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I think ICBM mentioned the other day rewiring a tone control to use the bridge pickup as opposed to middle or neck.
You could also change the pickups from parallel to series?
My trading feedback: https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/210335/yorkie
Choose one of the pots to become Master Tone. Disconnect the wire on the selector switch that feeds a signal to that pot. Reconnect that wire to whichever of the common/collector terminals is easier to reach without straining the cable.
The second tone pot could be repurposed or it could be left out of circuit just to occupy the hole in the pickguard.
Great fun, but I realised I'm a neck or bridge kinda strat guy. Make me an offer if you fancy it.
https://sixstringsupplies.co.uk/pages/stratocaster-blend-control
If you're going to do a series mod I would do it with the middle pickup not the bridge, so you get bridge/middle in series and neck/middle in series as the two 'end' settings. If you then reverse the phase of the neck pickup you get Brian May's two most-used sounds...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/89942/caspercaster#latest
Realistically i know it's not such a bother to source a no-load pot. Cheap as well. Just that my first preference has been to explore what I can do with what I've already got. Now that I know a 250k pot is also fine as a blend control, I'm relieved!
Just out of curiosity - why do people insist on a no-load pot as a blend? What advantages does it have over a 250k?
The original Strat wiring is very close to perfect though, partly by design and partly by accident since the in-between sounds were never intended. A minor tweak to the cap values - I prefer .1uF for the neck but .05 for the middle, which you can do with two .1s in series (one replacing the link between the pots) and connecting the bridge pickup to the middle tone makes it even closer. You can also simulate .022uF for the bridge if you want, by using a .047 cap for the link on the switch.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
In principal a no-load pot is technically better for a blend control, compared to a regular pot. However, with a regular Strat I can't really hear anything happen until the blend is turned down from 10 to about 6. This implies that although some tiny amount of signal may pass the pot at 10, it's imperceptible. With a no-load pot categorically no signal can pass the pot at 10, hence why it is superior in principal (but perhaps not in practice).
Going beyond the scope of the original post (no new components), my biggest problem with the blend control is that for me it works backwards - no blend at 10 and full blend at zero. Ideally I would use a reverse taper pot such that there would be no blend at zero. For greater resolution I'd also desire a pot with a smaller value than 250K, but modded to be a no-load pot (easy to do; loads of videos on the net). I'd guess either a 50K or 100K reverse taper pot modded to no-load might work best for me, but I haven't tried it.
Regarding the blend pot working backwards, another thought/potential solution might be to use the redundant side of the 5-way switch to feed a second volume pot dedicated as a blend. So, master volume with paralleled master tone; 1st wafer of 5-way switch wired for pickup selection with the common to the master volume. 2nd wafer of the switch with diagonal jumpers to neck and bridge selections of the 1st wafer (e.g. neck available on 2nd wafer when bridge is selected on the 1st wafer, and vice versa), and the common from the 2nd wafer of the switch sent to the spare tone control (not a no-load), where that spare tone control is actually wired as a volume control. The output of this is then paralleled with the output of the switch/ input to the master volume. I've not tried it, but I think the pot values might need looking at as two volumes would effectively be stacked in series (a bit like on some Gretsch guitars). Anyway, that's enough thinking aloud for now!
http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/89942/caspercaster#latest