Tinkering with a Grande - surprising discovery

[Erin]

Well, surprising for me anyway. ;)

 

Got a shitty Grande off eBay a week or so ago. Cloudy, of course. I dumped it immediately, and just to see what would happen, I just filled it with tap water. Oddly enough, it flows. Poorly, but it flows. 

 

I do notice that it seems to be the wax that clouds up the water (a little) - when I first ran it after the tap water refill, there were a few times where I would see a wax bubble pop and a little plume of what looked like smoke would poof out. Interesting.

 

My next test is to refill again and see if it clouds up at all. If not, then I'll refill with distilled water and try out some GooKit surfactant to see how it affects flow. My thought is that the wax will still have poor, heavy, China-like flow, but we'll see. 

 

 

[Arne]

Some 70's crestworth lamps also run on water+surf.

[Erin]

I want to say that some early model Lava Lites (like the Imperial) work the same way. Or *can* work that way. More testing is needed! Good thing I have this junky Grande to mess with. 

[Dr. WHAT?!]

That is interesting that regular tap water works on china lamps. I bet distilled water will have a slightly different effect since there's less impurities in the water than tap. And what color is that suppsoe to be pink or red? Red leaks dye from the wax so that why you see those clouds of smoke. Even with the older US formula red wax will leak eventally. Pink can do this to but is less likely then pure red.

 

Erin said:

I want to say that some early model Lava Lites (like the Imperial) work the same way. Or *can* work that way. More testing is needed! Good thing I have this junky Grande to mess with. 

[Erin]

It's red wax, but yes, appeared kinda pink in the picture. I refilled again with tap water. We'll see what happens today. 

[Tim Gill]

That is interesting that regular tap water works on china lamps. I bet distilled water will have a slightly different effect since there's less impurities in the water than tap

Its interesting but when I have tried this on the 16oz china lamps it doesn't work and needs some surf and Epsom salts to get some kinda flow but in my experience it doesn't really work grate so i ended up gookiting them :p

It might have something to do with the size of the lamps - the bigger they then they may need less other ingredients to get them to flow.

[Dr. WHAT?!]

That is the one thing that sucks about red wax and it'll continue to cloud with regular use. I bought a clear/red about 3 years ago and I've filtered it 3 times already and need to do it again. One thing that does make a huge difference with these china grandes is dimmers. The only reason why I've kept my red/clear grande for this long without gookitting it is because when I have it on a dimmer the flow is SICK! So put it on a dimmer and see what happens.

[kiramarie]

goo farts...

 

[Jim]

I fixed that for you Kira....

kiramarie said:

goo queefs...

 

[Jim]

Oh, and agree with Dr. What on the dimmer.  Not just recommended but a must.  My Marley Grande is smokin' on a dimmer, overheats within 6 or so hours without one.

[kiramarie]

ahhhh... i love that word...

I think I need help..

[Erin]

It seems to run for hours on end, no dimmer needed. I think this China wax is more dense. It seems...thicker. Maybe I'm wrong. 

[Erin]

I've dumped and refilled again. Just water. Now there are tons of flakes floating in the water. I think it's from the wax.