Broken Les Paul Volume Knobs?

[illold3chordme]

Hey everyone, I'm new here, so sorry if this question has been asked before, but I can't really find an answer to it anywhere, and the Gibson website seems pretty worthless.

Anyway, I've had this Gibson Les Paul Special for about 6 years now, and have had no problems with it. Then today, out of nowhere, I went to turn down one of the volume knobs and found it to be stuck. I can move it with a bit more effort, but it has no effect on the sound, and can turn 360 degrees now, as opposed to having a set stopping point like it did before. Even worse, the other volume knob started doing the same thing. The other two tone knobs are fine, however.

I have no idea why or how this happened, much less to both knobs at the same time. I opened up the backplate but it doesn't look like there's anything I can do back there, so I was wondering if anyone had any advice on what I can do. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[gfxbss]

illold3chordme,

first off, i would like to say welcome to GuitarNuts2.

My girlfriends brother(mmray on here) just had somthing similar happen to his P-bass a month or so back. only difference was that the whole post on the knob came out.

however, they mean the same thing. the knobs or pot(potentiometers) are shot. just go into your local guitar shop and tell them that you would like two 500K pots(500K are the standard pots for guitars w/ humuckers as the pots make your guitar sound brighter. this is opposed to 250K pots which are used w/ single coils because they will make your guitar sound darker.)

if you feel confident with a soldering iron, then you can replace them.
you can look through a number of schematics either on our schematics page here at GN2 or choose how you want to wire your guitar from here guitarelectronics.com/category/wiringresources.22pickupdiagrams/

if you dont feel confident with a soldering iron, then i would take it to someone who knows how to do it, and just pay the money to have them replaced. if you do not feel comfterble this work, then i would suggest that you do not.

Tyler