I Destroyed My Carlisle

[Galaxy Gloo]

Greetings!

This is my first post and I thought I should introduce myself. I’m Robert and I live in San Francisco. I joined shortly after I destroyed one of my prized possessions- The Carlisle 300 lava lamp that my mom gave me in 1976. Ever hear that old expression “leave well alone”? Well- I didn’t leave well enough alone and tried to fix what wasn’t really broken. The liquid in said lamp had gotten a bit yellowish over the years (rightfully so)- but was still pretty clear and not cloudy. The lava is a lovely dark red color and the flow was amazing! It had such a great “personality” and was the perfect combination of tiny bubbles, then m
edium bubbles, then beautiful long, stretchy blobs, and then it would go back and forth between the medium blobs and the long stretch ones. I would sometimes just stare at it for a very long time and it would always take me back to such great memories. Anyway- I got it into my fool head that I can make the liquid completely clear (after doing the tiniest bit of research) and instead of maybe experimenting with one of my other vintage lava lamps that wasn’t so precious….I decided to mess with “my precious” and here I am today- still heart broken. But I decided to empty the new liquid mess that I made and I put it away….for now….before I made things worse. 

To look at this in a positive way, if my stupid mistake never happened, I probably wouldn’t have found or joined Oozing Goo. I’ve been reading through a lot of your old post that have so much great info. I’ll get my original lamp up and running again, with the original wax one day soon. I just have to be patient.

So in the meantime I’ve been having a lot of fun with experimenting making my own goo and liquid from scratch with not much success yet, but it’s still fun. And I also purchased a Goo Kit from MT. I fix up an old empty Century that I’ve had in storage for over 20 years and I’ve had it flowing great for a few days now, so I’ll color it this weekend.

I’ll be posting pictures and movies soon- including a great time-lapsed one of my Carlisle that I made a few months before I f@#$ed it up! (UGGGH! I’m so mad and will never forgive myself!!!)

};¬)

Cheers!

-Robert

[Johnny]

Im pretty sure speaking for myself and others were all fiddled with a lamp, f..ked it up and thought why did i do that ? deffo the case if it works fine dont touch it But its hard not to lol

[Mark]

As Jonny said, we've all been there before!

To be fair though, there's nothing worse than a slightly cloudy lamp (for me anyway), so it probably needed a refill.

The wax should be fine, just start again with the fluid.

[Galaxy Gloo]

Thanks guys! Makes me feel a little better! I'm still digging through discussions regarding the original recipe for liquid for 1970s lamps - and the info is kind of all over the map. If anyone has suggestions- please share!

[Claude J]

here is a little brochure Once sold on eBay

Lavalamp%20instructions.pdf 

Galaxy Gloo said:

Thanks guys! Makes me feel a little better! I'm still digging through discussions regarding the original recipe for liquid for 1970s lamps - and the info is kind of all over the map. If anyone has suggestions- please share!

[Mark]

I've not done many refiills, but have done a capri and a carlisle. For both, I just tipped out the old fluid, refilled with fresh water, added enough salt to get a column flow, and then added a drop of surfactant to make the wax break apart (I used children's bubble blowing solution).

First time I got impatient and added too much salt, causing the wax to detach from the coil and  float. However, I just let it cool down and started again.

They've both been running well ever since.

Galaxy Gloo said:

Thanks guys! Makes me feel a little better! I'm still digging through discussions regarding the original recipe for liquid for 1970s lamps - and the info is kind of all over the map. If anyone has suggestions- please share!

[Galaxy Gloo]

Thanks Mark! I appreciate that and will give it a whirl. I've fixed a Century with dH2o, ethylene glycol, and pure glycerin last week. So I'm going to see what happens to it after running it for a month or so before trying to do the same to my Carlisle. There's something about the ones that I used salt in that don't look as crystal clear....but I do like the way that they flow. Cheers!

Mark said:

I've not done many refiills, but have done a capri and a carlisle. For both, I just tipped out the old fluid, refilled with fresh water, added enough salt to get a column flow, and then added a drop of surfactant to make the wax break apart (I used children's bubble blowing solution).

First time I got impatient and added too much salt, causing the wax to detach from the coil and  float. However, I just let it cool down and started again.

They've both been running well ever since.

Galaxy Gloo said:

Thanks guys! Makes me feel a little better! I'm still digging through discussions regarding the original recipe for liquid for 1970s lamps - and the info is kind of all over the map. If anyone has suggestions- please share!

[Claude J]

Ethylene Glycol?

Didn't you mean propylene glycol?

[Galaxy Gloo]

Hi Claude....no I meant Ethylene. Why?

Claude J said:

Ethylene Glycol?

Didn't you mean propylene glycol?

[Claude J]

Ethelyene is used as an automotive antifreeze and toxic.

Propylene is the one historically used for adjusting the specific gravity and is non-toxic.

That is the first time I've ever heard of it being used in that manner

[Galaxy Gloo]

Yes- I know that Ethylene Glycol is the main ingredient in antifreeze and that it has also been used to adjust the specific gravity in lava lamps. I find that it works better than Proplylene for lamps with wax from 60s/70s. I've had pretty good luck so far. Again- just waiting to run these lamps for a month or so to see how they fair before trying this with my original Carlisle. let me know if you want to know more or have any questions.

Claude J said:

Ethelyene is used as an automotive antifreeze and toxic.

Propylene is the one historically used for adjusting the specific gravity and is non-toxic.

That is the first time I've ever heard of it being used in that manner

[Claude J]

I'll stick with propylene glycol,.. thanks

Its specific gravity doesn't have such mood swings with temperature varinces and its non-toxic

[Mark]

Seriously though, I hate cloudy lamps too.

Just used tap water and a litte sea salt in mine and it's remained crystal clear ever since. May be worth a try!

Cheers :)