Need help restoring my 1975 Century, various problems

[Rich C]

Since I am new here, I'll first introduce myself a bit.  I've been fascinated by Lava Lamps since I was a little kid.  I can remember when my older sister had moved into her first apartment we all went to visit her.  As we left, everyone was out front of the building yakking away, it was about dusk.  I noticed a Lava Lamp on the window sill of a garden level apartment so I wandered over to watch it, messmerized.  After about 10 minutes I guess the resident wanted a little more privacy and came to the window and drew the curtains shut!  I'm not a peeping Tom, just a kid fascinated by the goo!

 

I must have been successful expressing to my parents how bad I wanted a Lava Lite because I got one on my 14th birthday and I've had it ever since.  I wish I'd kept the box!  I do still have the warranty card and instruction sheet around somewhere...  Anyway, it was a gold Centry, it is dated May 1975 and originally had yellow fluid and red goo.  I used it a LOT when I was a kid.  That may be why it has a few issues now.  It still functions and does okay, at least as well as it ever has, but it has a few issues I hope I can correct given all the data I've found and read on this site.  Anyway, I'll list out the issues I want to address and hopefully I can get some good advice on how to bring it back to like new condition.

 

1.  The cap is cracked.  I posted a note in the Buy/Sell/Trade section, hopefully one will turn up. 

2.  The fluid now appears clear, not yellow.  It never sat in a window, heck for the past roughly 20 years it sat in a closet away from all light.  How can I recolor the fluid back to its original yellow?  I read that McKormick's food coloring can be used.  Is this correct?  Perhpas just add a drop or two at a time until the proper color is acheived?  Any dangers in doing this?  Any idea why it faded?  It was certainly yellow when it went into the closet.

3.  The fluid, while not exactly cloudy, does have a fair amount of visible particulate in it.  Is there any way I can safely filter this out without damaging the fluid and perhaps without going so far as the ceramic filter method I read about?

4.  The flow isn't the greatest.  Good sized chunks of wax get stuck at the top while on.  Much of it eventually falls, but often it has a writhing column of goo from top to bottom instead of nice floating blobs and terminated fingers of goo. 

5.  The wax appears chunky.  The method for addressing this strikes me as rather drastic (boiling) and I'd be concerned about doing harm to the wax or fluid but I do want to take some action.  This probably came about by overuse when I was a kid (I often left it running for days at a time) and/or having sat neglected for so long although I remember it being chunky also many years ago.

 

Even with a cracked cap, the lamp has not lost much fluid, maybe 1/8" or 1/4" from back in the day.  I've read I can top this off with distilled water.  I see no harm in trying this.  Mechanically the lamp is in great shape.  I just installed a new bulb and it warms up in less than two hours and seems to work as well as it ever did, I just know it could work better.

 

I recently bought a new LL at Menards for $7.50!  I wanted to remind myself how one SHOULD work.  It is a 14.5" tall (32 ounce?) unit with purple fluid and yellow wax.  I love how the goo looks yellow/orange/red depending on how the light catches it and how far up the globe it goes.  I've heard the current (made in China) lamps often don't work that well, but this one works great.  Who would have thought you could find a bargain on Lava Lamps at Menards of all places!

 

Anyway, thanks in advance for any and all help that may be provided.

 

I'll try to post up some photos at a later date.

[Rich C]

Here is another short video showing the improved goo quality after the boiling.  With the cap restored, this one is entirely good to go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCUcA6Bd48o&feature=player_embe...

While the old one flows mostly with writhing columns and just a few blobs, my new Classic shoots up blob after blob, which I really like.  Best of both worlds.  Here are a few more photos along with some of my other favorite lights.

Plasma ball

Some of my neon

[Keith]

Love the drive-in!  Are those from model kits or replicas?

[Rich C]

The cars are 1:18 scale diecast replicas.  I have quite a few of them, that is just a portion of my collection.  I need to find a better way to display all my cars and lava.

[Keith]

Old fashioned drive-in, Lava lamps set up as if they are the featured movie, and of course the movie is "The Blob" 

Rich C said:

The cars are 1:18 scale diecast replicas.  I have quite a few of them, that is just a portion of my collection.  I need to find a better way to display all my cars and lava.

[Loren]

In that last video you posted, I would call that just about perfect flow. Nice!

You should be proud. :)

[Rich C]

I'm really happy I was able to restore the cap and that after all this time and small amounts of trouble it still works.  Some chunks are showing up again in the wax, I'm going to choose to ignore them.....

Loren said:

In that last video you posted, I would call that just about perfect flow. Nice!

You should be proud. :)

[Rich C]

Just to circle back on this, here is a quote from the goo kit tutorial:

** The more surfactant you use, the more round blobs will be produced.

** The less surfactant you use, the long stretchy type of blob you'll get.

Which seems contrary to Brad's statement I quoted.  I'm now confused, which way does it work?  ;)

Brad said:

if you don't want the blobs of wax to conjoin as easy, then you would actually want less surfactant.  a surfactant reduces the surface tension of the wax, making it stretch and join other masses of wax.

[Brad]

it's a good question.  surfactant reduces the surface tension of a substance.  for wax, this relationship follows an inverted U-shaped curve.  that is, not enough surfactant and you have lots of large spheres of wax and columns, just enough and you get stretchy flow and some spheres (ideal, IMO), and too much and you get lots of tiny spheres.

once you add enough surfactant to the point where the weight of the wax is greater than what the surface tension will allow, it stretches out.  keep adding surfactant and the large masses of wax can no longer hold their own weight and will break up in to small spheres.

[Rich C]

Know of any way to empirically measure how much surfacant is in the fluid (other than surmising by observation) and subsequently what a proper measure would be?  (I think I'm just going to leave well enough alone here but now I am curious.)

[Brad]

You can with a goo kit since you add the surfactant yourself. Not sure otherwise without it getting difficult really quick.

[Todd Miller]

OK, now were talking.

I have the same issue, several mis-fit lamps that have leaked or perform poorly.

I have just started toying with the balance of these lamps.  I have a few that will

rise with a big blob head toward the top, while still connected with a column and

then fall back down.

They also share the chunks in the wax like yours.  I did boil a few and one turned out

silky smooth, but the others did not.  Maybe I didn't boil them enough, too cautious.

I've toyed with distilled water and PG with some success, but I finally decided to quit

chasing my tail and get scientific.  I ordered some 500ml flasks and a hydrometer.

A hydrometer measures specific gravity of fluids.  I decided to measure the gravity

of my lamps cold and use that for a baseline as I add DI or PG.  I figure if I screw

up, I can pour off some liquid and add distilled water to get the gravity back to the

baseline.  You can get a hydrometer at a pet store, they use them for aquariums.

I like the 'chart' Brad and from what your saying is I need to add more surf / PG.

I have literally sat here for weeks watching these lamps warm up and studying

the flows.

 

[Todd Miller]

A Hydrometer to measure the specific gravity of the liquid ???

Rich C said:

Know of any way to empirically measure how much surfacant is in the fluid (other than surmising by observation) and subsequently what a proper measure would be?  (I think I'm just going to leave well enough alone here but now I am curious.)