Dissapointing results using GooKit

[Da9L]

So me and a friend have bought 3 GooKits for some lamps we wanted to redo.

We have begun with two lamps, but i must say that our results untill further are quite dissapointing, but i just wanted to seek out if anyone had some ideas.

First of all the instructions that comes with the kits are quite clear, but i've decided mix those instructions with Dr. Whats guide from here .

Cleaning out the bottles was no big deal, as i've done this alot before on my grandes and other china lamps i've experimented with. After the cleansing (where we also "coated" the inside of the globes with 1ML mixed with 1DL of destilled water) we added the GooKit wax and measured this out according to what was in the globe originally which was the same as what the GooKits method of measuring it out, would end up with. We then let that dry out and simply filled the globes with destilled water and fired them up.. 

After some time they would eventually melt the wax and begin their limited and boring flow as seen here and here

But since we had not added any surf i tried slowly adding 1ML at a time in the hopes that it would make some more interesting flow.. Looking at the pictures above it could be that they surface tension was too high, and therefore the supplied surfactant would break this, making the flow better. But as you can see here nothing really happened to the yellow lamp, which as of now 8 ML of surfactant hasn't really changed its flow at all. Then there is the purple lamp here which has gone all beserk, and begun to have a very small bubble flow type. 

On both lamps we've slowly added 1 ML of surfactant and waited out around 45 mins to 1 hour, but the desired flow, which is a mixture of snakey and breaking blobs, has never been seen. It has always been this: Either big blobs flowing to the top, hanging out there for a longer time than normal, after which it would then fall back to the bottom and repeat .. = Boring!

OR its this all crazy flow with lots of tiny blobs going both up and down, but still lots hanging out at the top for the longest time. This type of flow is from my experience typically either too much heat or too much surf, but we've also tried using dimmers and going all the way from 30w down to 10w which doesnt really change anything.

Any suggestions on how we can fix the flow issues ? We are using destilled water, and the supplied materials from the gookit, so i cant really see what could be wrong. Is the Danish destilled water somehow heavier than where the gookits are from? 

The other concern i have is that i think the wax it self is way to transparent. Any suggestions for this?

All in all my initial impressions with the GooKit is well.. Quite bad.. I think i can safely say that it is not because we do not have the experience.. I have redone liquids before so many times in lava lites, mathmos', and chinas with great successes and failures also ofcourse, but learned from these. And GooKits is by far the simplest formula i have seen, as it doesnt involve messing with gravities like it usually does when redoing liquids for lava lamps.. 

[Da9L]

Have they changed something in the formula ? Im asking because it seems that alot of people here have had good results, but the question is if its something they have changed 

[Da9L]

Im thinking about contacting them.. Me and my friend bought all in all 3 goo kits in one order to save as much on shipping as we could.. But with 65 usd on shipping and then additional 60 usd on import taxes it ran up to almost 200 usd for something thats practically unusable. The results im getting from those two first ones are so bad that i would say they look like cheap china lamps.. 

[Brad]

yeah, i'd contact them for sure.  it sounds like you've exhausted all of your options short of changing the SG of the water.  the last goo kit i did was back in 2012 or 2013.  the first kit i ever did was great, but then for the next kit, something happened and the formula seemingly changed.  lots of people on this forum reported bubbles in the wax (myself included), wax that wouldn't rise/fall, wax that stayed translucent, and debris in the wax container.

[Sentrex]

Did you ever get this resolved? Any alternative high quality goo suppliers out there?

[Da9L]

Nope i didnt.. Never heard back from user "Goo Kits" either. But i havent really tried any further either, as i kindda gave up. almost 170 usd wasted

[Erin]

I gave up on GooKits a few years back. I bought a few kits and didn't have good luck with them. I had white fuzz in the liquid (kinda looked like mold), sticking to the globe and bubbles in the wax. Without any help from their support staff, I just quit spending money on them. 

[Jeff Neely]

What's shakin', fine friends?

Not long ago I bought a grande on here from another member. It was not in a working condition. I bought it to experiment on color as I am testing for a larger project I am going to start (hopefully) later today. I bought a total of 1.5 gallons of goo: one quart for the grande, four for the other project, and a final quart for two smaller projects I promised to a friend. I also bought a couple large bottles of surfactant.

I did all the work on the grande and then fired it up with about 1/4 of the bottle of surfactant at the beginning. Over the next week or so I slowly added a few ml every hour or two that I was around. There were many times that I wanted to get impatient as a few ml seemed to make no difference. That said, my patience paid off after just a bit more than 1/3 of the bottle and this goo kit is flowing like a beautiful boss. It will work, but don't rush it.

All that said, I would put a video up to show you what I have produced but I kinda fucked it up with my color choice and now it looks like melted baby shit because I wanted to try gold sharpies and, as it turns out, they are not nearly as pretty as the silver ones. Good thing I tried this out before I got into the colossus I am about to redo as I can lose $20 or so in wax for a grande but the other would be a big waste of hundreds after the wax and the sharpies to make it work.

Sorry you are disappointed with your results, my experience is much different. As for the other project, I will post pics as I do the work.

Good, clear flow to you,

Jeff