Candle-Powered Lava Lamp

Lava Lamps are so cool. They were created in the 1960's and have been popular ever since.

Nothing quite like watching the undulating goo move up and down in hypnotic contortions.

In a traditional Lava Lamp the lava is "powered"/ melted by a low-wattage incandescent lamp (usually 25 watt) acting as a light source and, more importantly, a heater under the glass bottle that contains the lava.

But why use electricity?

Why be tied to an electrical outlet?

A candle puts out plenty of heat!

So here it is... the Candle-powered Lava Lamp!

In this instructable we are going to: harvest the magical lava from a 'broken' lava lamp, prep a new glass bottle, build a base, make a custom candle and put it all together for a candle-powered miniature version of the traditional lava lamp.

The magic that makes a Lava Lamp go is the difference in density of the paraffin-wax-based lava and the liquid around it. Paraffin expands when it melts. Melted paraffin is less dense than solid paraffin, so the melted paraffin-based lava floats in water. I have been saying paraffin, but in reality the lava is paraffin wax and other 'secret' ingredients. The 'secret' ingredients adjust the density of the solid lava so that it is heavier than water; since plain old paraffin wax would float on water. When the lava gets hotter, it expands, gets less dense and floats. When the lava cools it contracts, gets more dense and sinks.

You can search the internet and find different recipes for making your own lava, but it can be pretty touchy to get just the right ingredients balanced so that the lava 'functions' properly. So instead of getting frustrated trying to make the lava, this Candle-powered Lava Lamp uses lava harvested from cloudy ('broken') lava lamps. It's nice to be able to reclaim lava from a useless cloudy Lava Lamp. Remember to never shake or jostle an operating lava lamp as it can ruin the lava.

The Candle-powered Lava Lamp!

I Have Cut the Cord and Set my Lava Lamp Free.....

CAUTION--Safety Notice for Everyone (And to keep the lawyers happy}:

This instructable uses fire, boiling water, hot wax, other hot surfaces and items. Keep children and pets away. Let observers know the Lava Lamp is HOT and not to touch. Use heat resistant gloves for handling when appropriate. Always consider that the glass bottle could shatter from heat or thermal shock. Do not overheat the bottle. If most of the lava collects at the top of the bottle and the lava flow has stopped it is overheating; blow out the candle; increase the space between the flame and the bottom of the bottle. Do not operate where the bottle could be knocked off of the metal bottle-stand or wood base.

To prevent fire or injury: Burn candles within sight. Do not leave candles unattended. Keep away from things that catch fire. Keep away from children and pets. Trim wick to 1/4 inch prior to lighting. Do not allow wick trimmings to accumulate in wax pool. Place on a protected, heat-resistant level surface away from flammable items and heat sources.

Not following these safeguards can result in property damage, personal harm or even death to yourself or others. You need to be familiar with fire, candles, wax, hot liquids and their hazards. If you are not knowledgeable or not comfortable with this project do not attempt it. You take full responsibility for the project you build/assemble. I may be taking risks that are acceptable to me, but may not be acceptable for you or your circumstances. Build/assemble at your own risk. If you do not understand or have questions consult a professional. Sorry for the disclaimer, but if you burn something down or kill yourself or someone else it's your fault, not mine. :-)

LAVA®, and the configuration of the LAVA LITE® MOTION LAMP are registered trademarks of Schylling Inc. in the U.S.A. and in other countries around the world.

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Supplies

Materials

• Old Cloudy Lava Lamp
• New Glass Bottle (Herdez Avocado Hot Sauce, 5 oz. - Dollar Tree)
• Metal Mesh Cup (Jot 'Clip Cup' - Dollar Tree)
• Stainless Steel Shot Glasses 30 ml (1oz) - Amazon
• Tension Spring, Stainless Steel, Wire Dia. 0.031", OD 0.31", Free Length 11.8" - Amazon
• Craft Wire 22 Gauge / .64 mm Stainless Steel - Amazon (Optional)
• Wood Plaque Base - Craft Store
• Metal Candle Can - Brunswick Chicken Salad with Crackers Kit, 2.5 oz (2.66" dia x 1.35")
• Votive Candle
• 2 - Tealights
• Distilled Water
• Dish Liquid, Ultra Palmolive Pure + Clear (Any clear type should work - 2nd ingredient: Sodium Laureth Sulfate)
• Wood Stain

