50s les Paul Junior Linear 500k Volume pot?

[JimmyJunior]

Greetings,
I own a Vintage V120 ( a les Paul junior copy).
I want to change the electronics to be closer to a 50s les Paul junior. Pick up wise I chose a Seymour Duncan antiquity P-90 dog ear bridge. I also went with a 22 cap and a 250k Log CTS tone pot.

Here is the thing that confuses me:
I read in a lot of forums and threads that 50s les Paul junior use 500k volume pots,
but always differs when it comes to linear or logarithmic.
I’m assuming they used a linear 500k pot for volume, but I’m not sure.

Does anyone know?

[rollingpap7]

Re: 50s les Paul Junior Linear 500k Volume pot?

Audio tapers always been Factory Spec since day one on electric guitars I believe unless one purposely change it to linear. I wonder if linear pot works better for the volume or not. In reality I doubt they make much of difference control wise.


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[Chistopher]

Re: 50s les Paul Junior Linear 500k Volume pot?

Most of the Gibson's and all of the Epiphones I've played have used linear volume and audio tone controls. But if you a trying to do 50s wiring you might find you'll have the best results with CTS vintage taper pots. They are somewhere between linear and audio and are commonly used for guitars with 50s wiring.

[Gtrjunior]

50s les Paul Junior Linear 500k Volume pot?

When I pulled the pcb board from my Les Paul I experimented with both types of pots. Granted, I wasn’t interested in 50’s specs per se, but I can tell you that the linear taper volume pots were awful. Not really much usable throw.
I ended up going with CTS audio taper 250K pots from guitarelectronics.com (the brass shaft +/- 10% tolerance ones....they are great).

[Darg1911]

Re: 50s les Paul Junior Linear 500k Volume pot?

500K audio for volume but get a vintage taper pot. I use the Mojotone CTS Vintage Taper pots. For tone I use a CTS 250K audio taper (it's a Dimarzio custom taper but I don't think it's much different than a standard CTS audio taper). .022uf cap. Vintage/50's wiring.

The information on the original pot values is confusing most likely because Gibson wasn't consistent with what values they used. But, I doubt that they used linear volumes. The taper of the log pots back then was different. Closer to a modern Vintage Taper (30% taper) pot than a standard audio taper pot.

[Ayrton]

Re: 50s les Paul Junior Linear 500k Volume pot?

You want audio taper for both volume and tone

[Chistopher]

Re: 50s les Paul Junior Linear 500k Volume pot?

You want audio taper for both volume and tone

It really depends on what you are looking for. Tone is definitely audio, but you can use either for volume.

I find audio works better when I'm playing at stage volumes and linear is better for bedroom volumes.

[JimmyJunior]

Re: 50s les Paul Junior Linear 500k Volume pot?

Thank you. I just ordered a vintage taper 500k CTS pot.