Making your own Lava Lamp

For some time now I've been wanting to create my own Lava Lamp. Actually, I tried only once. It seemed pretty simple by looking at a commercial lava lamp, so I gave it a try. I just got some paraffin wax and put into a glass of water. Then I heated the bottom and waited to see those lovely bubbles.

It couldn't be more simple. And it wasn't.

The paraffin wax melted, alright, but no bubbles were formed and I ended with a strange sculpture of solid wax that was neither beautiful nor artistic. Wish at that time I had a camera to show the mess.

Anyway, since then I found some nice sites on the web that try to teach how to make your home-made lava lamp. It's far from simple and reading those made me feel my commercial one was pretty cheap after all. Here follow some links:

• http://www.factmonster.com/spot/lavalamp.html
• http://www.oozinggoo.com/howto.html
• http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howtos/ht/lavalampreal.htm

In the Wikipedia there is an article on lava lamps that is instructive to understand why you're following all those instructions and nothing seems to work.

Comments:

how do you make heat strong enough and ligh enough?????????????

Posted by: Anonymous at April 30, 2007 1:33 AM