I've had it with my Grande project. Help please!

[KittenChops]

Hi all. I bought a Gookit to restore my Grande. Did everything as directed and the wax would not rise. Coil is fine, bulb is fine, surf amount is fine, distilled water only. I tried Propylene Glycol, did not do a damn thing. I finally went to salt. That worked, but clouds the lamp badly. I'm all out of options. Been trying for about a month. Im out of ideas. If anyone here has ANY ideas of thier own please let me know. Thanks.

[Mr MaGoo]

PG should work, sometime will be amazed at how much it takes.  PG will definitely make the water heavy and your wax rise. Keep tinkering with it.  Let us know!

[KittenChops]

Yes I did. I never took it out.

Arne said:

Do you have a coil placed inside the globe, without a coil there's no flow no matter what...forgot to put one in after transfering contents to other bottles and the result was just and angry blob sitting at the bottom...

[Arne]

I'd say its a faulty batch then.

[KittenChops]

How much Propylene Glycol should I use? Does it take a pretty good amount? It's not like Idumped a crap load in ya know

Arne said:

I'd say its a faulty batch then.

[Arne]

you can still try glycerol but its not cheap. at least where I live. water and glycerol should be same temperature when mixing or it might cloud a bit

[KittenChops]

Any ideas on how much it should take? I didnt put a crap load in or anything. I have a gallon of it on the way in the mail.

Arne said:

you can still try glycerol but its not cheap. at least where I live. water and glycerol should be same temperature when mixing or it might cloud a bit

[Arne]

honestly I have no idea of how heavy the gookit stuff is especially as it should flow with water and obviously doesnt..The mathmos glitterball for instance run on 100% glycerol...did you ask lava louie for help yet? maybe its really down to a wrong mix of the batch....

I would probly start with a 50/50 mix and only fill the lamp with half of its mastewrfluid capacity .Then see if it floats or stays at the bottom and work my way up in from there.

[Arne]

The Original Mathmos masterfluid is made with a 70/30 mix as far as I remember...What I dont remember is if its 30% water or glycol...but I guess rather 30% glycol simply as water is cheaper...

Some wwax mixtures are extremely sensitive to tweak though...when making replacement fluid for my astro metallic the window from "angry blob at the bottom" to flowing like original was about 20 drops of water...20 drops more and it became angry blob floating on top...which is why the bottle sits in my basement now waiting for me to find motivation to do it all over  ...
KittenChops said:

How much Propylene Glycol should I use? Does it take a pretty good amount? It's not like Idumped a crap load in ya know

Arne said:

I'd say its a faulty batch then.

[KittenChops]

I seem to have found a decent mixture with the PG. Although it still doesnt seem quite right. After a while of running I get the infamous "unbreakable column" (pictured below) I know that adding more surf can sometimes break this up and prevent it, but I've already got borderline too much surf in there. In phase 2 of warm up the wax gets very bubbly, but then goes away the longer the lamp is on.

Arne said:

The Original Mathmos masterfluid is made with a 70/30 mix as far as I remember...What I dont remember is if its 30% water or glycol...but I guess rather 30% glycol simply as water is cheaper...

Some wwax mixtures are extremely sensitive to tweak though...when making replacement fluid for my astro metallic the window from "angry blob at the bottom" to flowing like original was about 20 drops of water...20 drops more and it became angry blob floating on top...which is why the bottle sits in my basement now waiting for me to find motivation to do it all over  ...
KittenChops said:

How much Propylene Glycol should I use? Does it take a pretty good amount? It's not like Idumped a crap load in ya know

Arne said:

I'd say its a faulty batch then.

[Arne]

I'm glad you got some flow out of it. I might be wrong but I think more surf actually causes the column behaviour, adding more would even make it worse...but I never worked with a goo kit myself so not really sure I'm right about this.

[Claude J]

Have you checked to see which generation of Grande you have?

You may have to raise the bulb height to get proper heat

See pics

[KittenChops]

I have the newer version. The bulb is practically touching the bottom of the globe. Thank you for your reply!

Claude J said:

Have you checked to see which generation of Grande you have?

You may have to raise the bulb height to get proper heat

See pics