Let the how-do-I-dry-off? queries begin!

[Mark Hammer]

By now, many of you have heard about the consequences for musicians of the flooding of the Cumberland River that snakes through Nashville. Soundcheck Nashville Is Submerged [Lost in the Flood] | Nashville Cream | Nashville Scene That flood has obviously had a tremendous impact on the homes and lives of a great many, and for that I extend my deepest sympathies. But this forum is for musicians, so I'll focus on that.

There was a whole whack of gear that area musicians now have to either let go of (in which case, someone else inherits the moisture problem), or else bring back to life. I've seen responses to queries about pedals that have gotten wet, but never anything about how to restore an amp or guitar or mixer board or drum kit that has been under water for several days.

We may not be able to lend a hand bailing the water out of people's homes or rehearsal spaces, but that doesn't mean we can't help in our own way. So, what does our collective expertise suggest as potential or tested solutions to these challenges?

[52 Bill]

First off, never plug in anything until it has been serviced! I've seen a lot of things that were completely ruined by the early test to "see if it still lights up".

Clean off whatever was deposited on the item with clean water. River floods tend to deposit mud and bacteria which need to be cleaned off. Sewer backups are even worse. If the item was soaked, a good rinse will not add to the damage.

Next is to dry everything out as best as possible. I've used everything from alcohol rinses, compressed air, dehumidifiers, fans, ovens and even a freezer. Most modern electronic components are fairly well sealed and will not take on too much moisture. Transformers and speakers on the other hand can be a real problem. Some power transformers have been potted which will help.

[Enzo]

For the most part, water doesn't hurt the electronics - as long as they are not powered up. When they make circuit boards, after the wave solder machine, many of them run through what is for all the world a dishwasher to clean the boards.

Floods are not just a bucket of clean water over your stuff. The floodwater includes silt, mud, debris, floating rodents, and perhaps Tom Arnold. You just never know. SO dismantle flooded gear, and hose it down, rinse it off, with warm clean water. Pots are particularly vulnerable to collecting crap.

Once the boards are clean but wet, we can dry them. I usually hold aboard vertical on edge, and smack the edge on the tabletop to dislodge water from under parts as much as possible. Shop air will also blow water out from under things, if you have it. Just don;t use such high pressure as to blow parts off the board. And you needn't put the nozzle 2mm from each part.

I let boards sit on edge to promote draining instead of pooling.

Capillary action will retain water under things like ICs.

Water and alcohol will dissolve in each other. Alcohol evaporates much faster. Flushing a board with isopropyl will help remove water.


Transformers are the iffy parts. Pull the bells off and do your best.

If you can clean out a pot, it may need to be relubed.

There are also places for water/moisture to hide, like under the plastic molded end covers for keyboards and mixers. Even if it doesn;t get on the electronics, it can still stink and promote mold and rust. SO while the boards are out, make sure those plactic button caps on the panel are not harboring drops of water, and pull off any trim pieces.

Keyboards will proabably have to be stripped down. Most these days use rubber contacts, and those are just itching to save water up under themselves. You'll want to strip all those off, rinse them down and clean up the contact surfaces.

Speakers...oooh, I shudder to think of it. SOme can survive, others will turn to paper mache. And getting water and goo out of the gap might be a problem. I claim no expertise there.

Wooden cabinetry needs to be inspected. If the partical board has drawn in water and expanded itself, it may not be savable. SO that call alone might make circuit board reconditioning irrelevant.

Triage - how much time and energy would we want to put into gear that was cheap to start with. Can I reasonably spend an hour or two cleaning up a $150 Behringer signal processor?

[R.G.]

I've seen a real dishwasher used in emergency situations for cleaning circuit cards.

The comments here are correct - water does not hurt circuit boards. River water and sewage is deadly if not corrected.

The advice is correct. First get it clean, then get it dry. Clean water rinse everything, then get the water out of it completely.

Alcohols are good for removing water fast. The simple alcohols (methyl, ethyl and isopropyl for examples, in that order) are miscible in water at all ratios from 0 to 100%. Alcohol likes water so much that it's impossible to keep a container of the lower alcohols at a concentration more than about 75% alcohol if it's open because it will leach water out of the atmosphere if it can until it gets to there. Not to mention evaporating. So you can rinse until clean, drain, blow, and otherwise get the most of the water off, then flood with alcohol. The alcohol mixes with the water that's left until it reaches a uniform mix. Drain the alcohol and the majority of the hidden water goes with it. What's left is less than 25% water, and the fraction of the original water is trivial. The alcohol that's left dries by evaporation, and the tiny fraction of water does too.

The counter indications are : (1) you need a lot of alcohol (2) alcohol is a fuel and the vapors are flammable if not exactly explosive (3) non-ethyl alcohol is an inhalant toxin (4) alcohol is a solvent, although most electronics are immune.

