HELP

[Stroope]

I have been trying to make my girlfriend a lamp. I got the recipes off this site and have folowed them to the letter, and cant get the ooze to act right. 2/3 cup wax off a ten lb block I got at Hobby Lobby, 1/3 cup perc, distilled water, pickeling salt and a drop of Dawn. I mixed the ooze and poured into a litre wine bottle, put it on a coffee can with a hole cut in the top, placed it on top of at first a 75w bulb then dropped down to a 40w thinking it was heating up too fast. Same result, as it begins to heat up, a string will rn to the top and then the rest follows and just sits at the top. I mixed two jars, one with 40% antifreeze60%distilled water, the other 20%-80% to test, and it sinks when it should float in one and floats when it should sink in the other. I tried adding a table spoon of mineral oil and that hasn't helped. any suggestions, I'm running out of time. also, has anyone figured out how high it can go before sinking? I guess what I'm asking is at what water temp. does the ooze solidify and begin to sink. I would appreciate any help. Thanks, Rob

[Brad]

i've never followed that protocol for making a lamp, but based on the physics of how lava lamps work, i would think there was too much salt in the water.  that is, as the lava heats, it becomes less dense than the water, causing it to float.  as the lava cools, it becomes more dense, and so it sinks.  if the water is more dense than the lava to begin with (i.e. too much salt), then i would think that the lava would float indefinitely.  have you tried re-mixing the water?

side note - i was attempting to fix an old lamp a few weeks ago and experimented with different water densities.  to do this, i added distilled water to the lamp while the lava was cool at at the bottom of the lamp.  next i heated the lava until it was in a liquid state, then carefully added a near saturated solution of water and epsom salt.  each time i added the salt solution, the lava moved about wildly, then settled back down.  if i didn't note a column of lava reaching for the top of the lamp, i would add more salt solution to the lamp until the lava finally came to the top, then went back down as it cooled.  you really have to experiment with it.

[Gwen Williams]

Myelin, you actually did exactly what is supposed to be done when getting a homemade lamp to flow you mix up the wax and perc add to lamp that has a small amount of water with one drop of soap to coat the bottle to prevent sticking, fill with DI water once wax is cool, heat till fluid then start adding saltwater combo bit by bit till you get flow.

[Brad]

yes, but i used dish soap that had a degreaser in it!  the wax bubbled up really bad so i disposed of the lava.  lesson learned.  it really sucked since it is the only lamp i have left from the 90's (it was a 1998).  thankfully the globe and base are still in perfect condition.

[Jus]

Search you tube for a guy w/the name rwinkler2002. His homemade lamps seem pretty decent, and since he actually shows himself making the lamp step-by-step, you can be pretty confident that your's will turn out similarly-if you do the exact things he does.  His ingredients are different than what you already tried though.  If money is an issue, it may be best to jus buy her a lamp!  If you really want to make one for her, this rwinkler2002 guy is my best bet.  Good luck-let us know what happens next!

 

Please excuse the big fat blue text.  I copy/pasted part of this reply from one of my old posts here, and I guess that's where it picked up the big fat blue instructions.  Cuz I definitely would have made it big fat hot pink, had I been inclined to modify my text...heh!

[Stroope]

Thanks for the info

Jus said:

Search you tube for a guy w/the name rwinkler2002. His homemade lamps seem pretty decent, and since he actually shows himself making the lamp step-by-step, you can be pretty confident that your's will turn out similarly-if you do the exact things he does.  His ingredients are different than what you already tried though.  If money is an issue, it may be best to jus buy her a lamp!  If you really want to make one for her, this rwinkler2002 guy is my best bet.  Good luck-let us know what happens next!

 

Please excuse the big fat blue text.  I copy/pasted part of this reply from one of my old posts here, and I guess that's where it picked up the big fat blue instructions.  Cuz I definitely would have made it big fat hot pink, had I been inclined to modify my text...heh!

[Stroope]

Thanks for the advice

 
myelin said:

i've never followed that protocol for making a lamp, but based on the physics of how lava lamps work, i would think there was too much salt in the water.  that is, as the lava heats, it becomes less dense than the water, causing it to float.  as the lava cools, it becomes more dense, and so it sinks.  if the water is more dense than the lava to begin with (i.e. too much salt), then i would think that the lava would float indefinitely.  have you tried re-mixing the water?

side note - i was attempting to fix an old lamp a few weeks ago and experimented with different water densities.  to do this, i added distilled water to the lamp while the lava was cool at at the bottom of the lamp.  next i heated the lava until it was in a liquid state, then carefully added a near saturated solution of water and epsom salt.  each time i added the salt solution, the lava moved about wildly, then settled back down.  if i didn't note a column of lava reaching for the top of the lamp, i would add more salt solution to the lamp until the lava finally came to the top, then went back down as it cooled.  you really have to experiment with it.

[Stroope]

Thanks

Gwen Williams said:

Myelin, you actually did exactly what is supposed to be done when getting a homemade lamp to flow you mix up the wax and perc add to lamp that has a small amount of water with one drop of soap to coat the bottle to prevent sticking, fill with DI water once wax is cool, heat till fluid then start adding saltwater combo bit by bit till you get flow.

[Brad]

did you get it figured out, rob?

[Stroope]

I tried te formula from rwinklr2002 on youtube and it worked well., except after it cooled it clouded the water really bad, back to the drawing board

[Jus]

Awwww-that is too bad, sorry!

Thanks for the update info though-good to know!