It depends how long they have been smashed on their journey?  The sodium may have already evaporated in transit?

Is that likely..? How long would it take a solid lump of sodium to evaporate..? I've (fortunately) never had a smashed SOX lamp so I have no idea.

Is that likely..? How long would it take a solid lump of sodium to evaporate..? I've (fortunately) never had a smashed SOX lamp so I have no idea.

I wouldn't have thought it would evaporate? It might oxidise with exposure to air though?

I forgot to post the results on Saturday.

So I think everything went well. I cut the bubble wrap the broken lamp was wrapped in and dumped all the lamp fragments and sodium into a 5 gallon bucket. I carefully tried to look inside the bubble wrap to check if I got all the fragments out. It looked to me like I did. Then my dad placed the intact lamp with a damaged bayonet cap inside the bucket. He put a piece of cardboard over it and dropped a hammer into the bucket to break the lamp. Then he used the garden hose, with the nozzle removed from the end, to fill the bucket with water. At first he was putting water in the bucket way too slowly so I quickly said faster! Lol.

After like 5 seconds we heard a pretty loud "POP!". He continued letting the hose fill the bucket until it was like half full when I turned off the water.

I wanted to film it with my phone but I was too scared to get close. So I didn't actually see any flames. We did it during the day outside. I stood like 5 feet away. I only heard the explosion lol.

I then poured what we had left of our vinegar into the bucket which wasn't a whole lot. Hopefully it was enough. Then a couple hours later I used a piece of weed barrier landscape bed fabric to pour the bucket of water through in the lawn to filter the lamp and sodium pieces. Then I finally placed the fabric with the lamp pieces into two plastic grocery bags and tied it then threw it into the garbage can outside.

Glad it all went well, sorry that you received broken lamps, it's not good when that happens, especially with SOX lamps 

Glad it all went well, sorry that you received broken lamps, it's not good when that happens, especially with SOX lamps 

Yes I was pretty disappointed. The seller said he would replace the broken ones when I place another order though. At least now I know what to do when I receive a broken lamp. Or if I ever break one accidentally. Hopefully that doesn't happen.

Get a bucket of water, throw the busted lamp into the bucket and run

Get a bucket of water, throw the busted lamp into the bucket and run

It's not that bad, just don't stand too close..! Now if you want to see sodium reacting with water, chuck a lump the size of a melon into a swimming pool (an EMPTY one, though  ) and see what happens  

It's not that bad, just don't stand too close..! Now if you want to see sodium reacting with water, chuck a lump the size of a melon into a swimming pool (an EMPTY one, though  ) and see what happens  

Ermm... waterspout that hits the roof and a dozen or so cracked tiles.!!! 

Well, dumping it into bucket, smashing the glass and spraying with water is indeed the officially recommended procedure to neutralize the burning sodium hazard. The vinegar is not needed (the NaOH solution will neutralize itself with the air CO2...)