Not Shown:

• Size #0 rubber stopper - Amazon

Tool Overview:

Left side, top to bottom:

• Aviation Snips
• Smooth Edge Can Opener
• Drill Bit 9/32 inch (size not critical)
• Church Key (To open cloudy lava lamp bottle)

Right side, top to bottom:

• Cone/Step Bit for Sheet Metal 1/4 to 1-3/8 Inches (Using 1/2 inch)
• Foam paint brush
• Syringe with aquarium tubing extension
• Pipettes, Disposable Plastic
• Dowel (Optional - for hand winding coil)
• Popsicle/craft stick (For scooping lava, stirring stain)
• Diagonal Cutting Pliers
• Needle-nose Pliers

Not shown:

• Heat resistant gloves - I used "Ove' Gloves"
• Nitrile Exam Gloves
• Random clean glass bottle (For mixing water and dish soap.)

Step 1: Find/Purchase a Cloudy Lava Lamp

You can often find cloudy lava lamps at yard sales, thrift stores, on eBay or other online sources.

If a an operating lava lamp is jostled or shaken the lava can break into a multitude of little bits of wax and also end up with cloudy liquid. Even normal shipping can cause a lava lamp to go cloudy. Over one period of 3 months I ended up ordering online 4 different blue Lava Lamps, one after another as each one I received was cloudy. The manufacturer and online commentators give instructions on how to clear up cloudiness but none of the suggestions worked for me, short of opening the bottle. And if you're opening the bottle you might as well do something creative with the lava inside - like make a candle-powered lava lamp. :-)

The pink/purple lava lamp used in this instructable was my daughters. The cloudiness never went away no matter what we tired. I consider it has now been repurposed into something really neat.

Step 2: Open and Extract the Magical Lava

Most lava lamps purchased in the US have a crimped-on cap like on a soda bottle. Use a church key or pliers to open the bottle. Heat the bottle with boiling water in a double boiler type arrangement outside. I used an old sauce pan filled about half way with water. The pan had wire mesh placed in the bottom to prevent the bottle from contacting the bottom of the pan.

Heat the open bottle in boiling water (I placed some aluminum foil over the open bottle - why I'm not sure, really) until the wax has all melted. Using heat resistant gloves pour the contents of the bottle into a plastic container. I used a clean large yogurt container.

After the wax has cooled and dropped to the bottom of the container, pour off the cloudy liquid. The wax should be all that is left. It has the consistency of a soft paste, so realize it is not hard like one would expect wax to be.

Step 3: Clean the New Glass Bottle

They say 'cleanliness is next to godliness' and for lava lamps this is especially true. Any residue on the inside of the bottle can attract wax and cause the globules of goo to stick to the inside of the bottle and become distracted from their 'vertical commute duties'.....and have the lava stop working. You want the inside of the bottle CLEAN.

Empty out the contents of the new bottle (sorry hot sauce lovers I poured it down the drain as I didn't have any complementary culinary dish available at the time). Wash the bottle with grease-cutting dish detergent such as Dawn. Wash it again and even let the cleaning solution sit in it for 30 minutes. Thoroughly rinse the bottle a couple of times.

You should now be good to go for new goo!

Step 4: Wind Wire or Stretch a Spring

Commercial lava lamps and even DIY ones typically have a coiled metal spring inside the bottle at the bottom. The explanation given is that it helps to transfer heat from the bottom of the bottle into the wax and liquid and also may help break up the falling globs so they absorb back together at the bottom.

So in keeping with the custom or with sound thermodynamic principles we will make a metal coiled spring for the bottom of the bottle. You have two options: 1) Purchase a stainless steel tension spring (Like the type used to keep the screen door closed on your grandparents house) and over stretch it to create pleasing coil turn spacing. 2) Take stainless steel craft wire and wind it around a dowel to create your own coil.

There are pros and cons for each method. The purchased spring is hard to stretch, you can get pinched by it, and it can be a bit tricky to not over stretch and get the coil spacing right. It is also a bear to bend the wire ends to get it to attach to itself to make the ring of coil.

