Wow... either yall lucked out or maybe they've righted the ship

Maybe China felt bad about all those "weather" balloons they've been sending around, and decided to make it up to us by improving their lava lamp technology!! Yeah, that sounds about right!

Why spy from above when you can spy from within?

Oh no, do I have to stick a post-it over a lens somewhere now like I do with my laptop?

I can't quite capture the blue color....it's prettier than this. Looks a little washed out and a whole different shade of blue in the video. I need better equipment! (Yeah, I know - that's what she said...)

Those look really badass. I've got to hunt down one with the blue.

Sorry for the aside, but your comment reminded me that I was in the town of Bumpass, VA last week. If my favorite local historian/autodidact/lava lamp-pinball aficianado wolftownjeff is out there, is not in jail currently, and his edibles haven't kicked in yet, he may know the origin of the town's name.

Sadly, the official pronunciation of the town is "BUMP-us" and not what you want to say, which seems like a bit of a lost opportunity...but there it is. I still giggle when I see the sign....well, that one and "Assawoman". What were those Indians smokin'?

Anyway, thank you for your time - now back to "flow" and "goo"...

Here is the lava lamp I took from my grandfather's house. He had it ever since I was a kid. I can confirm it is at least from the 80's if not older and still going strong.

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That wax looks great! And the built-in ashtray is awesome!

Was down in the war room tonight working in garbage. Fired up the ol wall and finished up the repair and shop job of my Af-Tor

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Someone recently posted the new assortment at Spencer's, which I have to say thanks for because while I'm usually not a fan of the decorated bases, nor would make a special trip just to go to Spencer's, there was an exclusive one I HAD to have:

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Managed to get the last one at my "local" mall yesterday. But luck almost ended there because checkout girl was rude as hell when she saw me inspecting it by (carefully!) removing it from the box, which I only did because the box was visibly damaged! When I said I intended to buy it but wanted to make sure it wasn't damaged first she hostilely said that's not allowed, and I should have bought it and opened it up then came back it there was a problem. WTF? I might have parried her idiotic rudeness but I didn't want to make a scene or come away empty handed after the trip. Some battles aren't worth fighting.

Unfortunately due to the way she snatched and hastily/improperly repacked it, the bulb got broken when I unboxed it at home At least I had a spare.

Anyway, really pleased with the clarity of the liquid and the bright green hue of the Lava. Only "issue" is the way the stripe pattern shifts around the base owing to the geometry of flat linear patterns stuck to tapered curves, but at least the inevitably weird part is in the back.

Everyone in the household has volunteered/agreed that it looks like it should have been a Ghostbusters prop, haha... which is probably why I wanted it to begin with.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=512127651115099&set=a.512128027781728&type=3&mibextid=cr9u03

I just read our beloved president is banning most incandescent light bulbs as of Aug 2023. Do we need to stock up on a lifetime supply of bulbs for our beloved lava lamps? I don't see any efficient substitute. Also wondering if this will affect the traditional pinball light bulbs.

The ban was supposed to happen a decade ago, but it will drag on forever.

The ban is only for General Service Lamps

Lava lamps use 40w appliance bulbs, and those are not included in the ban.

(Your oven heats up to 1000*F during self-clean mode, and it's pretty unlikely any LED bulb would survive that, lol )

-

General service lamps DO NOT include:

(1) Appliance lamps

(2) Black light lamps

(3) Bug lamps

(4) Colored lamps

(5) G shape lamps with a diameter of 5 inches or more as defined in ANSI C79.1- 2002

(6) General service fluorescent lamps

(7) High intensity discharge lamps

(8) Infrared lamps

(9) J, JC, JCD, JCS, JCV, JCX, JD, JS, and JT shape lamps that do not have Edison screw bases

(10) Lamps that have a wedge base or prefocus base

(11) Left-hand thread lamps

(12) Marine lamps

(13) Marine signal service lamps

(14) Mine service lamps

(15) MR shape lamps that have a first number symbol equal to 16 (diameter equal to 2 inches) as defined in ANSI C79.1-2002, operate at 12 volts, and have a lumen output greater than or equal to 800

(16) Other fluorescent lamps

(17) Plant light lamps

(18) R20 short lamps

(19) Reflector lamps that have a first number symbol less than 16 (diameter less than 2 inches) as defined in ANSI C79.1-2002 and that do not have E26/E24, E26d, E26/50x39, E26/53x39, E29/28, E29/53x39, E39, E39d, EP39, or EX39 bases

(20) S shape or G shape lamps that have a first number symbol less than or equal to 12.5 (diameter less than or equal to 1.5625 inches) as defined in ANSI C79.1- 2002

(21) Sign service lamps

(22) Silver bowl lamps

(23) Showcase lamps

(24) Specialty MR lamps

(25) T shape lamps that have a first number symbol less than or equal to 8 (diameter less than or equal to 1 inch) as defined in ANSI C79.1-2002, nominal overall length less than 12 inches and that are not compact fluorescent lamps

(26) Traffic signal lamps

Have to give credit to JustJared for posting that cool ash-tray version, as it gave me an idea.

