cleaning up an amp head

Weell The TSL (all tube) amp has been hanging out down in the basement since we moved here and last week the misses had a hissy fit and has decided that all the mold and spiders and other unspeakable things (that live in the basement) needed to be banished from anything that we are going to keep. This meant dragging the amp up stares (where it will live form now on) and giving it a damn good clean ! I tried to argue that "burnt on spider" was an important part of the tone but she was having none of it !

It still smells of mould but man is sounds great and has inspired me to re-string a couple of axes and stop working for more than 5 min !

I have no clew about how to clean the DTexpress electronic drums but it got so bad down there the headphones were unceremoniously throw out (there were mites eating the mould inside the ear cap - - yikes I was wearing those !!) ! - that is a job for next weekend !

So, other than saturating the tubes for long periods of time and cleaning the tolex with detol and Mr Sheen (furniture polish) anyone know any good tricks for cleaning up the inside of the amp head ?

The other thing I was wondering about was about capacitor discharge times. Anyone know how long this takes or any way to speed this process up ? I was wondering if turning the amp on without it being plugged in would do the job ?

Many thanks

Simon

In no particular order:

-The thing about capacitor discharge is that you can have too much of a good thing. All amps have some 'bleed' resistors installed across the caps to drain off the charge. If these were selected to drain the caps quickly, the result would be just like a 'leaky' cap that doesn't hold charge. The unknown part is how long it takes to get down to a safe level. I use a big wirewound 10 kOhm resistor all bundled up with insulation, and a voltmeter. Be very sure there is no stored voltage lurking about before you go poking around in the cab with wet cloths!

-A good glass cleaner should work on the tubes. Be gentle about it.

-Unfortunately, the wood inside amp cabinets is rarely sealed properly, allowing stuff like mould to root deeply. Be persistent.