The 'wind-it-yourself' method is easy, but the tedium of putting all those turns on the dowel can get to you. The coil turns also tend to get unruly and want to separate instead of staying in the 'rank and file' like good turns of wire should. It is easy to bend the wire to connect the coil to itself and make the ring of coil.

I tried both methods. I chose the commercial tension spring for this instructable. I think mainly because of the tedious winding chore of the do-it-yourself method. Making the ring of coil attach to itself with the commercial spring was a pain, though. Choose wisely....

Step 5: Make the Coil and Insert It in the Bottle

After obtaining a coil of stainless steel wire form it into a ring sized to fit into the bottom of the bottle. Press the ring onto itself and force it into the bottle. It will resist but speak words of encouragement to it and it should go in.

The image of the coil in the wax comes later in the build, but I thought I'd show the goal to help motivate you to get that coil in the bottle. Not as bad as a ship in a bottle but still can be challenging. Good luck. (All much easier with the 'wind-it-yourself' coil. I want to keep you conflicted.).

Step 6: Measure the Magical Lava Into the New Bottle

Now is the time to use Nitrile Gloves to keep the goo off of you. (Who knows what those 'secret' ingredients are in the lava, so keep them from being absorbed into your body.)

The Avocado Hot Sauce bottle takes 30 cc's of goo. I scraped the goo up on a popsicle stick (resist the urge to lick the stick) and scraped it into the syringe. Press the goo in as you go, trying not to create any air bubbles. When you get 10 cc's squirt it into the bottle making sure to keep the sides clean of spattered goo.

I originally just squirted the goo in without the aquarium tubing on the syringe and the goo spattered over the insides of the bottle and I had to start over. Use the tubing to slowly deposit the goo to the bottom of the bottle. Repeat the 10 cc application 3 times for 30 cc's total.

After the goo is in the bottle heat the open bottle in the double boiler to liquify the goo and make it homogeneous.

I had the suggestion from MarkF27 that this would be a good point to seal the bottle with the rubber stopper (Step 10) so that the internal pressure would be lower as it cooled. And to keep the internal pressure lower when hot.

Let the goo cool in the bottle.

Step 7: Make the Custom Candle

The candle is a bit problematic. Ideally the flame should just touch the bottom of the lava bottle but not go out. Every time I'd get a candle up next to the bottle the flame would go out. It also appears that there are inferior tea light candles that have wimpy wicks that tend to burn and curl over and go into micro flame mode. Not the type of heat source needed for a candle-powered lava lamp.

Still tea lights would be easier to use so I should probably build a tea light candle stand to hold a good quality tea light (not Wal-Mart brand) up to the proper position under the bottle. But I didn't. That will have to wait for another time.

So I made a custom candle instead.

I took a lovely chicken salad can (Yum - the salad, not the can) and melted a votive (note - not tea light) into it and added broken bits of tea light wax. I held the votive's wick in place with a popsicle® stick with a hole drilled in it. (I wonder if naming the stick after the brand increases sales from subconsciously planting the desire for frozen confections?)

After the wax cooled I tried it out and apparently the air flow to the wick was not sufficient. The wick being a bit lower than the lip of the can was probably the problem. The candles combustion products got the best of it and the flame kept going out. (Another reason to build that tea light stand.)

So I used a Smooth Edge Can Opener to remove the top lip of the can. Even that was not enough, so I cut some v-shaped notches along the perimeter down to the wax level to allow, hopefully, additional air in. It worked!

Please watch your candle as it burns, particularly for extended lengths of time as the level of the wax may rise and you may need to intervene if the wax starts to overflow the can. (Yet another reason to build that tea light candle stand.)

Step 8: Stain the Wooden Base

Candles should be burned on non-flammable surfaces. However, a wood base looks nice. And have you ever tried to light the flat side of a board? It's hard to do. And you will always be watching the candle-powered lava lamp burn so there should be no problem with using flammable wood as a base, correct?

I thought it would be nice to stain the pine base a walnut color. Nothing fancy here. Please put down newsprint to keep the place tidy.

