50's wiring with 3 knobs

[Halvorsenb]

Hello all,

I love the way my Gibson explorer plays, but it's got high output pickups in it that don't really suit my style. I'm getting some PAF style pickups, and I've been very interested in 50's wiring. Since it only has 3 knobs instead of 4, I've got to improvise a bit.

Anyway, my idea is to combine the 2 tone pots into 1 dual ganged pot, so it is still wired the same as if it had 4, but the 1 knob controls both pickups like it does now.

I am confused about what kind of pot to buy for this, can you folks help me navigate this? I want to make sure it will fit the original knobs and do what I want it to do.

Thanks in advance,

Brandon

 

[Lewguitar]

I think if it was me I'd go with two volume pots, one for each pickup, and a single master tone control. I would connect each pickup to it's own volume pot and run the out of each volume pot to the three way switch. Then I'd connect the output of the switch to the output jack of the guitar. I'd connect the tone control to the output jack of the guitar so that it affects both pickups. That would also achieve "50's wiring". That is the way Hamer guitars with two pickups and three controls are wired.

I'd use three 500K audio taper pots. CTS are fine. Or just reuse what's already in the guitar, if possible.

 

[Halvorsenb]

Question: with 1 tone pot controlling both, would the value of the cap on the tone pot need to be changed from the original .022uf to achieve the same effect?

 

[ehdwuld]

Run tone to Jack and ground
master tone

.022 should be fine