DIY lava lamp

Relatively recently, many apartments and houses began to be decorated with such a rather unusual household item as a lava lamp. If you look closely at it, you can endlessly enjoy the beauty of rotation and the movement of droplets inside - this picture is truly mesmerizing and fascinating. Dynamic and colorful lamps, as a rule, are used to design gaming rooms, office rooms, children's rooms and living rooms. And if the lava lamp is made with your own hands, then it will be able to take pride of place in your house. How to do this - we will learn from the article below.

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Features of the work of lava lamps

Lava lamp is both a visual demonstration of the physical properties of certain substances, and a rather original children's toy. DIY lava lamp, made with love and tenderness for your child, will truly decorate his room. These items are quite popular in the field of decor, but not many people know by what laws they work and on the basis of what principles liquid droplets move randomly inside. And the main principle of their work is that water and oil never mix with each other.

Important! The drops that we see are a mixture of liquefied or melted colored wax with various additions. Thanks to this, the fluid moves, resembling a flowing volcanic lava.

Now to the point.

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DIY lava lamp

So, before we consider how to make a lava lamp, it is necessary to prepare all the necessary materials:

• 2.5 cm thick board.
• Cartridge with a wide base of porcelain.
• 75 watt bulb.
• Electrical tape.
• A wire with a plug.
• An empty wine bottle.
• Not damaged plug.
• Baby or regular vegetable oil.
• Artistic oil paints.
• Turpentine.
• Saw.
• Food coloring.
• Black paint in a spray can.
• Furniture lacquer for decoration.
• Ruler and protractor.
• Hole drills and drill.
• A simple pencil.

A lava lamp is made at home in the following sequence:

• We connect a wire with a plug to the cartridge. To do this, cut the wire and carefully separate it. First, remove about a centimeter of the protective top layer, attach the wire to the screws on the cartridge.

Important! Do not forget about the polarity, be sure to check the bulb. Only then tighten the screws securely so that the finished structure holds well.

• Saw the prepared board into pieces so that you can make a square out of them. This will be the basis of our stand, where the cartridge will be inserted. Then, on this basis, you will need to make a hole for our wire. The side of the square should be 20 cm.
• Prepare four trapezoidal pieces with a base equal to 20 cm. Process all the elements by sawing straight edges of the slices, adjust the existing base under them. On one of the blanks, make a groove in order to later withdraw the wire.
• Make another square from the board so that its sides are equal to 10 cm. In the center, make a hole so that it matches the bottle in diameter. Drill using a core drill. Thus, you get a bottle holder that you need to install on a stand.
• Using wood glue, connect together all the details of the stand. As a result, you will get a truncated pyramid. But note that you do not need to attach the lower part to the glue.This pyramid will be a cover that can be removed to replace the light bulb.
• Paint the stand with black paint, let it dry completely. Then coat it with varnish on top.
• Wash the bottle thoroughly, remove the label and glue residue.
• Assemble the whole structure.
• Pour the lamp compound into the bottle.

Important! Almost always, it is made on the basis of alcohol, and lava particles are an oil mixture. Due to the difference in density, these elements do not mix with each other. Inside the lamp, they move due to the fact that the liquid heats up from the light bulb.

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Filler Recipes

Now you know how to make a lava lamp at home. The compositions with which they are filled can also be different, mainly they use the two most common recipes:

1. Based on olive oil. To prepare such a composition, you need to mix 1.5 cups of olive oil, 0.5 cups of turpentine, 0.5 cups of water and 1.5 cups of isopropyl alcohol 91%.
2. Based on baby oil. It is still simpler here, since the liquid consists of 1.5 cups of baby oil, 0.2 cups of water and 2.3 cups of isopropyl alcohol 91%.

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Stock footage

Your lava oil lamp, made from start to finish with your own hands, can also shine differently. If you wish, you can paint the composition that shimmers inside it in any color you like, and for this is used food-grade liquid dye or artistic oil paints. That's all the wisdom of creating such an unusual element of interior decoration. As you have seen, the process does not involve any particular difficulties. So feel free to get down to business!