Mr. C.O. Jones Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 Hey guys! It has been a long time since my last post. Hope you're all doing well! Most of the wah users will have experienced it sometime, there comes a time in a wahs life when the pot has to be cleaned or replaced. Lucky you if at that moment you loosen ya screws and find a normal potentiometer, a little spritz of good-ol' deoxit and probably your good to go. Good as new right? Well, in mine there was a pot with a sealed casing. So I checked online if there's a way for cleaning, nothing! No videos, no posts, nada. On the almighty WWW, at least I didn't find any useful info. There were theory's and suggestions of course. Like drilling a hole, but what caught my eye was one little post suggesting to heat something and melt a hole in the casing. Couldn't find no info if someone actually tried it. So just as a side note, money is darn tight right now, and searching for an original replacement pot wasn't easy. I still don't know if they even sell them as spare. The only one I found said it wasn't compatible with the mini wah and cost around 30 €. So I heated a needle till it was glowing, and carefully melted a wee hole into the pots casing, taking care to do it where I guessed it wouldn't destroy the whole mechanism. Once done it was spritzing time! It was a little difficult because of the size of the hole, it was really hard to see on that pitch black plastic casing. So I was generous with the deoxit, and knew it had gone inside when I saw liquid coming out again when turning the shaft. Cleaned it, waited and put a tiny piece of duct tape on the hole (it's not properly repaired if duct tape wasn't involved in some way) and put the pedal back together. And surprise! It is good as new, or better. If I recall right it had a little scratchiness from the beginning. So I guess it's time fo some juicy white boy* funkin'! Hope this helps some other tinkerers, and to Jim Dunlop.... I'm sorry. *European wetback would be mo appropriate.** ** And no I don't give a rat's a$$ about political correctness I friggin' allowed to say that I am a Spaniard! Greets to all! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karloff Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 3 minutes ago, Mr. C.O. Jones said: Hey guys! It has been a long time since my last post. Hope you're all doing well! Most of the wah users will have experienced it sometime, there comes a time in a wahs life when the pot has to be cleaned or replaced. Lucky you if at that moment you loosen ya screws and find a normal potentiometer, a little spritz of good-ol' deoxit and probably your good to go. Good as new right? Well, in mine there was a pot with a sealed casing. So I checked online if there's a way for cleaning, nothing! No videos, no posts, nada. On the almighty WWW, at least I didn't find any useful info. There were theory's and suggestions of course. Like drilling a hole, but what caught my eye was one little post suggesting to heat something and melt a hole in the casing. Couldn't find no info if someone actually tried it. So just as a side note, money is darn tight right now, and searching for an original replacement pot wasn't easy. I still don't know if they even sell them as spare. The only one I found said it wasn't compatible with the mini wah and cost around 30 €. So I heated a needle till it was glowing, and carefully melted a wee hole into the pots casing, taking care to do it where I guessed it wouldn't destroy the whole mechanism. Once done it was spritzing time! It was a little difficult because of the size of the hole, it was really hard to see on that pitch black plastic casing. So I was generous with the deoxit, and knew it had gone inside when I saw liquid coming out again when turning the shaft. Cleaned it, waited and put a tiny piece of duct tape on the hole (it's not properly repaired if duct tape wasn't involved in some way) and put the pedal back together. And surprise! It is good as new, or better. If I recall right it had a little scratchiness from the beginning. So I guess it's time fo some juicy white boy* funkin'! Hope this helps some other tinkerers, and to Jim Dunlop.... I'm sorry. *European wetback would be mo appropriate.** ** And no I don't give a rat's a$$ about political correctness I friggin' allowed to say that I am a Spaniard! Greets to all! thats a good idea. glad it worked out. in the past I've just replaced the whole pot ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NighthawkChris Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 I’ve taken a small screwdriver and pried open a small part years ago and blasted it with the contact cleaner. Worked like a charm! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merciful-evans Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 Nice going. Good solution. Feels good dunnit!? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NighthawkChris Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 Just make sure that after you blast the pot with the contact cleaner, get all that crap out of the pot before you close it up. The cleaner breaks up all that oxidized junk so it collects in the solvent. Mine needed a good cleaning. After all it was about 20 some years old when I did this. Don’t know why they went with some sealed pot design… Maybe to prevent what we experienced - minor design flaw in that case. Oh well just have to do a little more work to “tune it up”. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mihcmac Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 (edited) Very good information, my Cry Baby Mini is still working well, I did do a mod to shift the mid squelch position a notch farther back giving it more range on the high position. Edited May 13, 2022 by mihcmac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lbrutti Posted April 2, 2023 Share Posted April 2, 2023 Hello, I'm need to clean my wha too and i'd like to know where exactly have you done the hole, sideways or centrally? Any pic would be awesome 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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