Making my own lamp

[Jimmy Hopkins]

Hey all looking to make my own lamp wondering what i need?

i have a 1 litre coke bottle think its around 33 fl oz to turn into a lamp how hard is this too do?

will the glass be good enuff n stuff its a thick bottle.

[VOXul]

Welcome Jimmy! Custom lamps are pretty easy to make and fun! The bottle should work well for a lamp, you just need to buy a gookit, stainless steel coil material (gookits come with a piece of stainless steel screen that is supposed to act as a good coil, have never used it though) and a lighted base/heat source for the wax. With a 33oz lamp globe you should be able to run it fine with a 25w light bulb, perhaps a 40w for a heat boost. If the 40w seems to overheat the lamp, get an in line dimmer for the bulb to drop the power a bit until you find the sweet spot. As for wax levels, you may need to tinker with how much wax to add based on the way the lamp is flowing. If it seems like the lamp 'runs out' of wax at the bottom while it blobs up, you may want to add more wax. If it never seems to break from a column or seems lazy, you may want to remove some wax.

Edit: It sounds like you may be creating a lamp very similar to a member named Heidi. She is also using a 1-liter glass coke bottle on an upcoming project, perhaps you two can swap wax/water ratios to achieve optimal flow. The shape of the bottle will play a role in how that lamp will flow when compared to the traditional Lava Lite shape.

[Jimmy Hopkins]

thanks for the reply yes i need a goo kit will have i have to glue the lid shut or something? i dont want hot goo burning me

[Keith]

The original lid should work just fine.  All older lava lamps had screw on lids before 1990.  Also, the glass in the coke bottle is thicker that normal lava lamp globes so it should be fine to use.  That bottle size is almost the same as a 32 ounce lava lamp that runs on 40 watt bulbs so that is the size i would use, just do like VOXul said above and use a dimmer if it gets too hot.

Jimmy Hopkins said:

thanks for the reply yes i need a goo kit will have i have to glue the lid shut or something? i dont want hot goo burning me