New Wah pot is scratchy?

[FlabberGhast]

Hi, everybody. I recently picked up a Maestro BG-2 wah/volume, and I love it. However, the stock pot in it started going bad; All scratch, no wah/volume change. So, I picked up a new pot, Small Bear's "The Black Bear", and a resistor to get the pot's value closer to 25k, which is how much the original pot was. After soldering everything in, I noticed it was scratching. It's noticeable on the wah's treble end of the sweep, but also makes an appearance when i'm using it as a volume pedal. I've tried different cables, guitars, with and without the resistor, re-soldering connections, and nothing has made any difference. Could the capacitors and resistors be drying out, since this thing is from 1970? Did I get a bad pot, perhaps? Any help is appriciated!

 

[Beerdog80]

Tough to say without actually hearing it or having it on a board for testing. Could be the caps are shot or it could just be inherent to the pedal itself.

 

[FlabberGhast]

I could try and get a soundclip up later if that would help.

 

[Phildog]

Why don't you try to clean the jacks with some electronics cleaner. If it persists, I'd check for a bad resistor or capacitor on the front end. Does it have a buffer? I'd check that first.

 

[FlabberGhast]

Good news, everyone! I've got the wah working! I opened it up again today and re-soldered some connections, and the scratch is gone, hopefully for good. Phildog, I probably will have to end up getting a new jack sometime soon. There's quite a bit of corrosion on the output jack, though it doesn't seem like it's affecting anything right this second. Here's hoping this thing can last another 40 years.