Trying to fix my 1973 Century - what did I do wrong?

[Erin]

I got this off eBay last fall. Never cleared up. Always cloudy and very bubbly. 

So, I borrowed Autumn's MSR filter (or whatever it's called). First, I filtered the liquid out of the lamp, then I set the rest of it in boiling water to see if I could get out some of the bubbles. I kinda messed with the wax too much before I put the liquid back in and a lot of wax was now sticking to the side.

So I tried again. Dumped all the liquid out, melted the wax and poured it out. Cleaned the hell out of the bottle, filtered the liquid back IN, then poured in HOT WAX into the liquid. Well, the wax got all goobered up, but has mostly reformed. However, I have stuck lava again.

 

 

Any idea why the lava keeps sticking? It's driving me NUTS! Is it possible the insides of these bottles were coated with something and I uber-cleaned it off? The lava didn't start sticking until today. It wasn't sticking yesterday when I reassembled for the 2nd time. 

HELP PLEASE!!!

[Erin]

You know, I just made this discovery today - leave some liquid covering the wax at the bottom. I filtered my Squiggle today and didn't do anything to the wax and all went well. 

 

So is there any hope for my Century? Would anything unstick the lava?

Bohdan said:

When it comes to filtering older vintage lamps I will use the filter however only filter out the liquid till I almost reach the bottom of the lava then repour the refiltered liquid cold.. I will never reheat the lava or filter it a second time. Same goes for older Mathmos. Also remember as this is an older lamp and the wax has been used for many years most of the time it will recloud again as the worn lava wears it self closer to its end of life cycle.