Newly rescued Oozy Glo rocket- lava won't move

Help needed- I want to try salvaging this Oozy lamp I rescued yesterday from Goodwill.

The water is clear, not cloudy, so the thing looked like it had a decent potential for proper function. However, when fully warm, and the lava is molten, it sits at the the bottom with the small requisite chunk floating at the top (due to the globe's design, which is kinda phallic, and tapered, this portion does not want to drop through the taper when the lamp is cold or warm), So the lion's share of the lava sits at the coil, molten and stagnant, never even attempting to rise. I have tried it with the 30 watt bulb it came with and temporarily with a 40 watt (which exceeds the recommended max by 5 watts) so it is getting warm enough for sure. I have read elsewhere popping the top and adding salt water with increase the water's density and allow the lava to reach a lower density to rise. Is this the approach you guys would suggest? You can see images of the same model by searching Oozy Glo here on the forums.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Morgan on August 7, 2009 at 3:08pm

I ended up getting this thing to work after a few days without ever cracking the cap. I turned the thing upside down slowly while warm, and submerged the top section of the bottle in near boiling water, causing it to melt and remerge with the separated bulk of the lower portion. I repeated this process several times, and left the thing to run overnight. When turning a molten lava lamp upside down, obviously much care and patience must be applied. I will say that this lamp has an awesome flow now- full of activity with lots of mid-globe re-merging and separation. Easily worth the 6 dollars I put into it!

Thanks for the response.