Rainbow 1 pot cleaning

Hi guys,

Been a while! Haven't been buying many guitars lately (still have over 25) but I've been getting back into working on them. I have a gig coming up and would love to play my 87 Rainbow 1, but the pots are a bit scratchy. I know it's common on hollow bodies because of the dust that easily gets in there.  Anyways, I researched cleaning pots on hollow bodies which is trickier of course and went to start and found the pots are sealed in a metal housing in the Rainbow. I'm sure it is for shielding, these guitars were made so well!! Any tips on how to clean them? I checked the forum but didn't find any info. Seems impossible to get the pots out of the f holes with that large housing on them.  I bought some deoxit spray for pot cleaning. Thanks in advance!

Hey man, good to see you back!

I've never had one of these but they look mighty handy: Pot cleaning cap May not work for metric thread though.

Normally, I just squirt down the shaft. It takes several attempts and it's messy but the fluid evaporates quickly or you can just mop it up.

You can always try a piece of one of those jumbo straws which should be helpful and contain the spray.

Hey Barry! I browse here once in a while and check in, glad to see some of the long timers are still around.
 I heard about that cap from a buddy, thanks for the info. Deoxit is still in the mail, I will try a few options and order the cap if needed. 
Wonder if anyone on here has tried changing pots on their Rainbows, seems like it would be quite a challenge! I have seen guys tie dental floss (Zappa!!) to the pot shafts and pull them through the f holes to clean, then the floss pulls them right back into their little shaft holes. Pretty cool

hobster wrote:. . .I have seen guys tie dental floss (Zappa!!) to the pot shafts and pull them through the f holes to clean, then the floss pulls them right back into their little shaft holes.

I have done exactly that, several times on F hole guitars. It's really fiddly and dental floss isn't the easiest stuff to tie with arthritic fingers I can tell ya. But it does work, and, it's a lot of work!

All in all, get yourself a jumbo straw, shove it over the shaft, squirt. Then...twist it like a monkey in a mango tree!

Right on, thanks Barry, I'll give it a whirl and report back here after i'm done. Monkey in a mango tree, I like that 

So the Deoxit arrived and I decided to do the dental floss trick to get the spray down in there better since they have the big pots around them. Didn't seem to work but after some twisting like a monkey in a mango tree she cleaned up and sounded gorgeous. Clean as a bell! Love this guitar!