Can anyone help with my sticky knob(s)?

Riaan-Combrink

Ha! Thought that would get your attention ?

Seriously: not having used my Ibanez for four days between gigs, I was surprised on Wednesday night to feel the volume and tone knobs (three in total) all feel kinda stiff on the turn. Felt like they had trouble turning, almost as if scraping against something. Were perfectly fine on Sunday before.

Guitar was in its hardcase between gigs. Seeing that it affects all three, did something "atmospheric" (??? humidity, etc) happen? What would cause this?

And, of course, how do I fix it? I've seen people spray "pot-cleaner" into mixers, amps, etc. Is this safe for the knobs, and must I take any special precautions? Preferred brands??

Sorry for all the questions guys, but this is a bit new to me.

I'm intending giving my mixer a good clean soon, so I'm also interested in what I can use between the sliders and buttons, etc.

Thanks!

AlanRatcliffe

Hmm... Interesting. All three pots at once? My guess would be a little bit of corrosion on the shafts. Turning them a couple of dozen times should loosen them up again.

If you use a contact cleaner in pots, you have to relubricate them. Pots are self cleaning and lubricated and cleaning them with isopropyl (which is basically what contact cleaner is) flushes out the lubricant and the wiper wears out the tracks very quickly after that. Using a special lubricant like Caig DeoxIT FaderLube replaces what the cleaner flushes out. The bad news is, the lubricants are not the best thing for wood, so you actually have to remove the pot to relubricate it. Some brands use silicon as a lubricant...

Because of this, when it reaches the point where the pot is getting noisy or cutting out, and turning it a few times doesn't clear up the problem, I just replace them and have done with it. Also, the carbon pots we use for guitar pots are lubricated to last the lifespan of a pot, so by the time it starts giving problems, the pot is about worn out anyway.

Riaan-Combrink

Alan Ratcliffe wrote Hmm... Interesting. All three pots at once? My guess would be a little bit of corrosion on the shafts. Turning them a couple of dozen times should loosen them up again.

Thanks, Alan. Will try that. My intuitive reaction (as a longtime player who has avoided the technical part of the instrument :-[) was to AVOID turning it - thinking its chafing somewhere, etc. I'm just perplexed, as the guitar is only about 7 months old (ex shop, so I don't know how long out of factory), is always hard-cased, etc. Of course, she moves to gigs and back (with the resulting temperature changes), so maybe that has led to the corosion.

Alright, I'm off to turn them repetitively, but gently ... ?

AlanRatcliffe

The shafts are usually aluminium or brass, so aren't prone to much in the way of corrosion. The sleeves they are in are pot metal, so not prone at all. That's what is unusual...

The good news is, it's still under warrantee. if a few turns don't sort it out, take it back to the shop and have them replace the pots.

Karel-Mars

This problem is usually caused by the lubricant grease on the shaft that goes sticky. I use Servisol switch cleaner & lubricant. In the old days we used to remove the pot, open it up, remove dirt, put lube on the carbon track and close it up again.

Now I would recommend replacing, like ALan suggests.

What about upgrading? The hifi audiophiles spend thousands on their volume pots (stepped attenuators), and I see Allessandro supplies mil spec sealed pots for guitar. Has anyone upgraded their guitar pots with good results?

Gearhead

Once the audiophile bug bites you spend ridiculous amounts on silly things like attenuators. What you're looking for in those things is linearity (to keep the L and R channels equal so there's no shifting of the 'ideal' listening position) and lack of roll-off. That's exactly why they make little sense in a guitar (-amp): neither of those qualities are required. There's little point in using a pot that's linear up to 40kHz playing into a 4x12" cab that rolls off radically over 10kHz.
Having said that - what's this Allessandro you speak about? ?

AlanRatcliffe

The hifi audiophiles spend thousands on their volume pots (stepped attenuators)

I'm more nitpicky than most when it comes to guitar, but I try not to let snakeoil salesmen guide my thinking too much. While anyone can see that a stepped attenuator can make a difference to a stereo amp, or that a high capacitance cable in a high impedance circuit can alter the tone, some of those folk say that a $500 wooden volume knob has an effect on tone or that you should pay extra for a special directional speaker cable.

I especially love the idea that the audiofools are spending hundreds of thousands to listen to music that was recorded with some notably dodgy gear and through a total of thousands of feet of bog-standard Canare or Belden cable.

I see Allessandro supplies mil spec sealed pots for guitar.

More rugged, but no difference in tolerance ...and at $50 a pot, I'll stick to buying a bunch of CTS, sorting through them myself and matching them to the voice of the specific guitar. For a one off, you can get a $15 Super Pot from RS Guitarworks.

Has anyone upgraded their guitar pots with good results?

I've tried a few of the higher quality plastic tracks (Allen-Bradley, Clarostat and Bourns), all had really nice taper (especially the Clarostat), but didn't last as long as the CTS I usually use. The tolerance was the same as any other pot.