Correct volume pot value for strat and HB pickups

[JoeM]

.....The trouble is, Fender sure never made it particularly easy to "season to taste" on a Strat, did they? Not like a control cavity on a Tele that you can piddle with while the instrument remains strung up....

Very true, but at least it's easier than a 335!

[Mark Hammer]

True dat, my friend, true dat!

[jrfrond]

Very true, but at least it's easier than a 335!

Hell yeah! My son just bought an Ibanez AS73 335 knockoff, and though it's an excellent guitar for the money, it has cheap 16mm pots and a box switch in it. It's gonna be a LOOOONG time before I change THOSE babies!

[SeanF]

The trouble is, Fender sure never made it particularly easy to "season to taste" on a Strat, did they? Not like a control cavity on a Tele that you can piddle with while the instrument remains strung up. I'm still waiting for those "mod-friendly" two-piece Strat pickguards, like they have on a Jaguar or Mustang. So I can well understand the OP's desire to know, in advance, what the "correct" component values are.

I cut my Strat guard recently, it's not that hard to do if you've got access to a bandsaw. Made it real convenient for troubleshooting when I put new electronical stuff in it. Callaham pots and switches are pretty impressive.

[Mark Hammer]

It's not what I would call a "breeze" but it's not all THAT hard either. You have to pop the bridge pickup to give yourself some working space. Make sure you protect the surface against scratching in some fashion. Now, undo the nuts on the pots, switch, and jack a bit. Get yourself some solid wire, one distinctive colour for each component that is going to disappear below the waterline. Wrap a strand of the wire around the threaded bushing on the respective component. You can either simply twist the wire to secure it, or solder the wire to itself somewhere away from the component, to secure it. Now you can remove the nuts completely and let the pieces fall in.

You will be able to pull them out the rear pickup opening, do what you need to do and them pull them back into place with the wires. Remember that each wire is going through a separate hole, so the part is returned to its location. Naturally, if you replace any pots, you will need to remove the securing loop and put it on the new part.

Makes mods to a Tele look like falling off a log, I'll grant you, but it's still a damn sight easier than yanking off the pickguard of a Strat to get at the pots, and having to set up the damn tremolo again.

[jrfrond]

Mark, no matter which way you slice it, I'd rather be working on a Strat than a hollow or semihollow without an access plate (most all of them) ANY day of the week. Remove the strings, pop off the pickguard with 8-13 screws, and you're done. I've spoken to techs at Gibson who hate it too, including the people who install them on NEW guitars. Gibson techs keep matching touch-up paint around just in case.

Having said that, I find that thin-wall latex tubing works better than wire or bakery string. This works best on split-shaft pots BTW.

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

I always am looking at electronics catalogs or medical supply catalogs for cool tools for reaching inside the holes. Reverse action stuff is really helpful.

I've always found the tubing or string frustrating. What has worked well for me is making sure my wiring is all the exact length so that when you drop everything in, the lengths on the wires seem to push the components into the correct places so you just have to grab them and pull them up. It helps that I have long thin fingers, too. I can typically do jack replacements through the f-hole, too. Sometimes the pots if they are minis, but typically not.

Strats are definitely easier, but I do usually do my little "experiments" on my tele since I can just whip it open. My strat has developed many small scratches from me trying to cheat and get the guard off without removing the strings. I don't do that with customer guitars of course - my own stuff gets abused way more than client gear.

[ThermionicScott]

It's far from a "rule", but guitarists tend to be very traditional about these things.

It's worth noting that Fender used 1M pots on the Jazzmaster and Jaguar from the very beginning and switched to 1M pots in the Tele and Strat in the late 1960's. Rickenbacker switched to 330k pots a few years back.

I prefer to get as much treble from my guitars as possible, so that I don't get hiss when trying to re-add it at the amplifier.

- Scott

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

An experiment I've wanted to try (but haven't yet) would be to use 1m ohm pots in a strat, and use the extra tone control to adjust resistance to ground on the main volume pot - either with a soldered in resistor or just using the resistance of the pot. It might be fun/interesting/educational to play with these values in real time. I've even thought putting a trim pot into a guitar to do just that might be good for some players. Anyone tried this?

[Guitarist]

(You could put that trim pot into a cable too.)

I wonder if there is a way, by using a dual-pot, to get less series resistance when turning down but keeping you max K when cranked.