(Lava Chat)

The Metallic Wax Techique

This lamp above was one of my first attempts for the metallic sharpie technique. Been almost a year since this was made and what I've noticed with the metallic wax technique is that it's not permanent. The base of the metallic ink seems to eventually separate a little and stay at the bottom. Now it's being run for 9 months at 8 hours a day 5 days a week may have a effect on the separation or it may not. So I decided to dye the wax red and in the pics below you can clearly see the separation but whats really cool, in a way, that it has a swirling of metallic ink! Reminds me of old school bowling balls lol. Even once in a while a bubble of nothing but ink will burst in the wax and it looks like a firework, its really bizarre but really cool as well.

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Permalink Reply by Mattgyver92 on April 28, 2022 at 8:46pm

What's this rubber ring look like? It seems to be a requirement for adding any sort of metallic additive to the wax to keep it from accumulating at the coil and keep things flowing, but I can't wrap my head around how it would help it flow better. If it's thin enough, I could try to laser something out of a sheet of rubber that I've used for making gaskets....or I suppose looking for a rubber washer if that's a similar shape would be even simpler.

That lamp does look strikingly similar to the glitterballs I've seen. It looks incredible. Using a substitute for the coil (which also helps break surface tension and allow the wax to easily recombine at the bottom) might be the reason the blobs are smaller and more numerous over time I'm guessing? The glitterballs I've seen sort of do that on purpose by the looks of it.

Arne said:

I also had the Problem that after an hour or so most of the mica powder had accumulated at the coil but after swapping it with a rubber ring like the glitterballs had them it works pretty well and even after hours of runnig it, the mica powder gets picked up by the flow. Need better more pure mica powder without glitte in it but for now I am satisfied with the result.