# Broken volume pot on a Fender Sidekick 35



## Rudder Bug (Nov 21, 2011)

I recently bought a Fender Sidekick 35 in a pawn shop. It sounded great despite its volume crackling and I thought all I needed to do was spraying some contact cleaner everywhere and Bingo!

BUT...after removing the volume knob, I found out the 10k pot itself (shaft) wasn't dirty but destroyed. 

Now that I have tons of 250 and 500k pots for my guitars, I dare to ask a rather dumb question before committing a pot-entially dumb act: What if I replaced a 10k pot by a 250k?

Thanks and keep rockin'


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

"*Pot-entially"...nominated for best creative word combination (? play on words) for 2012 !! Brilliant !!*

Personally, I would stay with a 10K pot or something very close to that.

However, I am not an amp tech, so most of my posts are pot-entially wrong. 

Keep us updated...I could pot-entially learn something new from your thread.

Cheers

Dave


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## J-75 (Jul 29, 2010)

Don't do that. Considering the time & labour involved, it doesn't pay to use a part that is 25x the wrong value. The volume control will be way too sensitive for starters, plus you will be messing with the balance of a control circuit which is likely associated with an IC preamp. Get a 10K audio taper pot from "The Source" or some surplus supplier. Also, the one you're replacing is likely metric in its mounting hole, shaft diameter and mounting nut thread, so if you're replacing it with any old, surplus pot you may have to deal with some mis-fitting issues (the knob may not fit, being the worst one).
I'm just guessing that although it's a pretty common generic part, its _physical_ (small,PC ?) mounting method may render it a bit rare, so the further you go from using an actual real replacement form-factor, the more work you may have to do.


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## Rudder Bug (Nov 21, 2011)

Rudder Bug said:


> I recently bought a Fender Sidekick 35 in a pawn shop. It sounded great despite its volume crackling and I thought all I needed to do was spraying some contact cleaner everywhere and Bingo!
> 
> BUT...after removing the volume knob, I found out the 10k pot itself (shaft) wasn't dirty but destroyed.
> 
> ...


Not too bad for a French man hue? largetongue

Well we have a pretty good input from J-75 below. Thanks sir, I will order a 10k on Ebay.

Have a good one!

Gilles


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

1) You will want to be certain that whatever replacement value you use, it has the right taper, so that changes to where the knob is set corresond to the what you expect. I could not find a schematic online for the Sidekick 35, but see that it has two channels, like the Frontman series. I don't know they are the same for certain, but budget amps tend not to diverge much from each other. 

If we are talking about the clean volume pot, a value other than 10k linear-taper will NOT work properly. If we are talking about the distortion channel, then a log-taper pot, up to perhaps 50k will work okay, but I wouldn't want to go much higher than that.

2) Pots can misbehave in many ways. Sometimes, a pot can be easily revived by prying the back off, cleaning it, and giving the rivets that hold the solder lugs a little pinch with the needle-nose pliers so they make more reliable contact. Of course, if the resistive strip is cracked, or the shaft broken off, it would be beyond resuscitation.

3) Make sure that the pot you do get will fit in the space available, and that the shaft is appropriate to the knob. You don't want to find yourself waiting for delivery of a pot only to learn after waiting and paying too much that the shaft is solid (for a set-screw knob) when you needed a split-shaft type to slide the knob on, or one of those pots where the cross section is like a half moon.


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## loudtubeamps (Feb 2, 2012)

If u can't find the exact replacement (especially for mounting purposes) try this guy...Fender Amp Parts
shipping is a bit high , but he has a good selection.
Cheers, d


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## Rudder Bug (Nov 21, 2011)

Thanks to all! I've ordered one that looks almost identical to mine. I am confident it will do the job.


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