Strat stacked pot help

Rabs

Allo all..  Been a while since I posted anything in here. Not been back at my builds yet   But hopefully will soon.

Anyway, in the meantime I was given  a Strat to look at.. Now Strats are not my area of expertise. I have not built many with that kind of pickup configuration or with that type of switch.. BUT whats really got me is that bridge tone pot.. From what I gather its some kind of treble bleed type thing??  I always thought that sort of pot was for duel control knobs..  But its just a normal knob and when you turn it, it feels broken. Issue is I have never used that kind of pot before...  So is it meant to feel different from a normal knob? It works but its doing that thing where it continually turns...

SteveRobinson

It's a TBX control, which as ICBM will tell you stands for TotalBolloX. 

Rabs

So some type of bleed then? And I am assuming this pot is broken or do they work differently to other pots in the way they turn?  Is there a better way to do the same thing then?  I assume its meant to be done to get the best out if that bridge pickup?

Rabs

SteveRobinson said:

It's a TBX control, which as ICBM will tell you stands for TotalBolloX. 

Ok done some reading so thanks..  So is the general consensus that its a bit crap and the best thing to do is just replace it and with a normal 250k pot and wire it as standard?

ICBM

Indeed it does... Fender say it stands for 'Treble and Bass eXpander', but in fact it does nothing of the sort - what it does is that at the centre detent position it artificially strangles the treble and bass by loading the pickups with that little 82K resistor you can see, so when you turn it to either end you appear to get more, but in fact you're just getting less of the less! Below the detent it acts as a normal(ish) tone control, and above it it acts (more or less) as a progressive no-load tone control, but it has the remarkable characteristic of going from dull to shrill, somehow without passing through good...

They were originally designed for active guitars - the Elite Strat and Tele - in which they do actually work properly and sound good, but why Fender in their wisdom decided to apply them to all the passive guitars as well, I have no idea.

It may actually be broken, in which case simply get rid of it and fit a standard 250K tone control, and the guitar will sound better. Or it may be that it's sticking at the detent and the knob is just spinning on the shaft - they can do that. In which case get rid of it and fit a standard 250K tone control, and the guitar will sound better!

If it's not actually broken and you want to keep it - to find out what it does or for originality reasons - then you can jam a bit of cut-down pick into the shaft slot, put a small piece of tape around it, and the knob should grip it well enough to turn it.

You can also make it much better-sounding - although more limited in function - simply by cutting the resistor (do it right at the pot terminal, so it can be re-soldered easily if you ever want to, leave it attached at the pot casing end and just bend it slightly out of the way), which will give you a true standard tone control below the notch and a simple 1M (near enough no-load) above it.

Rabs

Ok many thank @ICBM ;; .. I knew asking on here would be a good idea   I will ask the owner if he used it or cares about it and will probably just replace it..  Nice one  cheers   

Funkfingers

If the guitar owner hopes for increased treble from the bridge pickup, there is an argument for either a Fender 250k "No-Load" tone pot or, possibly, a decent quality regular A500k pot (à la DiMarzio).

Rabs

Funkfingers said:

If the guitar owner hopes for increased treble from the bridge pickup, there is an argument for either a Fender 250k "No-Load" tone pot or, possibly, a decent quality regular A500k pot (à la DiMarzio).

Cheers   

ICBM

The no-load pot would be the way to go - even then, the difference between no load and 250K up full is relatively subtle. 500K would make a tiny difference, barely noticeable.

Or just remove the link wire on the switch so the bridge position has no tone control at all, as God intended .