Big Momma

"Big Momma" is my largest homemade lava lamp so far. The color selection and vessel shape may look dull, but it actually has a lot of innovations as far as my homemade lamps go:

a) It's entirely saltless -like all my most recent lamps.

b) The goo is actually a mixture of red candle wax, white canning wax, vaseline and two spoonfulls of olive oil - great flow, much more opaque than my other lamps, almost pro-grade.

c) The coil design is innovative: instead of one big coil I used 4 small ones. This helps create more interesting flows, even with the huge amounts of goo..

d) It's so large -by homemade standards- that even with a custom made base and a 40W reflector bulb it may take up to 4 hours to really kick in. But when it does, it's a delight to watch!

The vessel is a 1.5 liter (about 50 oz) bottle of Retsina (cheap, nasty Greek wine ;-) and the base uses a philips 40W R50 reflector bulb. It might work with less, but will be much slower. Dunno if using a stronger one would be safe for the glass though.