red jewels on rear of tender?



## mopac (Feb 24, 2011)

Curious if you mess with putting red jewels on rear of tenders.
I do not have any installed yet, but I think it would be a nice touch. Yesterday I got 10 posts in the mail. Most if not all plastic tender shells already have the holes for the posts. The posts I got are repro parts. I thought the posts were cheap. They were
10 bucks plus 3 for shipping so 1.30 each. I had bought 8 red jewels that were 8 for 3.00 plus shipping. If they look good and catch a little light I might even install on the metal tenders. Will have to drill the holes. I think my K5 312 has posts on rear of metal tender. I would have thought the northerns would have posts on rear, they don't. I guess these posts could be used on the front of the locomotives. Mounted on top of cow catcher.
Might look nice. I just don't know how much the jewels will show up. None of my engines have their jewels. I guess they didn't have super glue back then.


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## Kelpieflyer (Jan 9, 2012)

I have thought about that as well. Might even experiment with some micro led's to see how that works.


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## BrokeCurmudgeon (Feb 8, 2016)

mopac said:


> Curious if you mess with putting red jewels on rear of tenders.
> I do not have any installed yet, but I think it would be a nice touch. Yesterday I got 10 posts in the mail. Most if not all plastic tender shells already have the holes for the posts. The posts I got are repro parts. I thought the posts were cheap. They were
> 10 bucks plus 3 for shipping so 1.30 each. I had bought 8 red jewels that were 8 for 3.00 plus shipping. If they look good and catch a little light I might even install on the metal tenders. Will have to drill the holes. I think my K5 312 has posts on rear of metal tender. I would have thought the northerns would have posts on rear, they don't. I guess these posts could be used on the front of the locomotives. Mounted on top of cow catcher.
> Might look nice. I just don't know how much the jewels will show up. None of my engines have their jewels. I guess they didn't have super glue back then.


Although it may be not original, I have thought about a small LED circuit as a tender light. It seems to me that a simple circuit of a diode, resistive voltage divider, a capacitor and a red LED may work. The capacitor is there to charge up on start and then provide a small voltage for the LED’s during running. Just an idea.:smilie_auslachen:


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## mopac (Feb 24, 2011)

I thought about small red LEDs also. You could use a rectifier. Pick up AC power from front and rear tender trucks, run to rectifier, and rectifier has DC lugs. Would probably need a resistor in line to LED.

Rectifiers are cheap from Radio Shack. If you can find a Radio Shack. I think they all closed around here.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

If you're doing these in HO, you might consider some fiber optic cable to get a more scale sized light and just have the red LED inside the tender. For O-gauge, I mount the marker light fixtures on the tenders. Since this is in S-gauge, I'd look for the marker light fixtures, Lionel should have some for S-gauge.


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## flyernut (Oct 31, 2010)

Unlike Lionel, I don't believe AF ever put jewels in their locos/tenders. All of my locos have either a dab of green or red paint on the boiler faces or rear of tenders. Here's a auxiliary tender I made up of parts for a 312, and I did put in red jewels in the posts.


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## Mikeh49 (Sep 20, 2015)

I have added the “posts” and red jewels to a 303. They look nice. I used a tiny bit of white glue. I’m not sure the work of installing LEDs would be worth it. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## mopac (Feb 24, 2011)

The red jewels look good flyernut. I think it is a good idea.
Yours show up.

I did not know AF did not use the jewels. I am. LOL. Good enough for me.

The red LEDs would be nice, then I would want a whitesh yellow LED for headlight. Not going there.
LOL, this isn't my main scale anyway.

I would never done HO if I had done AF steamers first.

I have some aux. tenders in HO.


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## cramden (Oct 13, 2015)

The only engine that might have come with jewels is the K-5, according to all the books on Flyer I have. They list the 312,312AC, 314AW, 315, and the 316 as coming with or without jewels. I don't have any with jewels and don't think I ever did. Lots of engines have been altered with them and they do look nice installed but they are usually just painted.


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## C100 (Nov 19, 2012)

*Jewel Install??*

The thread caught my eye about installing jewels or LED's. I came across a site, "Model Train Software." I purchased an assortment of LED's from them to install on a diesel loco I made up for my Granddaughter. I also purchased some for myself that I installed on a water tower. Extremely pleased with the price, quality and having the necessary electronics already installed for AC compatibility. I am not promoting the company, but interested Forum members may like to take a look.

Fred "Lifetime Member of the flyernut Fan Club"


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## flyernut (Oct 31, 2010)

C100 said:


> The thread caught my eye about installing jewels or LED's. I came across a site, "Model Train Software." I purchased an assortment of LED's from them to install on a diesel loco I made up for my Granddaughter. I also purchased some for myself that I installed on a water tower. Extremely pleased with the price, quality and having the necessary electronics already installed for AC compatibility. I am not promoting the company, but interested Forum members may like to take a look.
> 
> Fred "Lifetime Member of the flyernut Fan Club"


Now stop it,lol!!!!.. I made the statement of Gilbert not using jewels like Lionel did, and here's my thinking. If you look at the picture of my aux tender, you'll see that you can see the jewels from the side.. The reason being is the posts that hold the jewels are not deep enough to accommodate the pointed end of the jewel. To fix that I would think you would have to drill out the post a little to make it deeper. Again, just my observation of Gilbert not using jewels...Fred, you're killing me!!!!


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## BrokeCurmudgeon (Feb 8, 2016)

C100 said:


> The thread caught my eye about installing jewels or LED's. I came across a site, "Model Train Software." I purchased an assortment of LED's from them to install on a diesel loco I made up for my Granddaughter. I also purchased some for myself that I installed on a water tower. Extremely pleased with the price, quality and having the necessary electronics already installed for AC compatibility. I am not promoting the company, but interested Forum members may like to take a look.
> 
> Fred "Lifetime Member of the flyernut Fan Club"


I have a couple hundred of various size and color LED’s. Not to mention all the resistors, wire and heat shrink. I have spent many hours wiring just LED’s. This company appears to have all the type that I would want. And the cost is reasonable. Thanks for the tip!


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## Kelpieflyer (Jan 9, 2012)

C100 said:


> The thread caught my eye about installing jewels or LED's. I came across a site, "Model Train Software." I purchased an assortment of LED's from them to install on a diesel loco I made up for my Granddaughter. I also purchased some for myself that I installed on a water tower. Extremely pleased with the price, quality and having the necessary electronics already installed for AC compatibility. I am not promoting the company, but interested Forum members may like to take a look.
> 
> Fred "Lifetime Member of the flyernut Fan Club"


I get mine from them also. Good price and an easy install. Whenever I service a locomotive, I switch out the headlight with one of their warm white led's they look nice and you have no light shining from the bottom of the engine.


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