When we bought our house, it was filled with crap including some large brass candlestands. Which were vintage tacky cool, and heavy, so I kept them even though they didn't really "fit" our decor overall.

But with that inspiration above, I thought of converting the candle stands into lava stands. It was trickier than expected owing to the design, as the drip base plate was meant to be secured by threading the candle post through it: without the post on top, the plate would fall off. So I measured the hole and the hollow post below, and came up with the notion that a particular pneumatic flange fitting wedged and glued into place as a plug, would keep the plate in place, making it stable enough to support a lamp.

The bases are a bit dark in this photo but I can share better pictures of the mod if anyone is interested.

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As for the collection, the middle green one is a gift I bought my wife (then gf) in 1997; the lava still flows great but the water turns cloudy as seen, after a few minutes. The other two are recent Spencer's acquisitions. They look good together IMO.

^ That's totally badass looking.

I'd get some "brass" lava bases (probably the most common color until the 90s) and people would assume that they were stock.

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Super cool!

Well, it’s only a year old and it’s shot. I’ve tried the aluminum foil trick but the lava wants to stick to the glass. Oh well.

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Today's email.

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That is easily remedied by opening the top, and adding a couple drops of surfactant (I prefer pure sodium laurel sulfate, readily available from lavalabcreations.com in liquid form, or make your own); with the seal cap off, run the lamp until it's fully warmed up, then add a couple drops of sls. Like magic, it will unstick, and start flowing again, almost immediately. Recap the lamp (I believe XL's are screw caps) when it's still hot, and you should be good to go. Some of the newer china lamps have issues with the ingredient proportioning.

I went for the big one. Blue water yellow wax. For the game room.

Ta Daaa!

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The pinballs are along the other wall.

Conference room at work.

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My office, missing a machine.

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Nice

I'll have a booth at Allentown where I'll be bringing a lamp to display just for fun in our chill lounge. If anybody has one they want to bring for the vibe I'd be happy to add it to the display!

Where are these from? Spencers?

A coupon that is currently working on LAVA website is:

WELCOMEBACK20

Thanks for the heads up! Just ordered and saved $36 off my 27" custom lamp.

Wedding present from one of our guests in 1994.

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I missed the code. Oh well.

I am glad to hear it, there can never be too much lava out there!

I don't know if the offer is still valid, but the first time I typed in .. welcomeback20 .. I didn't use all CAPS and the discount was denied. I tried it again with all caps .. WELCOMEBACK20 .. and it worked!

In case anyone is thinking of getting the really large blue lamp, the light provided isn’t bright enough to light it up to the top in a lit room.

Anyone know if a brighter bulb would harm the lava?

Brighter bulbs are probably more watts and might overheat the wax

I guess you could try some different brands of the same wattage

Doodle Bug & Lava Lamp

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Maybe try sneaking an led bulb inside the housing with the stock bulbs. They make them small and bright and on flexible sticky strips too

That might just work!

I tried a ceramic reptile heater bulb (which produces no light), and an RGB LED ring of the proper size from Amazon

The color was so inorganic and charmless , total fail.

I'll have to find some of the pics, their awful

I’m going to have to replace this wire grommet thingy to install supplemental LED lamps.

Anyone know what they are called, so I can look them up?

Plenty of room for a 2” LED lamp inside the base.

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I used an old magma tower gookit to redo a lamp and the wax blobs are many little globes instead of snakey flowing wax. Does that mean it needs more surfactant, or that I used too much?

Probably that you used too much.

Pour out a little of the distilled water/soap, and refill with pure distilled water

(make sure you are not overheating your wax, the gookit stuff runs at a little lower temp - dimmer usually required )

https://www.amazon.com/Hillman-Group-58231-Diameter-Bushing/dp/B00MFSEYF2

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vid1900
Thanks!

I'll give the dimmer a try first. If I keep adding wax dye will the wax eventually become less transparent or will the color just darken down? The color is pleasing but the wax still has a see-through kind of look.