Question and Hurrah for Kontakt Super 10 (Servisol)!

DiscoStu

So my '82 Ibanez Blazer has been needing some tlc for a while, the pickup selector is scratchy and intermittent, the Tone pot is dead as is the Phase switch. All original electrics.
Ordered some Kontakt Super 10 (seems to be the new name for Servisol) and it's done wonders so far. 
Pickup switch is working perfectly, the Tone pot is now working albeit intermittently, and the Phase switch works when the Tone pot is working. 
Do you think I should keep soaking the Tone pot or is it bust? It sometimes dies in the high tone position and sometimes in the low. If I pull up slightly on the control knob and wiggle it it reconnects but a couple of turns later it packs in again.

But still, big improvement from before.

maltingsaudio

I'd replace it, definitely on its last legs 

steamabacus

So Kontakt have bought up Servisol? That might make this stuff easier to find ...

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/37995/kontakt-701-vaseline-spray#latest 

It might help restore your pot but it sounds to me like there might be some mechanical damage. I'd just replace the pot, personally.

My old '82 Blazer has had the electronics 'mucked about with' many times over the years. Not so long ago I removed the Seymour Duncan Hot Rails I had installed for some punk dep gigs and restored it to three single coils (Seymour Duncan Alnico II Pros, which replaced the Ibanez originals long ago).

While I was changing the bridge pickup I decided to remove both the mini toggles that were installed - one was the factory phase switch (which I never found useful) and the other was a series/split/parallel for the Hot Rails humbucker (and before that had been a bridge + neck pickups in series switch that I installed many years ago.

The holes from the removed switches have been plugged with black coloured bolts which add to the mixture of black electrical tape and added large washers which hold the shattered scratchplate and input socket together.

Still my go to 'no nonsense' live guitar (if and when I ever play out again!) I like it's simplicity now ...

DiscoStu

Yeah it's a great guitar and is so much brighter than the rest of my herd. I've got a new band on the go (after a looooong time away from playing live) and reckon it would be brilliant for gigging. 

steamabacus

By the way, if the wiring is original the phase switch is not connected to the tone pot. It simply flips the two wires from the middle pickup before they go to the five-way switch and ground.

DiscoStu

Hmm. It's all original as far as I can tell. 
The phase switch was dead until the tone pot came back to life, and then when the tone pot went again so did the phase... ???

steamabacus

Is it a ground connection? On the tone pot maybe? (I'm not sure where the ground from the phase switch would have gone originally) The tone pot shunts signal to ground via a capacitor.

ICBM

Yes, they will probably share a ground connection.

DiscoStu

So there's maybe a loose connection somewhere rather than a borked pot?

DiscoStu

I'll need to take the plate off properly to have a look but not tonight.

steamabacus

Follow the two wires out of the phase switch - one should go to the 5-way switch middle pickup tab, one should go to ground (maybe the back of the tone pot?).

Tone pot will be grounded from the casing (I don't think Ibanez did the Fender thing of grounding through the scratchplate screening foil). Check for anything amiss, maybe re-flow a few solder joints in the grounding path.