The Steel Guitar Forum

I have a pretty nice '51 with the wrong pots. They are quiet but very stiff and obviously not original What are correct replacements and where might I find them?

Very early Fenders sometimes had low value volume pots, usually 50k ohms, 100k ohms or 250k ohms. Later 1 Meg ohms was more standard. I can't see any reason not to use 1 Meg, All you can do is increase the signal out of the guitar. Tone pots are usually 250k. Audio taper pots were used to balance the way our ear hears the sound against the way the signal actually is produced (our ears are warped, inefficient machines).

John,

Can you explain audio taper vs linear taper pots? Also, where can I purchase he pots you suggest?

MW

The taper is how the range of the pot is distributed throughout the throw of the knob. A linear taper is evenly distributed so that a 1 on the knob has 10% at 1, 20% at 2, 30% at 3, etc. up to 100% when all the way up at 10 on the dial.
The problem is that our ears don't react evenly so we would not hear the gain increasing that way. An audio taper pot takes this into consideration and has been designed with the output modified so that we hear an even increase as the knob is turned up. An ohm meter might show that at 3 there might be more than half the resistance in the circuit instead of 30% and at 5 maybe 80% or some such. Different tapers have been designed by different makers but they work on the same principle.
One major rock amp company uses linear taper pots for volume knobs so that their amp is screaming loud on 2 in the store, of course not much more gain happens from 3 to 10 but on 2 it sure is louder than others on 2.
Look for 250KA or 1 Meg A as apposed to 250KL pots. Where to get them? Everyone has a reason they like one brand or another. Let's see who suggests what.

Marc,
If you would like to free up the stiff pots until you can get new ones, place one drop of oil (I use a toothpick to get exactly one drop.)
on the shaft and let it soak down into the bearing
working it slowly back and forth.
Wipe off the excess after the shaft turns easily.
Any light weight oil will work. "3 in 1";"Super Oil";
"Hoppes #9."

This works with old or new pots.

John,

I tried both audio and linear taper for the TONE pots because I kept reading the TONE pot worked best with the linear. The only difference I could tell is at what place on the dial the tone did most of it's changing. It just seemed to happen in different areas of the dial. But neither seemed to change the tone perfectly evenly throughout it's 1 -10 dial range? What's up with that? I made sure my wiring was done correctly.

The audio taper worked almost perfectly for the VOLUME.

On my guitar Ive got an audio taper on the volume, a lineir on the tone,,, now this depends what you want out of the sound! I like the lineir taper on the tone for the Boo Waa stuff,,, its a little more aggresive! You can find pots at an electronics wherehouse type place,,, but not Radioshack! you also wanna make sure the capicitor is right and working!!!

Stewart MacDonald has some pots you may be able to use. Also Antique Electronics at tubesandmore.com has a lot of pots.

BILL

Which model do you have?
I believe the later Deluxe 8 has the dual Stringmaster pups and the early Deluxe has the string-through Trapezoid pup.
The pots in my early 50's Deluxe are original and both are Stackpole 250k audio with a Astron .05uf 200v capacitor wired in-between.
Code = 304221.
Vintage ones as well as new are available from many sources.
Depends on how much $ you want to spend and if it's important to you keep it vintage. I like to keep my guitars as original as possible until the cost exceeds my pocketbook.

photo of my early Deluxe "Brownie":



If I haven't confused you enough, check out this earlier thread by some well informed players...
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... ght=deluxe