Worst Glitterlamp ever?? starting shot for a new recycling project...

Ok, maybe not the worst ever, but fairly ugly...

I'm not so in glitter yet, I have lots of Mathmos and some Haggerty lava lamps, most of them fine, some waiting to be tuned.

But I only possess one glitter lamp, a transparent Mathmos GlitterBaby, and so I was happy to find another one last week at Ebay Kleinanzeigen (=Ebay classifieds), a pink Haggerty glitter lamp. It was described as "pinkish glitter lavalamp with aluminium base. some years old, but still in good shape", and it was really cheap, so I bought it. The only photo was very small and blurred, but I didn't care.

It arrived today and I think it's the worst scrap I ever bought. Liquid missing, pink color almost gone, most of the glitter sticking to the interior wall, rest of the glitter dull and claggy. And when turned on it takes around 10 minutes of boring action inside until everything is settled to the bottom and then: No further movement, just nothing :-(

Well, at least I got another Haggerty base, cap & bottle for 10 Euro, and another project: The recycling of this ragged lamp.

For a moment I considered redoing it completely for myself, with calcium chloride hexahydrate or calcium nitrate tetrahydrate and cosmetic glitter. But I have no experience in that field nor any of the needed chemicals, so I think it might be easier and more promising to put something readymade into it.

I read a lot about Kirks wonder glitter, but shipping to Europe is expensive, so I am going to look after some no-name glitter lamp and will transfer its content.

I'll keep you informed...

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Keith on June 14, 2017 at 3:16pm

The fluid level actually looks right for a cold Lava Lamp brand glitter globe. When warmed up the fluid should be okay.

Just for reference though, because that globe is junk! lol

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Peter Panussi on June 14, 2017 at 3:42pm

oh, that's interesting, I'll keep that in mind when refilling. Today it was on for ~6 hours, but no change in liquid level.

How cheeky some people are, "guter Allgemeinzustand" (=sound condition), what a humbug.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by kero48 on June 14, 2017 at 4:22pm

Do what I do and find some cheap china made glitter lamps and empty them into your bottle, recap and enjoy.

Just remember your bottle, if you choose to redo it, should be cleaned and then cleaned again and then allowed to dry for a day or two. If you see any residue or haze inside the bottle clean again and use a bottle brush or do what do i put a soapy sponge in there and move around with a stick to get all interior surfaces really clean. Then pull out with a small needle nose plier.

Of course kirks glitter is better in every way but not always a viable option. I do though hope to use his glitter for my grande one day as there is no way I would use anything else for that.

Here are some of my homemade glitter lamps using 5 dollar U.S. glitter lamps.

Change resolution to HD720 for better viewing results.

http://oozinggoo.ning.com/video/custom-glitter-lamp-52oz-bottle

http://oozinggoo.ning.com/video/first-laval-lamp-to-glitter-conversion (quality of this video sucks sorry it was first attempt at glitter conversion and recording a video)

http://oozinggoo.ning.com/video/32oz-converted-lava-lamp-bottle-to-...