Cleaning pots

What's the best way to clean dirty pots? Both pre-gain knobs on my 5150 combo cause static/scratyness when they are adjusted. They've done it since I got the amp, so I figured they were just dirty. They are top mounted knobs, so that's probably the case. I just wasn't sure how to go about cleaning them. Thanks!

I'm not an expert on guitar electronics by far, but at least in home electronics, I've always been told that cleaning pots is a temporary solution at best. Some times with sprays you can make it even worse.
Seems to me that, hey... it's only a pot.. why not just replace it?
It's lot less hassle and gives much better results.

There are cleaning chemicals in spray-cans, but as schmange says, its a temporary fix. Most control pots have an opening where the terminals come out from the resistive element inside. Dust gets in through that hole, and gets embedded into the track where the moving contact sweeps along the resistive element. Sometimes this crap can be dislodged and removed by cleaning spray, but there is always some permanent damage left behind. High-quality sealed pots with conductive plastic or ceramic (cermet) elements cost 3 or 4 times as much as those crappy open pots, which is why you don't see them in most guitars or gear.

So, you can spend $10 on a spray-can, or $5 on a replacement pot, both of which could be considered temporary fixes, or you can spend $20 on a good >Bourns< MIL-SPEC sealed pot that will outlive you. Choices.

It's not very bothersome at the moment, because I don't adjust the knobs on the amp much (sounds good pretty much where anything is set), but when the time comes I will definitely go with some high quality sealed pots like you said. That's the great thing about my 5150 and Rockmaster preamps... set all the tone knobs at 12 o'clock, and you're good to go :cool:

What's a 5150 ? - is it a Marshall ?

It's made by Peavey. It's the amp on the bottom right, under the Peavey Classic 50.......

I see - many thanks