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#16 Re: freddie's gone to pot

Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2021 8:27 am
by ed
Yay!! Freddie's back in business. I had to ream the holes in the plate to get the new pots in as they were half a mil bigger diameter on the threads....
also the tone control is next to useless...I put the old cap back which is 0.068uf, which I guess is good for 500k pots..I think the 250k pots would be better with 0.047uf, or at least that's what the vendors sell with 250k pots...

that's for another day

#17 Re: freddie's gone to pot

Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2021 4:14 pm
by The Stratmangler
Result!
A couple of diagrams I looked at had capacitor value at 0.05uf

#18 Re: freddie's gone to pot

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2021 10:52 pm
by Mike H
Image

#19 Re: freddie's gone to pot

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2021 7:49 pm
by andrew Ivimey
Just looked at the price of CTS pots.... hmmmmm.

I have a glorious Jazzmaster which needs a new volume control. And I am 'irritated' about CTS when I've used lots of Alps for Strats and the odd Tele hugely cheaper and really .... what is the difference!?

#20 Re: freddie's gone to pot

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2021 8:14 pm
by Dave the bass
andrew Ivimey wrote: Sat Oct 09, 2021 7:49 pm Just looked at the price of CTS pots.... hmmmmm.

I have a glorious Jazzmaster which needs a new volume control. And I am 'irritated' about CTS when I've used lots of Alps for Strats and the odd Tele hugely cheaper and really .... what is the difference!?
About 15 quid, pfffttt!

Tone is in the fingers and brain. eni fule kno that.

Scratch free volume control is in a good pot mind 😊

#21 Re: freddie's gone to pot

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2021 8:48 pm
by andrew Ivimey
Alps are scratch free. CTS must have been cheapest when Leo Fender was setting up the production line.

About six weeks ago, sort of destructive self deprecating way I 'won' a cheap Chinese Squier Strat. ( Now I well appreciate that bizarre , as it maybe, Chinese Squier classic vibes around 2010 really are stinkingly good and the world seems to know this, ( high prices) but a similar vintage Chinese ordinary Squier is so disabled by the worst pickups and tuners in the world that they aren't good enough even as firewood, I nevertheless bought one. WHY!?

Confirmed the pickups are remarkably awful and the tuners, execrable.

I thought I'd 'relic' - waste of time... but I put a set of Wilkinson tuners £23 Inc p&p - astonishing and a set of vmod fender strat pickups lovely gentle, tuneful and going spare. The body was so well finished that it just was stupid to rub and scrape, chemical nasty and wipe so I left it alone. A mint green pick guard set the two tone sunburst off a treat but I used Alps pots linear for tone (250k) and 250k log for volume and they are superb. Oh I used nasty chemical patio cleaner on a fender stamped bridge to make it look supercool and it does. Wow!

But... lost the plot.... but CTS? they were what was cheapest at the time.

#22 Re: freddie's gone to pot

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2021 3:40 pm
by The Stratmangler
Leo didn't have the option of using Alps in the early 50s, and if he'd had the option he'd probably have dismissed Alps pots as "Jap crap".

#23 Re: freddie's gone to pot

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2021 4:37 pm
by andrew Ivimey
Mebbe!

#24 Re: freddie's gone to pot

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2021 5:46 pm
by andrew Ivimey
Mind tho', I believe CTS and Alphas now come from Indonesia and Taiwan, no Japan, no US of A.

One eBay seller is advertising CTS as an upgrade from Alphas. As construction looks pretty much the same with both I don't see how CTS should be better than Alps and vice versa when it comes to scratchy distress.

#25 Re: freddie's gone to pot

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2021 6:16 pm
by The Stratmangler
I heard that all the "traditional" pots were being made in Taiwan or China too.
As long as they meet spec it doesn't really matter.

If you want to go in deep with pots these guys claim to have CTS make pots to true vintage spec https://www.crazyparts.de/electronics/c ... /index.php

#26 Re: freddie's gone to pot

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2021 6:22 pm
by andrew Ivimey
Crazy indeed......

#27 Re: freddie's gone to pot

Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2021 10:06 am
by ed
a thought just occurred...

what happens if a pot fails in my 339?
or the better question: what does one do to remedy a pot failing in a 339?

#28 Re: freddie's gone to pot

Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2021 10:26 am
by andrew Ivimey
That is not easy!

#29 Re: freddie's gone to pot

Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2021 8:54 am
by The Stratmangler
ed wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 10:06 am a thought just occurred...

what happens if a pot fails in my 339?
or the better question: what does one do to remedy a pot failing in a 339?
I peered through the f-hole on mine, and the connection to the pickups appears to be a push on Molex connector.
Whether this continues to the tone circuits I can't see.

Regardless of that, it looks like the entire loom has to come out to do anything, and that means that everything has to come out of the lower f-hole, repair/replacement work done outside the guitar, and then the ship goes back into the bottle.

A ball of string might be useful ... 8)

#30 Re: freddie's gone to pot

Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2021 10:15 am
by andrew Ivimey
Wot he said, also 339s are new enough to have a pcb holding the pots and tone caps under the front of the body. 'Ship in a bottle ' doesn't come near...