Build Your Own Lava Lamp
Manip writes "My new project: 'The difficult part about making your own liquid motion lamp is, of course, the motion. We won't go into the lamp base too much. The store-bought ones use a 40w appliance bulb in a metal housing which directs the heat to the underside of the glass container. If you're making your own base, we recommend installing a dimmer switch so that you can control your heat output.'"
...is because they were found to be responsible for numerous house fires. I suspect the modern ones are far safer than those made in the 1970's, but I'd expect a home-made one to be potentially quite dangerous.
/. is the right place for it! :)
So I guess