The Steel Guitar Forum

I recently purchased a used ( no name ) 6 string console. The tone control does not work and I would like to change the pickup and both pots. Looking for suggestions for a single coil pickup with compatible tone and volume pot replacements. I play C6 tuning and prefer a heavier gauge string set

Do you have pictures? What kind of sound are you after? What's your budget?

It has a brass nut and bridge, and is pretty bright but its hard to tell without the tone adjustment. I'd like to keep it around 100.00 dollars. I'll try and get a pic to attach ( new member ) thanks [/img]

Sorry ...having a hard time posting pics

Okay, that looks like a standard sized Stratocaster pickup, fortunately there are several options and some are very affordable like GFS. Seymour Duncan makes fine pickups. 250k pots are standard on a Strat, 500k will make it very bright,.022 cap is std.

Keep in mind that if you want to reuse the knobs, you will require replacement pots with the correct shafts to match them. There are at least three different styles. Have you opened it up and inspected the solder joints? If it were my guitar, I would first determine whether or not the components are actually defective. As Glenn says, a .022uF tone cap is generally considered preferable with single coil pickups. If it passes visual inspection, first replace the capacitor. If the issue persists, then replace the pot(s). Since the pickup itself may sound perfectly fine with a new cap and pot(s), I'd replace it last if necessary. Here are a couple references which may help in determining the type of pots to purchase:

https://www.stewmac.com/How-To/Online_R ... hoose.html

https://www.stewmac.com/How-To/Trade_Se ... knobs.html

Thanks for the advice and website info. I cant tell the value of the pots but from the basic nature of the bulid I'm going to assume the tone is 250k and volume 500k...but I've decided from the posts to keep my attention on the pots...and cap.
With all the brass hardware I'm going to say its going to be naturally pretty bright, so that would be my goal to make it a bit more warm. I'm assuming from what I have read that the value of the pot and cap is the way to warm it up. Thanks for the great feedback and references.

Jack Hanson wrote:Keep in mind that if you want to reuse the knobs, you will require replacement pots with the correct shafts to match them. There are at least three different styles. Have you opened it up and inspected the solder joints? If it were my guitar, I would first determine whether or not the components are actually defective. As Glenn says, a .022uF tone cap is generally considered preferable with single coil pickups. If it passes visual inspection, first replace the capacitor. If the issue persists, then replace the pot(s). Since the pickup itself may sound perfectly fine with a new cap and pot(s), I'd replace it last if necessary. Here are a couple references which may help in determining the type of pots to purchase:

https://www.stewmac.com/How-To/Online_R ... hoose.html

https://www.stewmac.com/How-To/Trade_Se ... knobs.html

Yes, i agree with you. He should give that pickup a try before replacing it. Pickups rarely go bad.....unless they're super old, then they can be suspect.

Whilst it is good to have a functional tone pot, if the guitar is sounding too bright to you, turn down the treble knob on the amp to get your basic sound rather than relying on the tone knob.
To be clear, replacing the tone pot and cap makes negligible difference when the knob is all the way up and this should IMHO be your basic setting with the tone knob then used for variety.

Since those controls are on a separate plate, first step would be to pull it off and check the connections.
It is fairly common for a pot to become loose, rotate and break wires