Destinking an old tube amp, Smells like.... 43 yr old cigarette bandmaster

[Slobrain]

Well, here goes another post, got this bandmaster reverb off eBay and when I got it home it smells like cigarettes and weed real heavy. I live in a smoke free home and man did it smell the place up...

I took the amp out and cleaned every thing, armor all-ed the tolex and now have a small container of baking soda sitting in the back of the amp. Not sure how to de-stick it any more than the usual cleaning I have done. It’s got to be the worst smelling amp I have ever owned.

Any suggestions would be welcome, my wife is not happy with it in the house. I have it sitting outside trying to let the open air do something maybe....

SLO

[NorCalTuna]

I'll buy it! j/k Pull the chassis and set it aside, there's not much there that will pick up stink but back to that later. Bin the armor-all (better yet give it to a kid with a camaro or something, it destroys vinyl!) and go get the 3m equivalent, napa has it. That's more effective and better for the tolex than the cheap stuff. Pull all the rubber and chrome, the front piece, and then clean it the tolex (it's luggage material, at the end of the day) with a brush and MILD (i use seventh generation unscented) dish soap and a tiny bit of water and plenty of moist soft cloths (you can get those at napa too) so you don't really have to "rinse" it. You should be able to make the tolex nearly perfect with a toothbrush and some patience, I did this to a silverface B'mann that the custie wanted "like the day it was bought" as in no mojo crud, and it came out spectacular. THEN, 3m spray the tolex a few times and buff. Remember that smoke odor is a deposited oil, so clean the chrome parts (car wax and tin foil to the rescue, removes surface pitting and aluminum won't scratch chrome unless it's coming apart anyway) very well and maybe even replace the handle, it might be pretty porous- use your nose I guess. Then clean the inside wood and faraday shield, I'd bet 409 or the hippy equivalent would do you well and may leave at least a "cleaning solution" smell behind. carefully wipe down the faceplate and the chassis with watered down alcohol or your fav. spray. That dust behind the knobs may be stinky too.

The front "grille" is a toughy. Replacing it is the obvious option, but if you have some sort of wet vac, you could try cleaning it with a spray and a soft brush and then flushing with water and vaccing it off and sun drying. your date is a tad vague, if it's a 67-8 drip edge it might be hard to replace that part.

Lastly, put something pleasant to your wife's olfactory preferences in the amp, once it's reassembled that is neutral and pleasing, and hopefully not flammable!!! Good luck with your stinky amp!!!

[R.G.]

Hotels turn smoking into no-smoking rooms with ozone generators. They clean the room, turn on the ozone generator and close it up for a few hours. Back when you could smoke in bars, they would sometimes de-cigarette the air a bit with an ozone generator. I'd say that closing it up in a room for several hours or days with an ozone generator would help.

[olddawg]

If it is as bad as some I have seen, you will have to completely disassemble everything and clean it. The chassis and even boards are probably covered with smoke residue. Plain old Windex works pretty good. Knobs and hardware you can let soak in a tub of it. A chassis can be wiped down with a stronger solvent. Boards can be cleaned with non-residue tuner cleaner. There is no simple solution. If your wife is like mine she can smell a nat fart in Alaska and complains that my vintage amps look ugly in the house. Showing her what they sell for sometimes shuts her up. But not always.

[Ronsonic]

Lemon Pledge is far superior to armor all for cleaning, treating and de-stinkifying amps. Better for the tolex too.

[olddawg]

Lemon Pledge is far superior to armor all for cleaning, treating and de-stinkifying amps. Better for the tolex too.

I have always been told not to use pledge on anything wood because it is silicone based. Pledge is to cabinetry like WD40 is to electronics I've always been told.

[Kazooman]

I bought an Echolette off ebay from a guy in Holland and it arrived in similar condition. Man did it stink! Fortunately I did not have wood or grill cloth to deal with. It also had 40+ years of accumulated dust on all of the components. This is a very cramped chassis and I found that I had to painstakingly remove the crap and the smell with hundreds of cotton swabs. Most dipped in water for chassis areas and components that could handle that and dry swabs elsewhere. It took forever, but the smell is now gone, so I believe that you can achieve the same with your chassis. You may have to dismount components to get into the hard to reach places. As detailed above, the same holds for the tolex and hardware.

The harder issues are the "soft" components that may have odors absorbed deep within them. The grill cloth is a real problem. If it is on a frame that can be removed from the amp you should do so. If you are really serious about getting an odor free amp (as opposed to worrying about screwing up some vintage stuff) I think you should try to gently wash the grill cloth with mild soap and a gentle brush being careful to work in the direction of the "grain" of the cloth. I have done this with great success. Do a sample on a hidden area first to be certain that you are not headed for disaster. Don't leave it soaking in a tub of water. This shouldn't destroy the grill cloth, but if it does not come out the way you like, replace it.

You can wash down the wood as others have described, and it may smell fine when you are done. Then you rebuild the amp and it warms up and the smell returns as it cooks out of the wood due to heat. If that is the case, then about all you can do is to seal the raw wood surfaces. Shellac works well for this. It is often used to seal off the musty smell associated with really old furniture. You could use polyurethane for a more durable coat, with a different look to it.

