Problems with a 1996 Lava Lite and may simply GooKit it

[ChuckM]

Hey all,

this is my first post... I was waiting for membership confirmation for a few days and am happy to be on the board. I bought a Lava Lamp (Lava Lite) back in the 90's. Fast forward to now and my daughter saw a Lava Lamp in a store and got really excited. I told her I had one and would "dig it out". It had been sitting in storage for years so I expected it would need a few things. I knew it would at least need a light bulb. I added a 40w appliance bulb (old one had burned out last I had recalled and this was confirmed when I brought it out of storage). Well... now I think I am remembering why I forgot about the thing. I am not sure it ever really worked all that well. It has a 1996 date on the felt on the bottom and it has a date code of 1996 on the cap. It WAS a blue/white globe (confirmed with the 03 code) that has now gone clear (or perhaps yellowish or off-clear is a better term). In the first several runs, it would form lots of smallish balls that would mostly go to the top. I decided to try a 25W bulb. This resulted in a column effect... after several days of cycling, I noticed that there are bubbles in the goo... I switched back to a 40w bulb and it just looks pretty unimpressive. I also notice that the liquid level was about an inch below the black cap (that seems pretty low to me)... and may have always been this way (foggy memory!).

Anyway... while waiting to be confirmed to join the website, I read a lot here while waiting...

I also ordered a Goo Kit to renovate my Lava Lite. I cannot imagine it would be worse than how the lamp looks now. I am thinking of using some Krylon to paint the lamp base/cap white for my kids' room and doing purplish lava. Anyway... before I do all this, I wanted to post here to see what people think about my old lamp. I feel like there isn't much else I can do with it.

I am posting a couple photos as well as some video of how it looks after being on for a couple hours. It really only gets worse after more time.

Please let me know what you think. Definitely impressed by the Goo Kits I have seen posted here. I am looking for more lamps to recondition!

[ChuckM]

...and the melting wax...I put the bottle on a canner rack to raise it off the bottom of the pot and then unceremoniously wedged some stuff around it to keep it from flipping over.
I gave a gentle swirl to work out any liquid pockets (not much swirl)... I now just turned the stove off and am now going to let it sit for a few minutes before I take the bottle out and place on a trivet.

[ChuckM]

Cooling on the counter for a while...

[Jeff]

Just a quick update to my earlier post....make sure you leave at least an inch or slightly better of airspace for expansion...I thought 3/4ths inch was enough but I was wrong.  On my goo kit it went right to the top of the neck and almost came over after being on for about 2 hours.  Had to shut it down and let it cool some then pour off some liquid. 

[ChuckM]

I added the liquid back and topped it off with distilled... now here is the pink food coloring making its way into the liquid interface...

I think it is going to look more orange...but whatever!

[Jeff]

Wow does that look weird...almost like a mini lava spike in reverse or something
 
ChuckM said:

I added the liquid back and topped it off with distilled... now here is the pink food coloring making its way into the liquid interface...

I think it is going to look more orange...but whatever!

[ChuckM]

Yep... I started the lamp up and it seems to be working. It remains to be seen whether the flow will really get going but at least it isn't totally stuck or anything. I have a feeling it won't overheat as easily... I think the reduced liquid really amplified that problem. If it remains in a slow column flow, I may tweak just a little with the gookit liquid treatment... even just a tad.

This photo is after about an hour of heating. I will give this about 15 more minutes then shut it off and crimp the bottle cap (from the bottle of beer).

[ChuckM]

The lamp is looking better, but I think I will need to adjust the specific gravity. The lava rises about half way and flows into itself. I may also need to add surf but one thing at a time. I thought my gookit (which still has yet to arrive) would come with salts or glycerin but apparently it is just surfactant...not clear to me. I may need to go find glycerin or something...

Anyone have any thoughts on adjusting specific gravity? I am nervous about using salts and creating a fog...heard that happens.

[ChuckM]

So I decided to go to Walgreen's for supplies. I decided to cover a couple bases... get some Epsom salts and/or glycerin... some surfactant... and some supplies to clean out the globe if/when my gookit arrives or the Carlisle if it needs it. In the end, I really waned glycerin over Epsom, but couldn't find it easily and didn't have time to ask the pharmacist. So... what I did find may work, but I think the young lady at the cash register is thinking I am having some strange fun at home:

1) Isopropyl alcohol
2) Glycerin suppository injectors (for constipation)
3) Magic bubbles

Party on!

Anyway... the Glycerin suppositories contain water and a small amount of EDTA (not too worried about the preservative... it is a small amount). I used to work in a lab and had gallons of Glycerin readily available!

Will update with results (or lack thereof)

[ChuckM]

Well, I can report back that adding pretty much an entire dose of the glycerin suppository got the flow going (okay, so I really just wanted to say that)… seriously, though… it did seem to get the lava floating up to the top. It seems to have a slow, but pretty cool flow… over time, I had to slowly add more (adding up to the entire "dosage"). I finally added some Magic bubbles and that seemed to get it flowing into slow blobs… but again, it seems kind of stuck. It looks better than it did originally, but I just cannot seem to get it right. 

I may add a bit more magic bubbles… but now that I have confirmation of the goo kit, I really see that this will likely turn into a goo kit lamp. I would have loved to save the lava (definitely looks better than when I started) but I don't think I can get it right.. we shall see.

Still… for glycerin, I can recommend the suppositories that they sell at Walgreens. They are diluted in purified water and come as little droppers.

[ChuckM]

I ultimately decided to Goo Kit this... In my zeal, I did to measure the amount of wax in the old bottle and tried to eyeball it when adding based on photos of a cold 32oz globe on here. I think I need to decant the liquid and melt the wax then add more wax... Maybe another 10-20 percent... Not a lot... Just a dollop. The first flow was pretty uneventful. It just domed. The next was better... By the third flow I decided to add some color. It still takes about 1.5 to 2 hours with the lamp on full. I would like to get more stretchy wax... I only added 10 ml of Surf and used DrWhat's guide for adding.

Has anyone had any problems adding a bit more goo? I figured it should not be too hard since people combine globes.

Anyway... I like how this is heading. I was banging my head with the old goo... It had lots of big bubbles and wasn't really flowing. This is also so nice and clear!

[ChuckM]

Forgot the photo (video is too large)... Will have to put video up some other way

[ChuckM]

Photo without color