Hello! Newbie here!

[Liz B]

Greetings! New UK lava mad lady here! I've been silently reading all that goes on here for a few weeks! Finally plucked up the courage to introduce myself! I've only been collecting lamps for 3 weeks - mostly Mathmos as that is all that tends to turn up here - but a couple of Sata Hunters too. My kitchen is now a fully fledged chemistry lab! I have a huge pile of lamp bases and caps, and I have Perc solution, Polyethylene glycol, De-ionised water, glycerine, glitter, wax, wax dye, food colourings - you name it I have it! I have taken apart other lamps and transferred the contents successfully; changed masterfluid on a copper Crestworth Astro successfully; taken lava and redyed it then given it new masterfluid. Tomorrow I'm going to make a fast flow glitterlite using the tinsel glitter out of a broken Sata and put it into an old Mathmos Jet bottle. Then the next stage will be to try and make my own wax from scratch, so I can completely rebuild old spent lava lamps and breathe new life into them! I've really enjoyed reading up about all the tips on here for lava and glitter restorations. Fascinating stuff!

 

At the moment I have 17 assorted glitter/lava/wave etc lamps. I'm having 14 more assorted lamps sent to me next week so that I can restore or rebuild them and have a play! I will post pics at some point if you like. And thank you for letting me join!

 

Liz

[Keith]

Welcome!  We are Lava Addicts United and we're here to help. lol

[Liz B]

Is this LAA? Lava Addicts Anonymous? My name is Liz and I'm a Lava Addict!

[Keith]

haha

Liz Burroughs said:

Is this LAA? Lava Addicts Anonymous? My name is Liz and I'm a Lava Addict!

[Mattmos]

Welcome, and let us know when you get that wax from scratch going.

[Arne]

when you refill that fast glitter into the jet make sure the bottle is 100% dry. one drop of water will cloud up the solvent used as fluid in the sata light glitter stramd thingies. did you succeed making master fluid with propylene glycol? I tried and didnt find a surfactant that doesnt cloud up ...enjoy and dont hesitate to ask, got quite some experience with mathmos refilling etc.

[Aladdin 2 Lava]

17 lamps in three weeks ! I think you must be mad...

Well... mad for lava at least ! like most of us here... welcome to OG.

[Erin]

Welcome! Nice to see someone so excited about lava lamps. :)

[Astralav]

Welcome here!

I'm also planning to refill a Jet with a Hunter glitter I just bought (not received yet).

I hope they're the same volume.

Please post pics when it's done.

[Liz B]

OK, Houston we have a problem. My first attempt at a glitter lamp isn't working. I wanted to make a fast glitter, so I've used Perchloroethylene as the new masterfluid. And added the Sata Hunter tinsel glitter. And.................nothing. The glitter sits at the top, and the perc is swirling at the bottom. I read that heavier solvents should use a 25W bulb but the perc didn't even move with that. So it does have a 40W bulb in the base of the Jet at the moment, and that is making the perc solution move round but I don't want to boil it or cause the bottle to break so I need advice as to why neat perc isn't making a fast glitter? And as a second question: just in case we do manage to get this working, what do I dye the perc with as it is hydrophobic so food colourings don't do anything!

 

Thank you for your welcomes everybody, and thank you Arne for your responses - yes I learnt the hard way earlier that donor bottles must be totally dry before use!

 

 

[Astralav]

I don't get it.

You had the glitter from the Sata Hunter, but not the liquid from it?

If I'm correct (not sure as I didn't receive my lamp yet), the glitter in this lamp sinks, but it is fast, so the liquid should be Trichlorethylene.

[Liz B]

I broke the Sata lamp trying to get the top off. It only had half the fluid in it, and I was hoping to top it up. But all I could save was the glitter. And yes, Perchloroethylene is another name for Trichloroeythlene, which is what I have put into the Jet bottle with the tinsel glitter. The glitter is on the top of the fluid, but no amount of heat from the bottom of the globe seems to cause any movement in the glitter. It just sits there. Stuck.

[Astralav]

Trichlo and and Perc are two different chemicals.

Was your glitter used to sink or float in your original bottle?

Sorry you broke your bottle, how did it happen?