Finally, you do realize that they actually sell "aged" grill cloth that is tinted to look like it has years of smoke-filled bar residue. Tell your wife that you actually got this "feature" for FREE. She will be impressed by your savvy shopping skills and will welcome the amp with open arms

[R.G.]

Finally, you do realize that they actually sell "aged" grill cloth that is tinted to look like it has years of smoke-filled bar residue. Tell your wife that you actually got this "feature" for FREE. She will be impressed by your savvy shopping skills and will welcome the amp with open arms

Not bad!

Another possibility is to bring home something even more objectionable than the smelly amp - a second hand stuffed moose head comes to mind. Then barter. If you give up your uncle Mervin's stuffed moose, at least you get to keep your amp...

It reminds me of how you start wearing a toupee.

You grow a mustache. Then one day when everyone's quit ribbing you about the mustache, you shave it off, put on the toupee, and head for work.

[Jazz P Bass]

"second hand stuffed moose head "
That is rich

[Gibsonman63]

Not bad!

It reminds me of how you start wearing a toupee.

You grow a mustache. Then one day when everyone's quit ribbing you about the mustache, you shave it off, put on the toupee, and head for work.

You can't find this kind of wisdom and reasoning just anywhere. In my old company, I was entertaining clients in a gentlemen's club with a toupee wearing manager. Come to find out toupee tape fluoresces under black lights.

Back to the problem at hand, you may be stuck with replacing the grill to totally get rid of the smell. I have heard that you can rinse them out with a hose, but I would be too scared to try. If you do, make sure that you get the entire thing wet or you will leave water rings at the edges of where you stopped getting it wet. Be careful not to get to wood too wet especially if it is partical board.

For well under $100, you can get a drop in replacement, frame and all and store the original somewhere outside the house to let keep airing out.

[J M Fahey]

Don't misunderstand me, but I'm afraid of water.
It rots wood, cloth, and specially those wonderful animal based glues Fender was so fond of (thanks Potdevin industrial gluers) and rusts, (as in RUSTS) everything metal, even if chrome or nickel plated (small pores/imperfections/nicks/dents always show age).
My theory is that if I can smell it, it's evaporated enough to reach my nostrils, so if it did once, let's help it to do it again.
If it came through the air and condensed on amp surfaces, it can be reversed.
*Dry* heat is the ticket, and Sun is an inexhaustible , free supply of it.
Associated ultraviolet rays also help.
It may be slow, but safe.
I liked the ozone idea though, *looks* very safe too, will try it.
Can anybody suggest an ozone generator schematic?

[Slobrain]

Thanks for the good suggestions fellas.

I cleaned alot of this amp but the tolex is mostly the culprit. The smell is ingrained into it. I cleaned the tolex three times using a counter cleaner, and then twice with bleach water which is a bit brutal on tolex but got the tolex somewhat clean. The cigarette smell remained so I used lemon pledge and it helped more but still smell the cigarette smell. I was a smoker in my late teens for a small while, been very sensitive to cigarette smoke since, now 49.

I guess I'll have to leave it in the sunlight on weekends to rid the smell and if my neighbors why its sitting outside ask I’ll tell them it’s on show for all to see...LOL...
a marvel of the science age... a device that amplifies sound, whoduthunkit...

[R.G.]

I liked the ozone idea though, *looks* very safe too, will try it.
Can anybody suggest an ozone generator schematic?

I wouldn't. They're cheap; that statement is tempered by knowing that you're in Buenos Aires and it may not be cheap to get to you. However:
I have one of these that I got on ebay for $30 a while back.
There are others like this one for refrigerators and this one for cars. IMHO, they're cheap enough if your import duties and shipping are not exorbitant, to be something that it's too cheap to build yourself.

[Slobrain]

So do ozone generators really work?

I had to ask since I never have used one...

[Kazooman]

Speaking as a chemist I can say that I would be much less afraid of water than I would be of ozone, at least ozone in concentrations high enough to remove the residual smoke condensate from the amp chassis, components, tolex, wood, and grill cloth.

I believe that the grill panel can usually be removed and that generally it is a single piece of plywood with the cloth stapled on. This should stand up to water very well.

Ozone is a pretty strong oxidant that works to remove odors by chemically reacting with molecules in the air (and/or on surfaces). Ozone is very good at attacking rubber and related materials. Anyone who has lived in a smoggy city knows this well since they have seen what it does to rubber parts on cars (door seals, wiper blades, tires, etc.) (I lived in Los Angeles in the '70's - UCLA and Cal Tech - that's where I learned my chemistry among other schools).
The OP mentioned that the bleach water he used was "very hard on tolex". It is not the water, it is the bleach, an oxidant. Exposure to enough ozone to chemically react with the smoke condensate would likely do the same. I would be very concerned about exposing 43 year old components such as paper caps, cloth wire insulation, etc. to very much ozone.