Cheap Lava of Lamps

A cheap lava lamp and lighting and hours of fun. This is a fun and entertainment, in addition to a bedroom, living room, or even an office. I am a great conversation piece and a cheap lava lamp is a calming and relaxing atmosphere in any environment.

English Edward Craven Walker invented the lava lamp in 1963, but the circumstances are a bit 'mysterious. According to one version of history, had the idea while he was in a complicated egg timer in the early 1950s. Another version says that his imagination by a lamp oil fluid movement saw was activated in a pub.

Wherever the truth lies, Walker spent several years perfecting his product and eventually began marketing it through his Crestworth Company as the Astro Light. When sales dropped off in the 1980s, Walker sold the rights to Cressida Granger, whose company, Mathmos, continues to produce the lamps for the market outside the United States.

In the U.S, two entrepreneurs from Chicago acquired the patent rights after seeing Mr. Walker's lamp at a trade show in Germany in 1965. Their company continues to produce the lamps in the United States under the name Lava World International. Nonetheless, Mr. Walker greatly enjoyed his cult popularity before his death in 2000.

A cheap lava lamp contains a standard incandescent bulb or halogen lamp of 25 to 40 watts. This bulb heats a tall, shaped glass globe containing water and wax. The wax is slightly denser than the water at room temperature, but becomes less dense as the lamp warms.

The wax expands as it is heated, which takes several minutes and it becomes fluid. Freely formed blobs of wax rise to the top of the lamp, where they quickly cool and then descend. There is a metallic wire coil in the base of the globe that provides a surface tension breaker so the cooled blobs of wax can recombine at the bottom of the lamp after they descend.

A cheap lava lamp will draw attention in any room and symbolizes a cultural icon of the counterculture generation.