[earlyfilm]

Geoff,

Congratulations!

Re: The deoxit style cleaners

IMHO, this style cleaner works extremely well for the short time, but they dry just sticky enough to attract dust which later causes problems. Since the shaft area of the old style pots are not exposed to that much dust, you solution of using this cleaner on the shaft is probably OK.

I took pictures last night, but thought I'd sleep on it before posting a reply, so I'll post them anyway as a possible aid for anyone else who is thinking about disassembling one of these Hickok pots with the pre-war design.

In the older design like yours, the engineering seems not been too well thought out and the "C" clip probably completes the electrical circuit better than the brass bearing.

In the newer design contact plate (the one that I formerly thought was missing in your case) has been moved to the inside of the pot and it is more trouble free.

If you stop and think about it, this pot is only rotated when the power is off. In other words, electricity only flows when you press the test button, so this design does not have to be noise-free while turning.

I'd only had experience with the newer design.

James