Heat drying works, but is slower. Bring the temp up to 120-140F and leave it there. Water evaporates.

Water in any form is deadly on amp cabinets, though. -

[Sweetfinger]

I'll take a shot at guitars:
The first thing to do is to remove all the electronics and hardware. If a guitar dries out with all the hardware still on, the screws are going to rust in the wood...very BAD!- treat them as electronics in the previous posts, They're already wet, so rinse 'em down with clean water, then distilled.
If the guitar is not of a vintage where the pots or switches are going to be an issue if they're not original, just replace them. The pickups should be salvageable- clean out with distilled water, shake all the water out and dry quickly- maybe in a food dehydrator?

Speakers are probably goners. Reconers are gonna be busy!

Hardware, like bridges and tuners, are going to be the easiest. Just disassemble as much as possible and dry them. When I clean grody bridges here at the shop, I scrub them with windex, then blast 'em with a contact cleaner that contains oil/lubricant. WD-40 would work. Then I blow out with compressed air. The same method should work with anything waterlogged.

[Mark Hammer]

Thanks. These are all great suggestions from folks, that I hope will make the pain a little less painful for some. Keep 'em coming.

I gather the real challenges will be not the electric instruments, but the acoustic ones. I'm just trying to imagine the task of drying out a a D-28 or J-45, or heaven forbid, an F-style mandolin, and my imagination responds with "Maybe YOU want to go there, but I ain't touchin' it. No sirree, not one bit."

[52 Bill]

For acoustic instruments, release string tension ASAP! If any of the glues begin to soften, the string tension will cause all sorts of problems.

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

OK here we go...I started my first flood amp repair last Thursday morning, a mid 70's Deluxe Reverb.
The cabinet is rough. The hardest part was all the silty mud, and the reverb tank was a mess too.
I pulled the chassis, removed the tubes and capacitor cover.
I got a clean, (old joint compound) drywall bucket and put the chassis in the empty bucket.
I have a couple high volume squirt bottles from the local Home Depot and proceeded to use at least two full qts of clean water mixed with a little ZEP Purple cleaner mixed in it to wash out the chassis.
During all that I used a 1" wide soft bristle paint brush with the bristles cut flush to about 1 1/2" long to massage all the slightly soapy water into the eyelet board and all the chassis areas followed by at least another 2 or 3 qts of sprayed in clean clear water to wash it all out.
Same thing with all the tube sockets.
I left it outside in the sun for about a half hour to drain and I washed out the pots with Deoxit and then relubed them.
Then brought it in and used my heat gun to warm it up and continue drying.
After that I just set it aside for the day and waited until Friday to do anything else.
When I got back to it, I loosened all the pots, twisted them around in their holes and tightened them all down, reseating them.
I also removed the input jacks, reseated them with new zinc plated lock washers, deburred their switch contacts and ran a .22 caliber, gun barrel cleaning brass brush in an out of the jack holes.
Finally, the tube sockets got the Deoxit treatment, cleaned the inside of the lugs and retensioned them.
Caps all looked good so I fired it up with no tubes... no problems there so I put in the tubes and as I expected, it worked perfectly... even the reverb tank worked.
I was afraid to do too much to the speaker other then blow out the junk that got stuck in the basket.
I think it is shot, really flubby sounding and I think it has some weird dull cone cry or yowl that it should not have.
The cabinet is another issue, although still intact, it probably needs to be replaced.
The wood in the cabinet had swollen around all the finger joints, the vinyl is peeling and I suspect it will start to mildew and get funky anyhow.
But the basic amp chassis now works great and was 99% salvageable, even the reverb tank came fairly clean.
Total chargeable time, about +3 1/2 hours... not counting the off and on playing time into my other cabinet before giving it back.

[Possum]

....

Its important to use CLEAN WATER to wash out the river water. River water is full of salts and that stuff is DEATH to electronics. I've had pickups from floods sent to me before, the last guy told me they were all fine and working just need some clean up. Well this was a year after the flood they were in and all the iron parts rusted really bad, the coils on ALL of them was eaten through the insulation and every one of them dead. I've been through a flood myself back in the 80's in Guerneville, CA and all my pedals were underwater for about 8 hours. Fortunately I still had running tap water on the 2nd story of my rental unit so I took them apart and washed out the river water and shook them out and let them dry for weeks. They all survived...

[Gollum]

If this is what my amp looked like after a couple decades in just a moist garage I don't want to think about full submersion in river water! ::shudder::



Luckily most of my damage was cosmetic, which was mostly remedied with wet/dry sand work on the metal bits. The base of the cabinet was toast, but yet I gigged with it falling apart for a good year or so before I put it in storage for the time being. Needs a new bottom and tolex on the sides, that's it. But that's all that ever saw standing water either.

I love all the advice thus far though. I can't imagine acoustic instruments though! Ouch.