Mathmos Glitterballs

[Lucy, The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal]

Hey
so I got my first Glitterball today.
It's not the metalic lava, its the see-through-ish lava with glitter actually in the regular lava

so what I want to know is:-

How come it doesn't have a coil?
Why does it flow so slowly?
Is it normal to have so many 'bits' in the liquid?

I must confess, I love Mathmos stuff but am a tad dissapointed with this lamp.

I'd love to hear others views on this lamp

Thanks!

[Tom]

i think this is a early glitterball.
which color ?

look here

http://www.flowoflava.com/ under "2000 part1"
the pictures left from the lamp toppers.

[Lucy, The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal]

it's green!
I can't see the green one on the flow-of-lava page.
But yes, it is like the earlier ones with the non-metallic lava.
It's flowing quicker now, but am getting increasing small blobs, where a large blob has come away, there is a little weeny blob which was created in the pull between the main mass and new blob, you know what I mean.
But the liquid is denser, so they are not settling at all.

[Astrobaby]

Hey Lucy, The glitterball is essentially a metallic slow moving lava lamp. It won't produce the trademark slinky snake like flow easily like the the standard mathmos lamps because the wax is very heavy, thus the liquid is very thick. They often do look very cloudy, however when when the lamp switches on they are crystal clear so don't worry.

It is normal due to the way the lamp flows to have many tiny bits of lava suspended. They will take a very long time for them to fall back down. They are very beautiful but not fast moving. Commonly seen glitterballs include the standard metallic glitterball, the jade green glitterball and not so commonly the clear/blue glitterball. All the other colours i have only seen in brochures. I don't believe they were manufactured for a very long time. They did launch in 1999.

Of interest the silver glitterball wax is transparent and flows with very fine powered glitter that makes it metallic unlike the coloured glitterballs which feature larger chunks of glitter in coloured metallic lava.

I believe mathmos had some issues with lava sticking on the sides of the bottles, however mine has none of these problems. The glitterballs are lovely, i am lucky i bought a bottle before the prices on ebay went crazy.

You can see them on: www.flowoflava.com under the 2000s part two section.
direct link:
http://www.imovatedesign.co.uk/astro/more2000.html

peace,
ant.

[Lucy, The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal]

cheers for that Ant and Tom

it certainly is different to my other lamps. It is growing on me now! (slowly)

i'd love a silver one like as you mentioned, I've seen them and I love how the lava looks like mercury which is just too cool.

Ant, do your glitterballs have a coil at the bottom? mine has what looks like a plastic ring, which is alot smaller than the usual coil size, that just threw me a bit!

[Astrobaby]

Mine doesn't have a metal coil - there must be a reason for that but i don't know - maybe the coil would cause problems with the lava flow? i'll switch on the lamp today and let you know. They are very stunning.

[Lucy, The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal]

Hey.
yeah i'll post a piccy tonight!
and you have a nice day too! :)

[Bohdan]

My silver has no coil. And when hot i get lots of little bits off and on a very cool lamp.The liquid is like
the flow of honey i have the same liquid in my Lunar Glitterama vase thick and slow. I use this vase in my Telstar really brings it out.

[Lucy, The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal]

I've gotta tell you all, i've had the glitterball on for the last two days and i'm completely in love!

Ant, you're right, they are very beautiful

[Jerome Dopson]

Hiya Lucy

I love this colour, one of my favourites

I think I prefer the glitterball to the metallics even.