attempting a custom lamp

hi there. this is all new to me. i've been researching quite a bit over the past 2 days, and I think I'm ready to give it a shot.

i bought a "glass shade holder kit with switch," which is basically generally used in ceiling fixtures, but i'm gonna flip it around the other way and attach it to a wood base. i bought a replacement lamp plug to connect the kit to the socket. all good so far. i bought a can of beans that was just the right size to fit perfectly in the kit (after emptying of course :)), and perfectly high enough over the bulb (about an inch or so clearance from top of bulb to can). first question....it's a 40 watt halogen bulb. the new "energy efficient" kind, which says 40=75w. should i get one where the =number is 40? cuz after being on i noticed the can gets untouchable, and i'm not sure if that's right or not.

now as for the goo...that's the next step. i read somewhere that kosher salt is practically the same as pickling salt...because after 3 different groceries i coudln't find any of the latter, so i got the kosher. should that work? also, is melting down store-bought colored candles ok? i can't find canning or do-it-yourself candle wax in 2 craft stores....final question, i think, for now, will food coloring alter the formula of the water at all?

i'm sorry if this is all answered elsewhere, but i have read a lot already, and i'm trying to make this for my wife who recently in passing said she's always wanted a lava lamp. i was just gonna buy her one, and maybe add a color to it, but then i saw the empty "absolut new orleans" sitting all by itself, and that connected with my idea to make a purple, green, and gold (or yellow) lava lamp.

oh yeah! how do you suggest i attach the bottle to the can? :)

thanks for the help!
jeff

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Permalink Reply by mouthsuit on December 9, 2010 at 7:48am

yeah, i'm definitely far from an engineer, so i'm basically just doing what i've seen...well, somewhere along the line. i've bounced back and forth between so many sites these past couple of days i have no idea where i saw what, am just mixing a whole bunch of information (information overload??) all together in my head. i'll see what i can come up with for a better, or at least insulated, base.

thanks for the tip, i'll check it out. and possibly go that route if this all blows up in my face...literally or figuratively. :)

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Permalink Reply by mouthsuit on December 13, 2010 at 1:00pm

Thanks. I got a different bulb, which seems to do fine. The past couple of days i've been working on making the goo right. I've got one color great, and just gotta make the other color as great since it's not yet sinking in the 20%. Found some candles that are perfect colors, but they're glade "seasonal" candles, so my condo smells a lot like christmas...i did try to take a shortcut and ran out of canning jars and ended up breaking the glass i was melting stuff in and had to clean up my kitchen and close it off to the dogs for a while...ha...but it's all worth it for the wife! :)

here's something i don't get, scientifically speaking. how does putting in two different colors work? cuz i would think after they melt they'd get together and form one color, and not stay separate. but in my first attempt at this lamp, which wasn't successful, they did stay pretty separate. :)

i know i had more to ask/say, but don't remember what, as work has interrupted this message a million times, so i guess i'll just end this now. i'll post more pictures when i'm satisfied with its (hopefully) eventual success.

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Permalink Reply by mouthsuit on December 17, 2010 at 3:57pm

Alright! I'm pretty satisfied with it, and think this will be a successful "first lamp." All I have to say is that it took a lot more salt than I thought, so I read and read and just took the "keep adding salt until..." advice. Great advice. Found an old thread in the archives here similar to my issue and went with that, which was encouraging. When it first started working, there were LOTS of smallish bubbles, and even tinier bubbles, but I was satisfied, cuz hey, at least it was working. After letting it cycle on and off a few times over the past few days, the bubbles have become more solid, larger, and look less like soap bubbles. Here it is from this morning. Those colors are off, it's actually yellow water with purple wax. There is a green effect every now and then.