Another way of sealing the bottles back up for future maintenance

[Scott]

All at OG...I was going to post this in the "general section" but with all the new folks joining it may be helpful to post it in the problems section.  I have found a cheap and easy way to reseal the bottles.  I got some silicone caps from VWR that are a perfect fit for just about any bottle except the Grande and Collosus.  The cap is designed to plug the hole and then the remaining neck stretches over the lip of the bottle.  I then take some copper wire (any malleable wire will do.) and make a twist to seal the neck.  As the pressure expands the hollow cap will seal the bottle perfectly.  One note, if you wait to twist wire on it, the cap will pop off after heat up.  Just place the cap back in and then wire it.  The pressure inthe bottle will be set and you're good to go.  After cooldown you will see the top of the cap flatten out due to lower pressure in the bottle.  I will post the part number for these little gems when i find it.  Meanwhile take a look at the picture that I posted.  All the bottles that I have re-chem'ed (~25) use this technique and I haven't had a leak yet.  One other caveat is that the  melting temp of the silicone cap is about 300° higher than that of the lamp's operating temp.  Scott

[Scott]

Hi It's scott again...Here are the pictures that I promised that show the lamps using the fog fluid from Walmart. Each one of these lamps uses different concentrations of the Walmart brand fog fluid. the test tube lamp uses about 1/2% by volume and the rest is filtered water. This is chinese black wax as is the 32 oz black. Both are from ultra cloudy lamps. the mix will not corrode the springs and as i mentioned in my last post, they run for 10+ hours with no degredation in flow. Thsi is a very easy fix to perform and is non toxic. The white lamp is a white wax/blue liquid from 1997 and you can see it responds well to the fog fluid/water mix as well. I still have to balance the 1972 Century lamp-it is almost there! This was mud when i got it and no amount of filtering would clear it up so i bit the bullet and switched over to the mix. In addition these all use the VWR silicone retrofit cap for sealing. (except for the 1970 lamp which is a screw on cap).

[Erin]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing this!

What is VWR?

[Scott]

VWR is a company that sells chemical and chemistry lab products. i went to our stockroom today to get the part number but the person who orders the stuff was on vaca today. i'll try again next week.

[Scott]

I found out that the vendor fills the drawers at work. She shows up and drops off inventory and then sends the list after the stuff is done I asked my buddy to call my office when she is there to see if we can get some info on them. i did notice that a VERY similar sealing system is on the grande's. I found these at Cole Parmer (no "L") http://www.coleparmer.com/catalog/productsearch.asp?search=serum+st... they are called folding skirt stoppers. Scott

[Erin]

These? http://www.coleparmer.com/catalog/product_view.asp?sku=6299580

[Scott]

Yes, those are them