Two Guitar Re-wire

[MattFireblade]

The tone pot in my Schecter Tempest had one of the tabs break while I was taking the knob off to replace them, so I went ahead and ordered a new set of pots for it to fully rewire it, and I'm waiting on my Buddhanauts to be finished and shipped in the next couple of weeks, so I'll be tearing down the 3200-MCC and redoing that whole harness too.

Philadelphia Luthier Supply now has long-shaft 500k CTS metric shaft and spline pots, so I ordered 3 of those for the volume knobs on the two guitars, and I got the new push-pull CTS 500k long shaft pots, as I've always fought with the extended tabs, these have an inset lug to solder on, and look significantly more sturdy. I also ordered a pack of 50 caps from Amazon, they were like $8 total. I have 3 perfect .2233 out of the 50 I also took my multimeter and matched pots, and interestingly enough I have 3 perfect pairs of volume/tone pots, and then one that's between the others, so I went ahead and pre-marked them for which pickup and guitar. I'll post pics when I finally get into the cavities and re-do them.

[mozz]

RANT MODE ON:
Tone pot doesn't have to be matched to the vol pot. I'd really like to know where you heard that one. If it's got 2 pickups, maybe you would put the higher pot on the neck pickup (to make it brighter) and the lower pot on the bridge pickup (to tame some shrill). Chances are 1 out of 100 people could hear the difference between a 450k and 550k pot. Which is 10% tolerance, your pots are most likely 20% tolerance, as most sold are.

Caps i hope you mean .022uf which might be marked 223 indicating 22 nanofarads. As for cap tolerance, sometimes it is +80% - 20%, other times it is 5% 10% or 20%. Instead of trying to match items, you would be better off trying the lowest value and the highest value and see if you prefer one over the other.

RANT MODE OFF:

Other than that there is coarse spline and fine spline shafts, as far as i know Gibson fender prs are the only ones who use the old original fine spline shafts. Maybe Schecter?

[mickey]

RANT MODE ON:
Tone pot doesn't have to be matched to the vol pot. I'd really like to know where you heard that one. If it's got 2 pickups, maybe you would put the higher pot on the neck pickup (to make it brighter) and the lower pot on the bridge pickup (to tame some shrill). Chances are 1 out of 100 people could hear the difference between a 450k and 550k pot. Which is 10% tolerance, your pots are most likely 20% tolerance, as most sold are.

Caps i hope you mean .022uf which might be marked 223 indicating 22 nanofarads. As for cap tolerance, sometimes it is +80% - 20%, other times it is 5% 10% or 20%. Instead of trying to match items, you would be better off trying the lowest value and the highest value and see if you prefer one over the other.

RANT MODE OFF:

Other than that there is coarse spline and fine spline shafts, as far as i know Gibson fender prs are the only ones who use the old original fine spline shafts. Maybe Schecter?

Rant on [mention] mozz[/mention] rant on!

[MattFireblade]

RANT MODE ON:
Tone pot doesn't have to be matched to the vol pot. I'd really like to know where you heard that one. If it's got 2 pickups, maybe you would put the higher pot on the neck pickup (to make it brighter) and the lower pot on the bridge pickup (to tame some shrill). Chances are 1 out of 100 people could hear the difference between a 450k and 550k pot. Which is 10% tolerance, your pots are most likely 20% tolerance, as most sold are.

Caps i hope you mean .022uf which might be marked 223 indicating 22 nanofarads. As for cap tolerance, sometimes it is +80% - 20%, other times it is 5% 10% or 20%. Instead of trying to match items, you would be better off trying the lowest value and the highest value and see if you prefer one over the other.

RANT MODE OFF:

Other than that there is coarse spline and fine spline shafts, as far as i know Gibson fender prs are the only ones who use the old original fine spline shafts. Maybe Schecter?

Hah, yes, I know they don’t need to match. But since I could check them I did. There is a 480k, 485k, 490k, and 501k for my volume pots, and then the tone pots actually all exactly match the first three tone pots. As for higher and lower, I read the other way around, lower neck, higher bridge, I see some of the Gibson guys doing 330k neck and 500k bridge. I plan on doing the higher value in the Schecter and lower in the Agile. And yeah, I meant .022. I know tolerances are what they are and I likely won’t even notice any difference, honestly.

For splines, the volume pots are going to be coarse, tone will be fine. Just how it panned out for what I bought and preferred for the soldering side. I have knobs for both, so I’m not worried about that.

[thepezident]

I heard the higher the pot value, the slower you play.

[MattFireblade]

Got my Schecter rewired this weekend. Found out that the tone pot routing is too long for a short shaft and too shallow in the control cavity for a long shaft, so the knob sits up a little bit more from the body than I'd like. I also goofed and initially forgot to wire the third lug to ground on the volume pots, which had some...interesting...behavior. Overall, the tone doesn't seem altered, if anything maybe a little more 'open' sounding. I'm happy with it, overall.

Also, don't criticize my soldering.

[rrobbone]

You match your pots?

You think a lot harder about this than I do! I'm happy if it all works properly once I'm done.

[MattFireblade]

You match your pots?

You think a lot harder about this than I do! I'm happy if it all works properly once I'm done.

I did for these two projects. Honestly, it doesn't really matter. I doubt I could or would hear any difference had I just tossed them in a bin and picked them out at random. But I could, so I did.

[nomadh]

Great run down on the project and research details. Right now I'm off to install a dishwasher at a rental house so your post just reminds me more and more I dont need another project. Maybe when I retire.

But more and more maybe not

[LancerTheGreat]

Hey for your tone pot with the knob that sits too high, just put an extra nut or a few washers on the inside of the cavity to make it sit lower and match the others.

[Partscaster]

I heard the higher the pot value, the slower you play.

But one might "think" they're really ripping.
Laws of relative audience, and all.

[MattFireblade]

Hey for your tone pot with the knob that sits too high, just put an extra nut or a few washers on the inside of the cavity to make it sit lower and match the others.

Hard to do that when the back of the pot already is touching the cavity cover. That’s why I have to live with it as is.

[golem]

I've never heard of people trying to get ones that are perfectly matched. But I've definitely seen a builder measure them and plan accordingly (e.g., putting a 550 in the neck and a 450 in a bridge). And I have occasionally heard of a Gibson pot being way out of spec (like a 500K pot measure below 300K).