Best way to clean dust out of Valve Amp?

[AussieTerry84]

I have a Dark Terror which has a thick layer dust inside from it being 2nd hand instore.Would a can of air do it? Or is there a special way as to not damage the valves?

[Matt_B]

I'd use the blower on my shop vac. It kicks out wind at 275 MPH. I use it once a year to blow crap out of my PC. Canned air is for little things like computer keyboards. An air compressor with a tight nozzle on it would work too.

[leftykingv2]

I'd use the blower on my shop vac. It kicks out wind at 275 MPH. I use it once a year to blow crap out of my PC. Canned air is for little things like computer keyboards. An air compressor with a tight nozzle on it would work too.

+1 I use the compressor in my garage as well.

[Matt_B]

+1 I use the compressor in my garage as well.

And compressors don't have to be big or expensive to do the job you need. That said, I don't know how their pricing compares to shop vacs.

[leftykingv2]

The one that's in my garage I got from Sears for $150 bucks. It's not huge but it can fill a car tire and run air ratchets.

[straycat]

I use the small nozzle on my vacuum cleaner to suck the cobwebs out

[Chad]

Simple: an unused paint brush as a "duster". When I saw how easy and well that works, I had a duh moment. With the right size brush, it can reach into the nooks and crannies as well. No need to mess with compressed air or vacuum cleaners.

[straycat]

I would rather suck most of it out rather than blow all that shit into the chassis.
Of course you could pull the chassis and blow the crud out.

[Axewielder]

I hit my tube amp with just a regular old garden hose, and dried it out with a hair dryer. That little trick removed ALL the dust and lint from the amp. It's a beautiful thing. It may be coincidence, but that little light next to the power switch stopped working after that. No big deal. Also, it's hard to describe but my master volume knob has an issue now where no matter what I set it to, the amp acts like it's on "0". I can live with the light not coming on, but the volume issue is a bit of a bummer. Oh well, at least it's clean.

[VitaminG]

Axe, have you tried lemon oil?

[Axewielder]

Axe, have you tried lemon oil?

Does that work? One mistake I may have made was I powered the amp on while I was hosing it down to heat up the water. There were a lot of sparks and crackling and pops, but at first I just figured that was the advanced cleaning action of the hot water at work. Now I'm not so sure. Maybe somebody else has had this sort of issue with their amp? Anybody??

[Hellbat]

Don't use urine, it really stinks when it sparks up.

[VitaminG]

your problem might be with the temperature of the water. Whilst tubes are great for cooking with, they aren't ideal for heating water. Next time, try boiling a kettle on your stove. Hold the amp over the kettle as it comes to boil. Maneuvre the amp over the steam to ensure it gets into all the nooks and crannies - the steam is great for cleaning out your amp and does a great job steaming the wrinkles out of your tolex too.

[Axewielder]

You know I'm the first one to admit when I make a mistake. I took a hose that had been sitting for about 6 months in my lawn without being used, and blasted a stream of dirty, dark rust-colored water straight into the amp. So fine, that's on me. But what's pissing me straight off is that nowhere in the Bogner users manual does it make it clear what you should or shouldn't do in regards to cleaning the amp. So that's on them. I took this amp to a couple of quote unquote "electronics repair guys" yesterday, and all they want to do is laugh and make funny jokes. Ha ha. Their loss, because they missed out on this repair work as well as the repair work that needs to be done on my other Bogner (I added a Variac circuit myself and it's pretty close to being perfect except now it has the same master volume glitch). I met an unemployed TV repairman on Craigslist who can do ALL the repairs for a fraction of the cost. So who's laughing now??

[Brandenburg]

Simple: an unused paint brush as a "duster". When I saw how easy and well that works, I had a duh moment. With the right size brush, it can reach into the nooks and crannies as well. No need to mess with compressed air or vacuum cleaners.

+1
I use a small 3/4" wide hobby paint brush to clean out my heat sinks on my PC.. Then I use a can of compressed air to blow all the loose shit out.. Been doing it that way for years