Volume pots

[Deleted]

I'm looking for suggestions of volume pots that have a smooth increase of volume across the full 300 degrees. The vol on my Hamer (335 copy) goes full on within about 20 degrees.
Any suggestions of makes of pot or where to get them?
Thanks

[Michael Messer]

Hello Chasrlie,

Good to hear from you.

Most pots' for guitars are cheaply produced average quality. If you want something better, which is worth doing, there are various brands out there.

I don't know what brand were fitted in my Telecaster when they were upgraded, but you could have a look at these...50 dollars each.....they ought to be good!
www.alessandro-products.com/parts.html

When I had the pots changed I also had all the wiring upgraded to high quality screened stuff, which stops unwanted noise from lighting rigs etc..

I hope that helps.

Shine On
Michael

[pete1951]

Most `log` pots around 300k [ 250k to 500k] should be ok . you may have a `lin` pot fitted. To test it you could use a multimeter ,set to ohms. and look at the way the ohms change from 0 vol. to max. Without removing the pot , put the meter across an output lead. It should start at 0 [vol. off] and slowly go up, the rate of change getting ever faster. A `lin` pot will have a smooth change. At the last quarter turn the pick-up resistance comes into play and it should end up around 8 to 10 K ohms. If you buy a pot you could wire it onto a lead outside of your guitar and see if you like the way it works, rewiring semis can be a pain. Pete.

[ken1953clark]

The general rule of thumb, and remember rules are made to be broken, is to use 250K ohm pots for single-coil pick-ups (teles, strats) and 500K ohm for dual coil (humbuckers, les paul).

The volume pot should be an analogue, and sometimes prefixed with an A (Audio) on the casing, e.g. A500K describes a humbucker volume control.

The tone pot should be a linear, sometimes prefixed with a B, ie B250K describes a single-pole tone control.

You can also get pots with built in switches for coil tapping and other exotica, but the description on the case remains the same.

[Deleted]

Hi Charlie

Guitarist magazine always seems to point people in the direction of
Stewmac,who sell all manner of spares etc
It may be worth a look on their website

Cheers

Rob

[Stevie]

Try Axesrus up in Hull. Very helpful and everything is post free. No nasty extras to pay on the quoted price. They have always been very helpful to me, answering questions (sometimes late in the evening) within minutes. As usual, no connection etc. Prices are cheaper across the pond, sometimes it depends on a trade off between how much you are going to spend, postal costs and the time you are prepared to wait with the balance swaying this way and that. I occasionally use <guitarpartsresource> in the USA. and I have been very happy with them as well.

I'd rather screen the wiring cavities than use screened wiring throughout because of the distributed capacitance that screening conductors implies. OTOH, it may be negligible compared to the length of the average guitar lead. I can live without snake-oil and that includes pots. CTS pots are great and cheaper than buying the same thing made by them and supplied as "Genuine Fender"

Buy a selection cheap (Alpha?) from Hull and experiment as suggested by Pete, I would on a 335.

[Deleted]

The helpfulness of people on this site never ceases to amaze me ;D. The responses are very helpful, thanks.
Amazing I never knew we had a guitar parts outlet so nearby!
Thanks everyone!

[pete1951]

And another thing, pots have 2 sizes of `knurled` shaft. So if you have push-fit knobs you will need a pot to match. Knobs held on with a screw can fit both, though care must be taken to get the locking screw in the gap of the shaft, otherwise it will not turn `true`. Pete T.