Tightening up a pot?

[JohnH]

My problem is that the push/pull pots that I'm using turn very freely. Its all good, but in the volume position of my Strat-like Ibanez Roadstar, I keep bumping into the knob as I thrash around laying down blisteringly crunched power chords. The volume tends to move downwards, and so as I lose gain, my crunch tends towards a mere plinky-plonk.

So what I'm wanting is some way to stiffen the turn of the knob.

Any ideas?

John

[sumgai]

John,

If you stiffen the shaft's rotatability, you then have to contend with the knob's knurling chafing your knuckles! Which is exactly the reason I took the whole blasted thing out of there in the first place - it's in the way, I don't care what Rex Carson said to Leo!

Notice the "oooh... shiny" object that's nice and flat, not in the way at all!



One less control, so fewer options, that's true. But freedom of motion when caught up in the frenzy, that's priceless! ;D

And to cap it off, I'm now seriously interested in this switch from Starr Labs (second item down). It seems that my flailing is getting even more spastic in my old age.


sumgai

[ChrisK]

Hmmm, I'd thought that folk who

thrash around laying down blisteringly crunched power chords

didn't actually know how to operate volume (and tone) controls. ;D ;D

Hint hint.





And

rotatability

isn't a wordification either'ski (no matter if yer sumgai or another). ;D ;D


For those with chnob chnurling chnuckle chafing;

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Dick_Dale.jpg

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Dale

[gumbo]

John,
At the risk of cutting across SG's blistering wit... .....why not simply try an appropriately-sized neoprene o-ring ( a carburettor repair shop and/or plumbing shop could be a source) stuffed on the shaft of the offending pot before installing the knob..

That way creating resistance (not the electrical kind!!) between the top of the pickguard and the uderside of the knob........might just work....


Cheers

Gumbo

[Runewalker]

I am familiar with John's push/pulls from Mouser. They are Alpha pot/switches and have a soft viscosity. I am not sure how to alter the viscosity within the pot, and they don't respond well to much disassembly. In fact if the shafts were knurled, the normal act of removing a typical strat push on knob would pull the entire shaft right out of the component.

I hear fairly often about guitarists and their strumming/slashing technique slamming the top knob. I personally don't angle the slashing rhythm towards that vol knob, and stay more in the mid picking channels than toward the bridge picking/strumming channel. So it personally perplexes me, but a sample of one does not a trend make.

So JH's issue requires either a mechanical solution or a change in technique. As we know, asking a guitarist to change technique is an affront to his manhood, so that is not an option.

Gumbo's idea is intriguing and rubber/neophene o-rings are plentiful at plumbing supplies. There would be a little art of adjustment to position the knob at the preferred level to grant desired level of friction.

I think those Roadstar units have the strat style skirted knob, right? Perhaps a tele style knob would be less subject to your enthusiatic slashing. Or maybe something completely different like a chicken head knob.

More radical would be to get the chisel or bench drill and reposition the knob entirely. Which seems to be one of DDale's approaches, combined with just removing the knob. Which would also be an approach, with a different esthetic.

The ultimate solution is the obvious and more manly one. Use the LP.

[JohnH]

Thanks for the thoughts.

Gumbos idea of an O ring is interesting, it would need a hole a bit smaller than the shaft so it squeezed it, and fixed down on top of the nut, so it was touching the turning shaft.

Improving my technique - is a good idea, but probably the hardest one, and not part of guitar design.

The original knobs on a this Roadstar were large and blob-ular, I replaced them with some smaller ones, but I could go smaller again and I think that would help. I can't use actual Strat knobs, since these pots are straight shafted.

I could also swap the volume control with the series/parallel switch which is next to it. That would also improve access to that switch, so that is a good possibility for when I have a chance to rewire. The switch is a 4-pole toggle, so it is fairly firm and so secure against accidental knocks

Playing the LP, definately the best idea. I put nice solid CTS pots in that, and they have a firm but smooth resistance that makes me realise that they are worth paying extra for. As an aside, it is remarkable, that despite coil cut options on the LP and a raft of series sounds on the Roadstar/Strat, the two sound completely different, and keep their respective characters in all settings. I quite like that but it means having to make a choice.

cheers

John

[ChrisK]

Does a Roadster have a pick guard or is it rear-routed?

If it has a pick guard, I'd try to fabricate a post that was parallel with the body of the knob and could have a felt cylinder on it. This would lightly press against the side of the knob and realize some resistance.

For a rear rout body, I'd fabricate something like the Gibson top surface indicator pointers that give a reference to rear mounted pots with speed knobs. Instead of the pointer, I'd have a pin similar to the post above, again wrapped with a felt cylinder.

Now, don't ask me as to WHERE one procures felt cylinders, it's just a concept that I'm describing.

A push pull pot is difficult to add resistance to since one can, er, push pull it.


BTW, the small O-ring is ideal for centering a metric pot's smaller threaded bushing into a 3/8" US pot hole in a pick guard.

[bpdude]

You could exchange the volume pot with one of the tone pots.
When you're doing power chords you'll probably do it on the bridge pickup, so if you accidentally roll down the neck or the mid pickups tone there would be no problem.