Step 9: Drill Holes in the Bottle Stand

The metal bottle stand is cool. (Except when its operating - Sorry I couldn't resist.) It really is cool looking - what can I say, I like it! It is a metal mesh 'clip cup' and it works really well here.

Drill six 9/32" diameter holes (size is not critical - the holes may not even be needed; but the big center one is) spaced so that they lie just inside the bottom perimeter of the bottle and are hidden when the bottle is in place.

Drill a 1/2 inch diameter hole in the center for the flame to contact the bottom of the bottle.

Isn't the Bottle Stand a thing of beauty?!

Step 10: Replace the Plastic Bottle Cap

All good looking lava lamps have a cool decorative cap on them. I had a hard time finding a cool decorative cap for this one. How do you search the internet for a metal conical tapering thingy that has just the right taper and just the right opening size? Well, you luck out! I came across these stainless steel shot glasses and they worked perfectly.

In an earlier version of this step I talked about modifying the bottle screw cap (which was too wide at the top) so that the shot glass would fit over it. However, studleylee brought to my attention that an overheated lava lamp can explode. Therefore I do not recommend sealing the bottle with its original cap. Commercial lamps can get away with a permanent cap since the heat source (light bulb) is a controlled heat source and very low wattage. A candle flame is much more variable and apparently can produce up to 80 watts of heat. Instead of the screw cap I recommend that a rubber stopper be used to seal the bottle. Size #0 stopper fits perfectly and the shot glass still fits over it! So instead of an overheating bottle exploding the plug can just pop off to relieve pressure.

If you want to keep the color scheme consistent I guess that you could paint the shot glass black to match the wire mesh 'clip cup' bottle stand but I chose to keep the bare stainless steel.

Step 11: Add Distilled Water and Clear Dish Soap

Only distilled water should be used in the lava lamp to prevent impurities that could react/mess up the 'secret ingredients' in the lava; or so it's been said.

Note that 4 drops of clear dish soap are added to the distilled water for the bottle in ANOTHER bottle, not the bottle with the lava in it! I should stress it again: The dish soap is mixed into the water BEFORE the water is added to the bottle with the lava in it. I once added the dish soap to the lava bottle (with water in it) and the dish soap sunk to the bottom, landed on the wax, and had some type of reaction with the wax that changed the wax white where it contacted. Soooo, I think it is best to mix the dish soap with the water BEFORE adding the water to the lava.

I filled the lava bottle (with lava in it) up with distilled water to just past the bend/shoulder at the top and then poured that water into a SEPARATE container and added 4 drops of clear dish soap. A note on the soap: The soap's second ingredient is Sodium Laureth Sulfate which is a surfactant, which adjusts the surface tension of the wax to create the independent globules. It also helps to keep the wax from sticking to the walls of the glass bottle.

After mixing the 4 drops of dish soap into the distilled water in a separate glass container the water can be poured back into the lava lamp bottle. The liquid level should be just above the bend/shoulder of the bottle so that there is about an inch of air space from the water level to the top lip of the bottle.

You can now push the rubber plug into the top of the bottle to seal it.

Step 12: Stack Candle, Bottle Stand, Magic Lava and Decorative Cap

Now comes the moment of truth!

Light the candle, stack the bottle stand over it with the flame centered in the central hole, place the lava bottle on the stand, place the shot glass (I mean decorative cap) on the bottle -- and be patient....... It may take upwards of an hour to get the lava flowing nicely.

Lava is kind of funny stuff, it may make all sorts of weird shapes as it's getting up to temperature so don't get distressed if it starts forming modern art in your bottle. Just be patient and give it some time to warm everything up. Remember, it's a little flame that is powering all this glorious goo.

Step 13: Watch the Groovy Goo Go

Now sit back and Gawk at the Groovy, Gorgeous Goo Go through its Glorious Gyrations

("G's" were on sale!)

Enjoy!

P.S. Never burn candle unattended.

When finished blow the candle out without disturbing the lava bottle.

After about an hour the wax should be solidified and the lava bottle can be moved.

P.P.S. As an interesting side note, lava lamps were actually used as the seed data for a random number generator. And this same concept was part of the fictional plot of television series NCIS, season 16, episode 1.