China Lamp (Yellow/Clear) Flow

Comment by Mr MaGoo on February 13, 2012 at 7:46pm

You could always dump the fluid in a jar and save it.  Then refill with distilled H20 and then tweak the water with epsom salt.  Heat up a glass of distilled water and dissolve a couple of tablespoons of epsom salt in it until completely dissolved.  Then start adding small amount of your epsom salt mixture to the lamp to make the water heavier, thus causing the lava to rise.  Once you happy with the flow, then add a drop or two of liquid dish washing detergent.  I actually use SLS surfactan,  sodium lauryl sulfate, and it make some nice tendrils of lava start to happen.  Just did this on a yellow/clear now..hehe, lava lamp my dad picked up for me.  It was half full and the lava had separated.  Dumped the fluid, heated up the 2 separate pieces of lava and combined them, let it cool, then added the Distilled water, epsom salt mixture to tweak flow and then SLS for the lava separation, and came out beautiful, will post some pics of it running.

Comment by Da9L on February 13, 2012 at 8:49pm

Sounds like its worth a try ! I've SLES so i can use a proper ingredient, however i dont have epsom salt, but i guess normal salt can be used? And wouldnt it be better to add SLES before adding the salt? Its hard to tell if its flowing properly without adding SLES i think ?

Comment by Mr MaGoo on February 13, 2012 at 9:19pm

Nah, I want to see the wax lift first..once it's moving in the right direction then you can see what your surfactant is doing once the wax is up in the globe..if you add SLS first while wax is sitting on bottom you could add too much then be sorry later.  Lift the wax, once it is up in the water..then add SLS to get your was to stretch or bubble the way you want.

Comment by Da9L on February 16, 2012 at 6:37am

Great! Im gonna try that.. :) Thanks Mr MaGoo .. Oh and btw.. The more SLS the more bubbly the wax will be, and the less SLS i add the more column like right ? Or is it the opposite.. ?

Comment by Da9L on March 4, 2012 at 7:11pm

For people who are interrested this is how the flow optimization turned out

http://oozinggoo.ning.com/video/yellow-china-lamp-after-flow-optimi...

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