LavaLite Consort

[BSP016]

I just received a Consort I had won on ebay last week. Orange wax with amber master fluid. It's an earlier wood base model with the cylindrical stem and the disk on the base, it even has the often-missing original reflector inside. I was so happy it arrived undamaged. It works, flows good but the flow is barely visible through the cloudy master fluid. At the moment I'm trying cycling to see if it clears up. The fluid level is also a bit low which is unusual. Hoping I will be able to save at least the original wax. 

[kero48]

Cool lamp!! Hoping it clears up!

[Mr MaGoo]

Good luck with it, have two myself and love them.  From what I understand specific gravity and formula were a little different for these lamps.  Good luck again with, nice lamp!

[CrunchyCanadian]

These don't age well and all the orange ones I've seen are cloudy. I changed the fluid in one really rough one and left the one that I could still see the wax flowing alone. I've learned to like the diffuse mellow orange - almost like the mist liquid found in those old elegant enchantress lamps.

[BSP016]

IMG_20180114_224522.jpg

Here's a picture of the flow, I added a backlight so the wax can be seen. 

[BSP016]

So I tried a fluid change...probably shouldn't have done that. Surprisingly only plain tap water worked and made it flow, so the wax rose and fell, but it somehow made the wax stick to every square inch of the globe. I put the original fluid back in it and it's still sticking. Ugh why must I mess with things. Right now I'm hoping the sticking resolves itself with the original fluid,  then I'll try removing the fluid and wax and degrease the bottle and maybe try another fluid change. 

[Michael]

I have a chrome Nordic that was originally blue/green. Like yours, it did flow but was incredibly cloudy. I finally gave up and put glitter in it. 

[BSP016]

A bit of an update: I cleaned the bottle really thoroughly but some of the wax residue looks like it stayed. So I put everything back in and attempted topping off the fluid with water and a bit of salt solution. Believe it or not this worked, and the lava is now happily flowing in my "hybrid" master fluid I've created. It's still cloudy but just a tad clearer than it was before. I still want to try a complete fluid change but if the wax still sticks I'm probably going to attempt to filter the original hybrid fluid. If all else fails I can always redo it with either a GooKit or ingredients from another lamp. 

consortfix.jpg

Consortfix2.jpg

[BSP016]

I think I've put about 7 hours into fixing this lamp and I think I've finally gotten it to where I like it. The master fluid is a hybrid of the original and distilled water + a bit of Epsom salt. I filtered and filtered it and while it's not 100% clear it still looks good. Flow is super fluid and stringy. Hoping it will stay this way!

[BSP016]

Well looks like my repair didn't work...it flowed great the first few days but then the wax started filling with bubbles. When the lava rises, it pulls liquid bubbles up from the bottom. I've had this same problem with my Aristocrat and my Midnight and it's the most frustrating thing ever, thankfully judging by my previous experiences I'm pretty sure my fluid is bad. So I'm going to try something different. Perhaps replacing the fluid with my distilled water & Epsom salt solution and a few drops of the original to keep the wax from sticking? I don't know, I really want to keep the original vintage wax but I may need to do a complete refill. 

[Claude J]

sound like you need some SURF to to stop it from sticking

[The Lamp Caretaker]

I purchased one several years ago and flushed it out since the liquid was way too cloudy and you could barely see the lava flow.  It never cleared up so I replaced the fluid and wax using a lava lite globes contents I purchased on Ebay and it flows better than it did before and crystal clear. Nice looking lamp. 

[Claude J]

I had to do the same to my consort.

No matter what I did I couldn't get it to flow correctly