Fixed two problems over the past few days

[Rich C]

Nothing major but I made myself proud in a small way.

My little 20oz Classic, my first modern era (China) lamp.  It always flowed well, loved the colors.  It had begun to have a spot at the top where the wax would stick.  My first attempt to clean this spot and get a good coating of surf on it did not work, actually seemed worse.  So, I tried it again, scrubbing the offending spot even more thoroughly.  Well, as thoroughly as you can with popscicle sticks.  When I first fired it up, wax stuck to the spot, just not as seriously.  I let the lamp run all day and when I check on it later, it was flowing like crazy and nothing was sticking to the globe.  I hope it stays that way!

While it was down for the count, I had my other 20ozer, a ColorMax, doing chores at work.  It flows well and look great, but after it runs for a while, it begins to shoot largish bubbles up through the blob of wax at the bottom, which grabs a blob of wax and rockets it to the top.  It is kind of cool at first, but over time when they become fairly regular, it begins to be disruptive to the smooth gentle flow of things.  I noticed that the bubbles tend to come right out of the center of the bottom of the globe.  It occurred to me that perhaps it just has too of an intense hot spot right there causing this.  As an experiment, I pasted a small square of aluminum foil tape to the center bottom of the globe.  This had an immediate reaction of slowing the flow down, almost too much, but it did eliminate the bubbles.  I trimmed the square back a few times ending up with a square about 3/8" square right in the center and this restored the flow mostly and continue to keep the bubbles at bay.  It is also so small it does not block any appreciable amount of light.  It does slightly slow down the start up of the lamp but once it is flowing, all things appear normal.  This is a whole lot easier and just as effective as a dimmer.  I might try this on my always overheating Midnight clear/cranberry.

[VOXul]

Excellent tactic to combat those rocket bubbles. I have a grande that likes to sit and shoot them up as well, I think I am going to try this foil tape approach on that globe! Thank you for the tip Rich!

[Carol]

I just kitted my purple/yellow that was doing this.  It still does it a little even with the kit.  I'm thinking it's a coil problem though.

[Rich C]

The foil tape is an easy, inexpensive way to try to fix the problem.  Just get good tape.  A whole roll can be expensive if you buy the bigger roll, but it can be used all around the house.  It is designed for and does a good job at sealing up joints in your furnace ducting system and keeping all the cold or hot air in the ducts and stays adhered to the ducts over time.  Duct tape typically fails after a year or so after the adhesive dries out and the backing then falls off.

[Kirk]

Ingenious, Rich.  I love your foil tape solution!

[Rich C]

The foil tape might not work in every situation, a lot depends on the make up of the bulb being used.  I think it worked for me since the bulb in question has a small filament right in the middle and is clear glass not frosted.  This seems to concentrate intense heat at a very small spot right in the middle.