"Legal"? To splice lights?

We built table lamps in 7th grade. That was legal.

I can build you a stereo amplifier. That is legal.

If the end user (you) plugs and unplugs it, it's not part of the building wiring, so you can forget code.

Will your contraption be UL-listed? No. But there isn't a law saying you can't repair/modify/outright_build_from_scratch something electrical.

Only if you use SquareD products.

so can i just do a western union and wrap it in heat shrink?

I'd love to just let you go at it and watch the fun when you destroy the light string and never get it to work again, but I'll give you a hint here. The strings in these miniature bulb sets are not just a set of bulbs in parallel or series. They're typically multiple parallel strands of series bulbs. In addition, the newer LED ones will have a few rectifiers thrown in the mix.

ron, i found the spots to cut. there are 3 sets of 50 lights in paralell. i cut sets before and just used plug caps.

smithy indicated he knew they were in sections in his initial post.

Frankly his commercialism irritates the heck out of me and I'm not too fond of his tendency to chime in on every single thread just to advertise those infernal proprietary breakers, but I think he's about where I was at his age, maybe even a bit beyond, and I do think modifying christmas lights is probably within his abilities. :)

Meanwhile, I've only seen a few of the LED strings but I haven't seen retifiers yet. Since LEDs are diodes in and of themselves, they don't complain much about AC if you don't exceed their reverse voltage rating, and those do add up in series.

That's not to say you're not correct on that - having rectifiers would definitely be a MUCH better design and I'm sure most of the better sets have them. Just pointing out that some don't :)

I am very capable, and i have been interested since i was a baby. I have wired 2 buildings, starting with the subpanel and out.