NEW colors in 52oz. spotted at local Spencer Gifts

[Michael]

Hey guys, just got home from the mall, thought you all might like to know Spencer's has two new color combos available in 52oz. The first is a pink and clear with a silver base, and the second is what caught my eye, a black based, black lava with orange liquid... Didn't have time to snap a pic, but I thought I'd give everyone a heads up.

lava.lite.dude

[Scott]

Couldn't resist about the camera (:D...Anyhow, I redid my black wax/clear/and black chrome base to an orange liquid this past Saturday. My wife thought a Halloween combo would be nice. I put a frosted bulb in and the flow lasts about 6 hours before small tansparent like bubbles form

[Charles]

..in the photo at least, it definitely seems like a good Halloween-ish lamp...

[☆VixenGypsy☆]

LOL, same here. I'm dying to know if the wax issues have been tweaked.

[Scott]

I got ahold of LW's customer service a month or so ago and I'll tell ya they really responded to some of my lamps' issues. I think they are reading the writing on the wall and getting their respctive acts together. Time will tell...

[Charles]

Just came back from Soencer's in Memphis TN...got the last one except for the floor model.


Was excited when I opened it and it wasnt foggy, that excitement tempered once I turned it on.

From the *inside* the glass is actually dirty, scratched, and has scattered pockmarks in a number of places, to the point where I just might see if I can exchange it for the floor model. Ive seen other ones like this, but usually I can turn em a certain way and hide the defects.

Not this one: it terms of the globe alone it looks older and more abused than the 2000 52 oz I got at a yard sale last Saturday!

[Charles]

Sorry to piss on the parade, but hang on to your receipts folks.

I got a black lava dud. One hump at the bottom that threatens to rise, but after three hours never does.

Out of the four Spencer's 52 oz purchases I have mad this happened to two, and one 20 oz.

[Charles]

Well, I spoke too soon, sorta.

It's flowing now after almost 4 hours and its insanely slowwww. Slower than the the one in the video that was posted. It's strange.


Whats also strange is how *dirty* the glass looks, even though I wiped it down. Its not foggy, but the dirty look is coming from the *inside* of the glass. How that's not mixing with the liquid I don't know.

I wonder if a cleaning and maybe a teensy drop of the "surfactant" would make things better, but I really shouldn't have to do that on something brand new, now should I?

[Kris]

Really like the black/orange but the flow is horrible. Why even bother. It looks like a Mathmos lamp when it flows. One or two blobs and that's it.

Seems like it's not getting hot enough.

[Charles]

Predawn update: after running all night, guess what? It's running quite well.

Guess what else? Even though it has not been touched or shaken at all, the liquid is now pretty cloudy!


In my very brief stint with these lamps, I've never seen one go from clear to cloudy without being disturbed, but this one hasn't.

I really don't know what to do here. the other Chinas I've purchased don't ever seem to lose their cloudiness, whereas the 1995 globe I DROPPED while hot (live and learn) is back to normal after less than three weeks.

[Kelly Flaskerud]

No kidding! Me too!! Halloween's rapidly approaching!!

[Scott]

This may not be the place to post this but I talked with my boss who was/is an industrial chemist. I always pick his brain about lava chemistry and he mentioned that the cloudiness may be the surfactant actually breaking down the lava. If you look into the globe at a flowing black one, you will see a "gravy skin" on the outside. Too much agitation and the skin breaks off. Too much flow and it liberates causing a nice fluid to go cloudy.. This "skin" will also adhere to the inside of the bottle making it look dirty.. This may be why people have good luck filtering the fluid with a good sub-micron filter. I popped my cap on my black fluid, replaced with mag suphate and some childrens bubble soap. It is a lower power surfactant and keeps the cloudiness down. I'd bet my lava collection that the bean counters forced a change to a generic untested surfactant at the factory and caused a ripple effect of the quality. Just for S&G's Google the term: "cloud point" it is a very interesting description on the reaction between glycols (e.g. PEG, pro glycol)) and surfactants which may be in your lamps... sorry for the chem lesson

[Scott]

Wish I could say that...It's all about the tweeking with me! I even resurrected my old chem book to look up some forgotten principles to assit with retrofits, re-chems etc. I guess all kinds collect these babies. BTW where do you find the ads like the one above? LW doesn't have much of a website....