[pete12345]

since there is no tone control for the bridge, you could put the neck tone where the volume is, middle tone er... in the middle and put the volume in the lower hole out the way. Actually, that sounds like a more intuitive layout than the normal one.

Pete

[andy]

Just to re-iterate (is that how to write it?) what Sumgai said, I too changed my Strats controls to give me more space to flail about without knocking the volume pot. Having started on Les Pauls and Telecasters, my technique expects a bit more hand room! I now have a master volume and master tone, with a little bung in the usual volume control cavity.

I am planning to put some photos up in the 'black guitars' thread in the gallery soon, as I will be putting it on ebay, sadly. It is a fairly pretty early 80's Japanese Squier, but I'll go into that elsewhere!

[ChrisK]

I disassembled a push pull pot some years ago. While there is little that could be done since the shaft and knob needs to slide up/down, I do recall that the resistive element is nearest the bushing and there is some free area within the pot shell. Very little actually, but the shaft extends thru the back of the shell into the switch mechanism. This would indicate to me that a thin "hairpin" type of spring could be biased against the shaft internally to apply some resistance to rotation.

I have some pp pots that turn freely, some that have positional "slop", and some that are fairly stiff to turn. I can't correlate them to a particular vendor.

[gumbo]

Probably a bit of a back-track, now we're all sooo far into this..

but FWIW, small 'felt cylinders' (thanks Chris!!)..are available from jewellery tools suppliers (try Twin Plaza Metals in Sydney, JH) as the things that are intended to be loaded with polishing compound and used (with their 'mandrel') in a powered handpiece like a Dremel...

...you could try asking for a 'polishing point'....

if you really need one and can't find it, pm me and I'll mail you one.... ;D

...and yes, I do make jewellery...and no, I won't restring your grandmother's pearls.....


Gumbo

[wolf]

Like Sumgai, I am not a big fan of volume controls either and in fact most of the rewiring I do usually involves removing the volume control. Of course, if you are playing live on stage, you want that volume control right at your fingertips.
I'm also not a big fan of push-pull pots either. How about removing the push-pull volume pot and substituting it with a toggle switch?

[sumgai]

wolf,

I may not have been too clear in my last post. I moved to volume control to the second hole, I didn't completely remove it. In fact, I have now modded my beast to include a GK-2A pickup, and the GK's volume control occupies the third hole - no tone controls at all.

Oh how I wish for a mixing pot of some kind! Blend, mix, pan, whatever it might be called, I'd purely love to be able to twist one knob, and go from mag pups to synth pup, or somewhere in between. As it stands, I have to do the two-knob-twiddle, and that sucks the hind one, I assure you! But at 250KΩ for the mags, and -gasp- 10KΩ for the GK, that's a bit of a toughie, no?

Outside of that, how'd you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln? ;D


sumgai

[bpdude]

sumgai:

What processor do you use with your synth pickup?
Newer Boss effect processors allow you change any effect parameter with the available controls. I have a GT-8 and use this function extensively - I also made an expression knob for my guitar that connects to the expression pedal input of the GT-8 through a separate cable (I just don't use it right now).
I checked the VG-88 manual and I saw that it is just as flexible as the GT-8. You could for example set the GK volume knob to adjust the GK/Guitar balance (page 30).

[sumgai]

bp,

Yes, but that degree of control is not possible on the GR-33, my "real" instrument of choice. The VG-88 gets maybe 20% of my total playing time, whereas the GR gets 99.9% of "power up". (Yes, I have a US-20.)

But thanks just the same for trying to help a brother out! ;D



sumgai

[wolf]

Sorry sumgai, for my thinking that you didn't use volume controls. So, your guitar has no tone controls on it now?

[sumgai]

wolf said:

Sorry sumgai, for my thinking that you didn't use volume controls. So, your guitar has no tone controls on it now?

Correct. And no problem about the misunderstanding, it happens once in awhile, ya know?



sumgai

[falcatarius]

Hey folks,

Sorry for ranging OT. But how would I go about loosening the rotation of a volume pot? I'm a big user of volume swells and with a lot of strats I find its not as swift as I'd like it.

Or how about loosening up a 5-way strat switch? I dislike it when their really rigid as I tend to change my pickup configuration a lot during a song and it can throw me off.

Thanks for any help!

Cheers
-Tom

[sumgai]

Tom,

A drop of 3-in-1 oil down the shaft should loosen it up, somewhat. No more than that, or you may find it too loose. And no, anything you spray is bad, bad, bad. Just don't do that, eh?

A blade switch is often tight when new, and loosens up as it gets used, or broken in. If you opt to try lubrication, bear in mind that the problem is not with the slider-and-terminals, it's in the detent mechanism itself. I doubt that any lubrication here would help, but if you're of a mind to experiment.......

Sometimes you can see a spring that can be "adjusted" to make the action the way you like it.

You might hire your kid brother to monkey with it for an hour, that'll certainly take all the tightness right out of it! ;D

HTH



sumgai