Oozing Goo - The Lava Lamp Syndicate

Crestworth Mark 1 Astro - accidental find on eBay

I was looking for a Crestworth... wanted to get a lantern, but then decided a nice copper Astro would be a good find... getting it to the US would be even better and I wanted to test out my forwarding service. Well, little did I know that the Astro would turn out to be the first version of the Astro! 

I will be rewiring it since the wiring is clearly not original anyway... I wonder how old it is?!

Album here, with some shots of the lamp flowing on a heritage base, but also included some photos of the vintage base here..

Astro Mark 1 Album

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Score!!

Spunkers !!!

yep thats the first model and been rewired, it should also have a earth wire attached to the screw on the inner base cone, word of warning the black plastic screw bolt which holds the bulb fitting can wear down/ thread goes when tightening and then wont grip.

Cant tell if the bottle is orig as the copper cap is on.

Nice find

The black plastic ring seems to be okay, but it may not matter ultimately. I ordered three different sockets to try out with this lamp since the 240V bayonet style bulb is a complete non-starter for me here. I will also be adding a cord with a dimmer to this as a standard procedure really. I looked around for a grounded plug wire, but couldn't find anything useful. They are all way too thick to go through that little hole. I will have to just be very careful in the wiring and use plenty of electricians tape.

What should I be looking for with the bottle to determine if it is original? The cap is quite a bit shorter than a modern Heritage Astro cap... and from looking up and into the bottle, it looks like it is a wide-mouth screw-top. 

Aww ... Kid gloves matey... all the very best.

I took a photo of the cold bottle next to a modern Heritage bottle. I think that this fits the description I have read of the early bottles... the cap is quite a bit shorter (one site calls them "thinner" but that doesn't really fit the description I think). You can clearly see the liquid level when cold.... when running, it rises up just enough. Does this match everyone else's first edition Astro description?

I still can't believe this is 50+ years old. The liquid is only slightly cloudy, but I would almost just call it tinted. It may even clear a little with running. I am not touching this bottle unless it just decides to die someday.. then it will likely become a glitter lamp, but that is far into the future I think...lets see if this thing is still running at year 60... year 70...



Johnny said:

yep thats the first model and been rewired, it should also have a earth wire attached to the screw on the inner base cone, word of warning the black plastic screw bolt which holds the bulb fitting can wear down/ thread goes when tightening and then wont grip.

Cant tell if the bottle is orig as the copper cap is on.

Nice find

For what it's worth, I've used this on a re-wiring job, and it looked a lot better than electrical tape. You brush it on like you would with rubber cement.

The liquid amount is at the correct level for that size cap, looking how the cap is sitting id say its the original bottle :-) the cap (copper part) will be glued on to either a metal screw top or a thin plastic top, to remove the copper bit you'll have to place the copper part into a pan of boiling water and boil for a while to loosen the glue,  so its heat up put on a bottle wiggle it up n down till it comes of.

As johnny said... but be careful the Bakerlite/plastic screw top may have diminished over the years and can snap of at the top.... Then it is a bitch to remove !!!

Johnny said:

The liquid amount is at the correct level for that size cap, looking how the cap is sitting id say its the original bottle :-) the cap (copper part) will be glued on to either a metal screw top or a thin plastic top, to remove the copper bit you'll have to place the copper part into a pan of boiling water and boil for a while to loosen the glue,  so its heat up put on a bottle wiggle it up n down till it comes of.

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