Using a goo kit in a Grande - how it went.

[J W]

I received my goo kit as well as an emtpy Grande lava lite. I'm going to fill the grande with the goo kit and thought I'd post my comments, photos, etc. here

I haven't done anything yet, but can give you my initial impressions of the goo kit.

It comes well packaged with a lot of stuff inside! There's a litre of goo in a plastic bottle, a smaller amount of surfactant and a wire mesh to be used as a coil. Three colour-dye containers offer yellow, blue and red. You can mix these colours to make anything you want. If you want to use the goo uncoloured, it will be an opaque-white colour. I assume it's going to be more transparent when it's running in the lamp, however.

To mix the colour, add the lightest colour to the goo then slowly add in more of the darker colour until you get the desired shade. I'm planning on making a reddish-orange, so I'll add the yellow then add red until I get a nice shade.

The extras in the kit are really nice. There is a plastic dropper with mL graduations for 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 mL. There is a plastic funnel for pouring the goo into the lamp as well as a long plastic tube that fits nicely over the spout of the funnel. These three pieces are inexpensive plastic, but will work great for the project. It's a nice touch that will make the kit easy to refill your lamp. I also think that using the funnel and plastic hose will make it easy to add the distilled water into the lamp without disturbing the hardened goo at the bottom of the lamp.

An instruction manual comes in the form of a three-panel "brochure" with photos and tips. The entire process sounds very easy.

I will be refilling the lamp this week and will post more information and photos as I work on the kit.

At this point, the goo kit rates top marks!

[Jonny Magma]

I can't wait to see pics!

Jonny

[J W]

My grande is flowing - with Jonny Goo's kit. I took a lot of pictures and have some tips and tricks. My complete description will be posted here as soon as I can get it done. In the meantime, I have to say that this kit could not be easier to use. Following the directions is easy and the kit actually WORKS! In one word, this goo kit is: Amazing!!!

[Quisp]

How much surfactant did you end up using?
I used only 30 ml of surfactant in my Giant refill in order to duplicate the longer "column" flow I like in the original Lava Lamps versus a flow with mostly bubble shapes.

[J W]

I used 58 mL in the grande. It took 5.5 L of water (5.8 quarts). I did try it with 48 mL at first, but it wouldn't flow. At this point it flows nicely and is more of the longer column flow as well.

[Quisp]

Interesting....You used about twice the amount of surfactant as I to get a similar column flow.
Maybe there's something "funky" with my distilled water...lol.
But hey, if it works, it works...;)

[Pretzel Gal]

Ahhh Yes. My kit arrived ~just~ as I was getting antsy. Let's see how this goes...

[MyFriendGoo]

so to get more separation of lava, you use less surfactant? confused