Best Contact Cleaner: DeoxIT

Hola!

Before replacing that scratchy or sticky pot on your guitar, you really should give DeoxIT a try. I have been using their products for years to fix cranky guitars and amplifiers.

This stuff is not the canned air that you buy from Office Depot, but are cleaners and protectors that will flush crap out and help fix intermittent connections.

There are a slew of DeoxIT products, so to make it easy, here are the two you are going to need:

1. DexoIT DN5. Make sure you get DN5, not D5, because the DN5 evaporates more quickly and will not drip all over the place. This is a 20% cleaning action, and works well as a stand-alone application.

2. DeoxIT Gold GN5. This product only has a 0.5% cleaning action, as its purpose is to act as a protectant. You would use this product to protect new electronics or older parts after you have cleaned them up with DeoxIT DN5.

This stuff lives up to its claims. I used these to clean up the original pots on my 1963 Jazz bass, and they were quiet and smooth after I worked DeoxIT through them. This allowed me to have a bass that worked well, without having to screw up its collector value by replacing factory-original parts.

I have been using the same 14 gram (½ oz) spray cans for a few years, and they retail for about $11 per can, which makes the product about as expensive as unicorn blood. I know it is a cliché, but DeoxIT will pay for itself the first time you use it.

You can buy DeoxIT directly from the manufacturer’s web site at http://store.caig.com , or if you are in a big hurry, you can usually find it at Radio Shack or Fry’s Electronics stores.

Mahalo!