Vocano Bowls - kinda - half price at Party City

My local Party City store has these Volcano Bowls on sale half price - not really my kind of thing, but I figured someone might be interested. They generate a mist that flows up from the volcano - I'm guessing through a method like a humidifier. Usually $39.99, now $19.99. In fact, most of their luau themed stuff is on sale, but it's mostly cheesy. If you live in the US, you might have a store near you. http://partycity.com/

(If anyone has info on how to build a mister like the one embedded in this, I'd appreciate learning about it.)

Cheers!
Serious Voodoo

About that volcano bowl......I fell for the picture on the box and bought one, it's cute and is a fun centerpiece on a table.....but the thing leaked like crazy. Add to that the mister splashes water into the bowl (and whatever you might be serving from the bowl), and it kept splashing water no matter how we tried to adjust the water level. It also leaks from the bottom plug where the cord enters the volcano and drips onto the table and leaks when the mister condensate dribbles down the volcano and seeps in where the bowl and the volcano stack meet then dribbles nicely on the table.

The mister only works for about an hour and it must be re-filled with water, so it must be tended.

After cleaning up a few water messes, we took it back and got a different one, the new one leaks the same way. We made a gasket for it, it still leaks. Tried a latex sealant, still leaks. I'm probably going to take it back if I can find the receipt, unless someone else figured out how to make the thing stop leaking. The only other alternative, I think, might be to just permanently adhere the volcano stack to the bowl with aquarium caulk and pile a mound of the same stuff inside the volcano stack around the cord.....however, cleaning it will be dicey after that.

Any tips?
LavaLounger

Here's a tip...just have Peter Brady come over and put one of his homemade, batter-powered Mini Volcanos in it. There ya go, problem solved!!!!

I've used some of these misters before, usually on Halloween to create dry ice effects. There's not much you can do to minimize the splashing, other than to use a little splatter guard that comes with the misters when you buy them on their own. You could try making one. It looks like an easter egg dipper (those wire things), with a mushroom-cap shaped piece of metal on top. The jet of water from the mister hits the mushroom shaped splash guard and bingo, no more splashing. You could try making something out of some stiff wire and maybe some aluminum foil folded over on itself so it's a bit stronger. Depends on how much room is in the volcano. You might not have room to put something in like that.
Not sure what you could do to seal it up. Sealant is the best idea. Like you said though, makes it harder to clean.
Is the volcano a hollow tube that runs through the bowl? If it is, you could try sealing up the bottom with the cord (makes the mister unremovable), but then you don't have to try and seal in more than one place. If you seal it cleanly enough on the bottom, it won't be too hard to clean, but you wouldn't be able to put it in the dishwasher. You could try using a rubber stopper. Get one at Home Depot. The cord would be a problem. You could try notching the stopper in such a way that you can pass the cord past the stopper without wrecking the seal. Stopper would still be removable, and all, so cleaning would be a simpler task.