What pots to use?

[Tofiniac]

I have a Fender American Professional Telecaster Deluxe that currently has two Shawbucker humbuckers in it. Each pick-up has a tone and volume pot. It is my understanding that the factory set up was one 250k pot and one 500 for each pick up.

I intend to replace the stock pick-ups with a JB at the bridge and '59 in the neck position, and would like to have push/pull pots for each to coil split.

I should be able to reuse one of the factory pots for each pick-up, plus add the push/pull pot. 500k for both volume and tone? Stick with one 500 and one 250? 250 for each position? Something new entirely?

Also, does it matter whether the push/pull goes in the volume or tone position?

I appreciate any insight or knowledge that can be shared, I am pretty new to this and eager to learn.

 

[Mincer]

Welcome to the forum!

I'd use 500k pots all around. And as far as the push/pull, you can put it in either the volume or tone position, whatever is comfortable. I dig Fender's S1 switch, which is push/push. It is expensive, but is much easier to use quickly than push/pull.

 

[hamerfan]

Don’t rush. Just use the given pots. Especially the JB sounds good with a 250k vol pot. The 59 neck may sound a bit boomy, so a 500k vol pot may help. Mix and match is the secret word.

 

[switchman]

Hello. If you're new to this, always good to start simple, and change fewest parts first.

I'm not sure I found the exact service manual but I think your guitar is 500K volumes and 250K tones. It shows some have a mini PCB on the volumes for treble bleed. All this is to say you might want to take the pickguard off and see what's under the hood before buying pickups.

With that said...

Yes you can reuse the pots with mix of 500K and 250K. Wiring the pickups to the existing pots will allow a more direct before / after comparison, if you want to record something, or at least in your mind.

The push-pull can be either volume or tone. It's personal preference. I prefer it on the tone, because I use the tone less than the volume, but someone will surely say the opposite.

If the tones were 250K and I wanted to put push-pulls in, I would change to 500K at that time because that's the more common standard, but 250K will work fine. All else equal the 500K will yeild a slightly brighter louder tone.

additional thoughts...
I have come to prefer the two way spring action Push-Push pots instead of Push-Pull you have to grab to move up. Mojotone and plenty of others have them now. They're wired the same as push-pull. Sometimes it's a pain to grab push-pulls quickly. Again its personal preference.

I'm burying the lede here but be aware that the '59 Neck only comes in long legs unless you special order it - even the 4 conductor version. I doubt it will fit in your guitar without routing or drilling the ends of the neck pickup rout deeper. You may find somewhere online with the Short Leg 4 conductor 59 Neck in stock but its not that common...

 

[Artie]

Ditto to all above. The S-1 switch requires a little more attention to detail, but there are quite a few of us here who can show you how to wire it up properly. The S-1 also allows switching both pups to parallel with just one button. Parallel is similar to split, while remaining humbucking.

Lots of options, but go slowly.

 

[jeremy]

i agree with trying the stock pots first. if i was starting from scratch, id use two 500k for the 59n and a 250 v and 500k tone for the jb.

fyi the 59n comes standard with a braided shield, so youll need to make sure to order or purchase a 4 cond version in order to split the pup

 

[Tofiniac]

I'm burying the lede here but be aware that the '59 Neck only comes in long legs unless you special order it - even the 4 conductor version. I doubt it will fit in your guitar without routing or drilling the ends of the neck pickup rout deeper. You may find somewhere online with the Short Leg 4 conductor 59 Neck in stock but its not that common...

My google skills must be weak, I did some searching and came to the conclusion the long legs wouldn't be an issue, but I see now that they likely are. I've looked at a few potential workarounds, which include trying to modify the legs on the '59 or changing out the baseplate for one with shorter legs, but overall it looks like the simplest may be to simply make the route on the guitar a little deeper. I've got a plunge router and a flush cut bit, this looks like a pretty quick and simple task. Is there anything I may not be considering?

 

[switchman]

This comes up a lot - do you modify the guitar or the pickup?

I usually swap the baseplate rather than modify the guitar. Its reversible but routing the guitar isn't. That's not a cheap guitar so if you're going to mod it you don't want to devalue it.

This thread has lots of tips - https://forum.seymourduncan.com/for...-long-pickup-legs-won-t-fit-guitar-what-to-do​

Routing for humbucker legs is a little tricky. The pickup rout is probably 3/4" to 13/16" deep. The long legs probably need routs 1-/18" to 1-1/4" including the screws protruding underneath. On a tremolo guitar that wold punch into the spring cavity. I assume yours is hardtail but just FYI.

The hard part is unless you make a template the part of the rout towards the center is freehand. This picture probably explains it better than words. The template sitting in the rout gives the router bit something to ride all the way around, instead of just at the edges. The routs under your Tele pickguard are probably big rectangles too which would be even more freehand without a template.

​

 

[Artie]

Can't the '59 simply be ordered, either from Duncan themselves, or an authorized dealer, with whatever options you want? Short legs, 2 or 4 conductor, logo or no-logo, color/cover.

Am I missing something?

 

[switchman]

You're correct it could be ordered as a Shop Floor Custom which they're quoting 4-6 weeks for these days. I imagine the OP either has a Long Leg in hand already or was scoping out to order one in stock..