Hello to everyone on here

[Gary]

Hi all 
This is my first time on here so i am a total newbie as it were
My aim is to build my own big lava lamp on the tightest budget known to man eventually helping others along the way if i can
Firstly i have a couple of questions 
I have what i would class as quite successfully repaired my metallic red lava lamp from cloudyness by changing the water with epsom salts etc
I will post some pictures up soon my question is can i do the same for my vintage crestworth astro even though  when i undo it it smells like some sort of fuel
Please 

[Tim Gill]

Well done for reparing your mettalic with epson salts - ushlie they have a diffrent formular to convential lava lamps (I know the mathmos glitter have a diffrent master fluid to the ushal mathmos lamps).

Yea the vintage Cretsworth items are verry solvent based so that would be why, but why do you want to replace the fluid. If its just cloudy then filter it but if it dosent flow then the wax is probably dead so the whole contense will need to be replaced.

My advice would be to not mess with the fluid much and if you can save it then do but if the fluid has to be dumped then I don't think you could get it to flow with Epson salts or other methord, Cretsworth formular is diffrent from newer models. 

Be warned - that if you do deciced to open and mess with a Cretsworth lava lamp they get verry messy as the wax tends to fall apart easley and theres a lot of solvent so have some protechion about you.

[Gary]

thanks for replying,the reason i'm not that bothered about filtering is as i'm on a shoestring budget and the filters are relitavly expensive the wax was sort of snaking up but not breaking off into bubbles and also it has loads of bubbles in the wax itself which i guess would be from possible overheating lastly there is white residue around the coil area when solid

last night i thought id give it a go so i drained the fluid offand kept for the future(for a filtering if funds allow) rinsed her out and filled with tap water, heated her up then added 2 drops of soap and loads of epsoms and guess what !shes looking pretty good at the moment possibly a bit more tweaking with ingredients to be spot on then ill do a thourough strip down and clean then redo with distilled water for a perfect job

i have to say though the clear water and all the bubbles in the red wax looks very much like real lava

you you think the white in the wax could be stuff that made the wax not see through?

i know what you mean about the glitter ones being different fluid  the metalic one i did was just water but my mathmos glitter ball one is like a syrup substance

 

[Erin]

Hello and welcome! I like to know how much epsom salts you used to fix your lamp. I have a lamp from the late 60s with bad fluid and I can't get it to flow for anything. Mine's a non-Mathmos lamp though. 

[Gary]

hi erin i bought a 500g box of salts and just kept putting it in with a straw until it started to lift then i knew i was somewhere near just keep adding and then settling its a slow process but it does work looking at how much salt i have left i would say the box will or should doe 4 lamps easily having said that i suppose there all different , i wasnt sure if it would work with mine as it smelt like a solvent when i undid it

1 drop of clear soap at atime leaving half an hour in between until you get it flowing how you want it ,i turned mine off till all the wax dropped then put it in gently,it took three drops and is flowing with nice size bubbles maybe ill put another in to make it snake abit more, save your old fluid incase it doesnt work,if it smells atall keep it in a glass container to be on the safe side

Erin said:

Hello and welcome! I like to know how much epsom salts you used to fix your lamp. I have a lamp from the late 60s with bad fluid and I can't get it to flow for anything. Mine's a non-Mathmos lamp though. 

[Tim Gill]

maybe ill put another in to make it snake abit more, save your old fluid incase it doesnt work,if it smells atall keep it in a glass container to be on the safe side

I wouldn't add more soap to the mix - that doesn't make it snake it does the opersit - the only thing which may make that happen is to add some of the original fluid as the 'snake' is signature of Mathmos / Cretsworth formula

Also the thing with soap is that it brakes down the wax into smaller blobs so if your happy with the size of the blobs don't add any more soap, 2 drops is plenty for a astro bottle.

[Gary]

Ah i see so the more soap the tighter the bubble i think im gonna add a bit of the original water then and try that
I hope you dont mind but i want to incorporate the pic of your profile into a tatto design just using the little man on the telstar hopefully flying around a bigger lamp maybe a lunar or imperial maybe


Tim Gill said:

maybe ill put another in to make it snake abit more, save your old fluid incase it doesnt work,if it smells atall keep it in a glass container to be on the safe side

I wouldn't add more soap to the mix - that doesn't make it snake it does the opersit - the only thing which may make that happen is to add some of the original fluid as the 'snake' is signature of Mathmos / Cretsworth formula

Also the thing with soap is that it brakes down the wax into smaller blobs so if your happy with the size of the blobs don't add any more soap, 2 drops is plenty for a astro bottle.

[Anson Cheung]

Tim, how do you get the mathmos man thing?

[Tim Gill]

the more soap the more bubbles of goo

Go for it use the picture - I got it from flowflava - its from a Mathmos comic advert made in the 90'. If you PM me I can send you the full picture - I will find the link at some point. 

[Anson Cheung]

More bubble of goo, or basically insta-overheat

Tim Gill said:

the more soap the more bubbles of goo

Go for it use the picture - I got it from flowflava - its from a Mathmos comic advert made in the 90'. If you PM me I can send you the full picture - I will find the link at some point.