Oozing Goo - The Lava Lamp Syndicate

My friend brought over to my place this evening a 32oz rainbow painted lava lamp bottle converted to glitter using some 5 below glitter bottles.

He told me the bottle was thoroughly emptied and cleaned and left to dry for a few days.

After about 2 hours, the glitter just simply starts falling to the bottom and won't circulate anymore.

If you gentle stir the bottle, the glitter will start to behave normally again only for a small amount of time.

I am going to empty and clean the bottle as it is very nice but am just curious as to what would cause this problem?

Did he contaminate the interior of his bottle somehow? Did he maybe get a bum 5 below bottle that ruined the other he put in?

I have several conversions using this method that I can easily run for hours on end with no issue?

Could the paint that lava lamp puts on the outside of the bottle to create the rainbow affect be to thick and overheating the bottle?

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Sorry, not familiar with 5 below bottles....is it slow/fast, and where does the glitter sit when the bottle is cold (top or bottom)?

The temperature is too hot.  Specific gravity of the liquid drops as the temperature increases.  Too hot, and the liquid becomes lighter than the glitter.  The glitter sinks.

Try a lower wattage bulb or use a dimmer.

Mark for this particular bottle, the glitter stays at the bottom when cold. They almost make a perfect flat disc. The speed seems to be more fast but remember these cheap lamps come with 25 watt bulbs. I use the bottle contents with 40 watt bulbs.

Now the hot rock lamp I made, same bottles from 5 below, all those flakes are at the top.

Kirk, the lamp was using the typical 40watt bulb for the 32oz base. Funny though as all the other lamps I have like this are the same bulb same base style.

I wonder if ace hardware carries a 30watt for the 32oz base. I think 25 watt is to cool, the glitter wouldn't really do much in the 32oz size as I tested on a clearview base with 25watt bulb and very little happens even with my good bottle.

I am just assuming these cheap glitter lamps, the formulas are fare from consistent, hence, moving away from this type of playing will go with Kirk for future creations.

So went to ace hardware and picked up a 25watt R14 reflector bulb. A little shorter than the standard 40watt bulb that fits in the 32oz base.

The bulb creates a very nice flow in the glitter but after an hour, the same thing happened, the glitter slowly and steadily fell to the bottom. The bottle and base was not even that warm compared to when I left the 40watt in there.

So, at this point, I think it's best to simply empty and clean the bottle and put it away for a rainy day.

Thoughts?

As Kirk suggested, it's simply getting too hot, although 25w should be correct for that glitter.

Did it flow properly in the standard smaller bottles?

Worth trying a dimmer before you empty it though....if you're liking the way it looks before it crashes?

Mark,

Not worth putting a dimmer on this particular setup. It looked good but nothing out of this world. The smaller bottles we have been using typically work pretty good but again there can always be duds. We don't test them all.

I do believe they are oil based and not solvent based.

If it's getting to hot too fast at 25W, it's not worth going any further.

Not the end of the world, I honestly think he either contaminated the bottle or the glitter bottles he used were not good, either one, some or all.

I will tell you thought, my two other setups using the 5 below bottles are working terrifically at 40w. Let's see how long those last lol.

I look forward to better things :)

I so wish Kirk was down the block so I can simply pick stuff up lol.

Mark said:

As Kirk suggested, it's simply getting too hot, although 25w should be correct for that glitter.

Did it flow properly in the standard smaller bottles?

Worth trying a dimmer before you empty it though....if you're liking the way it looks before it crashes?

Tell me about it....I'm on the other side of the pond!

Cheers

I hear ya but at least you can get your hands on mathmos items I assume and easily.

I hope one day Kirk makes his own website :)

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