Replacement Bottle for Tiki Hot Rock Lite?

Hello, everyone. My family just moved and our kids have been thrilled watching our lava lamp collection on display (our previous apartment didn't have any good places to put them), but one lamp in particular is giving us problems. The wife and I have an old tiki Hot Rock Lite from Spencer's, just like the one seen here:

As a fan of all things kitsch and tasteless, I can't get enough of tiki statues and the kids love the funny face on it, but the bottle makes it useless at this point. A good portion of wax is stuck the sides and what little wax is left will only bubble up to run along one side of the bottle and stay there until you turn it off, after which it just settles back to the bottom.

I'd really like to get this thing up and running again, but I don't know what kind of bottle would be best to replace it. We tried replacing it with one of the bottles from our standard lava lamps and it fit nicely enough, but my wife didn't like how the narrow top looked with the the broad cap. "It looks like a little man wearing an oversized hat. And not in a good way." Her words, not mine.

So any thoughts on what would work for this thing? I'd rather not hunt down another Hot Rock Lite as 1) it can be a pain getting some of these discontinued items and 2) it seems these things inevitably screw up in this manner anyway. I'd rather just get an official Lava Lite brand bottle that I know will work properly.

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Permalink Reply by kero48 on July 10, 2017 at 8:25am

Matt, there are only two options you have from my point of view.

You cannot use a lava lamp bottle in this unit. The bottles are complete different in base diameters and shape.

#1 There are many hot rock / lite f/x lava lamps on ebay that you can buy with the same size bottle and use the ebay bottle in your tiki lamp, however, you will notice most on ebay are semi cloudy or worse. I honestly don't recommend this unless you found one that is ultra clear with good photos. When you do find a really clear one, they usually are asking around $40 to $50.

#2 You can REDO your bottle with new lava and liquid. You will have to reuse the metal cap on the top of the bottle and rubber stopper underneath. These both can be carefully removed if you take your time. Now, I am not the one to advise how to REDO your bottle since I have never done one. I have only converted lava lamps to glitter including a similar lamp to yours by hot rock (not tiki though but same bottle). See below video.

http://oozinggoo.ning.com/video/hot-rock-lava-lamp-converted-to-gli...

The experts on this board can walk you through how to redo your bottle if that sounds interesting to you.

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Permalink Reply by Matt Garner on July 10, 2017 at 2:41pm

Thanks so much! I suppose now I'd better look into redoing it!

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Permalink Reply by kero48 on July 10, 2017 at 5:26pm

Matt, I would still keep an eye on ebay as once in a while there is a good condition unit that goes for a reasonable price. Remember, you don't need to metal decorative cap and you don't need a perfect base.

All you need is a clear good working bottle.

Sometimes you find one with a great bottle and crappy other parts and even better sometimes they have "make an offer" button :)

With regards to redoing the bottle you have, it can be done, you just need some guidance from the pros :)