Renew! Renew!

[Nick Stefanisko]

OK sci-fi-folks, we all know that Carousel never works, no one ever Renews. Once your palm crystal starts blinking, it's game over. My 30 year old Aristocrat stopped moving. The wax just kind of puffed up and laid at the bottom. So I figured, what the hell, I'll crack it open and try to bring it back to life.

The Aristocrat has a really easy to remove screw cap and mine had about 15mm of space between the bottom of the cap and the cold water line. That's quite a lot of gap. First I unscrewed the cap, turned it on, and let it heat up for 4hrs. Then I added distilled water to bring the level up, and then waited another hour for it to come up to temperature again. Still no action. I then added a couple of drops of clear dish soap, and immediately there was some action. Not a lot, and it calmed after a few minutes. Then I started adding Epsom salt water. The water is super saturated, so I added it just a few drops at a time. With each drop there was violent movement. But it would calm a few seconds later. After adding about a tablespoon of saltwater, it came back to life. Re-sealed it hot. The movement is a bit different than before, but it's glooping and blobbing quite well now. This is the second lamp I have tried to restore and my first one that was 100% successful. The other one had good results with flow, but had a bottle cap, and I cracked the globe while trying to re-seal it. Screw caps are a major advantage.

[Nick Stefanisko]

I've got a plan for the goo volume measurement. You see a long long time ago there was this guy named Archimedes. He had a Sicilian house keeper who was always nagging him. One of the things she particularly got on him about was his body oder. Onea daya shea seza, "Archimedes! You wreaka! Goa takea  bath!" And with that, he discovered the property of displacement. True story! Google it.

[Nick Stefanisko]

I'm not so much interested in knowing the water volume for filling purposes, it is more for surf mix. MagmaTower recommends a certain ml/qt of surf to water. I guess if I just mix up 1.5qt of surfwater I'll be fine. Even though I'm in California, shipping from LA still takes several days and they only ship out on Fridays, yada yada. I do kind of want to over do the surf just a bit. I like smaller blobs. And I don't want to over fill the goo for fear of wasting it.

[Nick Stefanisko]

Well the original, sorry I meant orangey-nails, were blue liquid with yellowish, was white 30 years ago, wax. So I ordered blue and red dye with the goo kit, and I'm going to make it clear water, purple wax. I like purple. And as my psychology professor used to always say, "Purple, Purple. The devil wears purple."  Ah, good times at the loony bin. 

Claude J said:

Just put the goo you took out and put it into a small measuring cup,

Heat it in a water bath

That will give you the measurement you need

Is there a particular color you're looking for?

[Nick Stefanisko]

The bulb wattage is going to be a bit tricky. I think the one that is in there is a 40 or 45watt bulb, it's whatever it came with and the printing has rubbed off, I've never had to change it. But the MagmaTower goo is designed to operate cooler than the original. So I've got a dimmer that I use on a new lamp that has a tendency to over heat and just float all the wax to the top. I found that dimming by about 5% makes it just right. It does take longer to start up though.

[Nick Stefanisko]

You can actually see the lamp that died in my profile pic. It's the one on the left. Blue/White/Gold Aristocrat. Everything was fine, then one day it just deflated.

[Claude J]

You will get these instruction from MT
Average%20Surfactant%20amount%20according%20to%20globe%20size%20are...
Nick Stefanisko said:

I'm not so much interested in knowing the water volume for filling purposes, it is more for surf mix. MagmaTower recommends a certain ml/qt of surf to water. I guess if I just mix up 1.5qt of surfwater I'll be fine. Even though I'm in California, shipping from LA still takes several days and they only ship out on Fridays, yada yada. I do kind of want to over do the surf just a bit. I like smaller blobs. And I don't want to over fill the goo for fear of wasting it.

[Claude J]

Depends on your room temp

Temp2.jpg

Nick Stefanisko said:

The bulb wattage is going to be a bit tricky. I think the one that is in there is a 40 or 45watt bulb, it's whatever it came with and the printing has rubbed off, I've never had to change it. But the MagmaTower goo is designed to operate cooler than the original. So I've got a dimmer that I use on a new lamp that has a tendency to over heat and just float all the wax to the top. I found that dimming by about 5% makes it just right. It does take longer to start up though.

[Nick Stefanisko]

Got my goo kit in yesterday, and rebuilt my Aristocrat today. I decided to make it clear liquid with purple wax. I ordered Red and Blue dies and figured I'd just mix Red and Blue to make Purple. Well, it is purple, but it is more of a wine/grape jelly purple, I think I used too much red and I am a bit afraid to add more blue because I think it will be too dark and look black. It's not the color I was planning, but it looks nice. 

[Claude J]

you could have just used a tad too much MT blue and got a deep dark purple

I have quarts of premixed light and dark purple if you ever need any

Nice Brandywine color though, its fun experimenting with color combos

[Nick Stefanisko]

I'm wondering what would happen if I added white? Would it make it opaque and lighten it or just make it opaque? And can I use hobby store candle wax dye or do I need MT's special formula?

While the color is not what I had in mind, I still like it. My son says it looks like blood.

With the bulb at full brightness, it starts up as fast as a 14in lamp, but goes into over heat mode after just a few hours, so I've had to dim the bulb.

[Claude J]

I wouldn't touch it, it looks great and that is difficult to reproduce

anybody can do red but the right shade of Cranberry takes some skill

good idea on the dimmer

[Nick Stefanisko]

I'm kind of wishing I had gotten the full size goo kit, I only have enough goo for one more refresh of a lamp this size. I still want to do something with one of my 11in lamps.