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Lordathestrings
Gear Guru
Joined: 01/18/01
Posts: 6,242
Lordathestrings
Gear Guru
Joined: 01/18/01
Posts: 6,242
12/08/2009 2:51 am
While you're planning this out, give some careful thought to bridge height.

If you create a bit of 'layback' by sloping the neck pocket, the bridge will need to be quite a bit higher than if the pocket is parallel with the body. With the neck laid back, the bridge pup will also be set less deeply into the body. Either way of mounting the neck works just fine. Just be sure you know how everything will line up before you cut anything.

Another point to consider is that 1 7/8" body thickness vis your control pots. You will be routing the control pocket to within 1/4" of the front surface to leave material for the pots to mount in. That leaves about 1 5/8". To mount the cover on the back, you will need to rout a lip about 1/4" wide around the edge of the pocket, about 1/8" deep. That leaves about 1 1/2". Plenty of room for ordinary pots. But if you want pots with push/pull switches for Series/Parallel humbucker coil connection, or Phase switching, that may get a bit tight.

The resistance values Razbo gave you are a good starting point for the Volume pots. Be sure to get 'audio taper' pots.

Tone pots shoulf be 'linear taper', and 1 Meg, if you can find 'em. Lower values will do the job, but the 'sweet spot' is usally just below the full-on position, and 1 Meg pots give you better shot at finding it, while scrubbing off less of the treble at the max position. Back in the day, Tone pots were a special type that had an open spot in the resistive track right next to the full-clockwise terminal. This disconnected the tone capacitor completely when the knob was turned up full, so there was no reduction of the treble. Such pots are hard to fing these days, so at the fully clockwise position, that cap is still connected to the circuit through the pot. The more resistance, the less treble reduction. Rolling the pot counterclockwise reduces the resistance between the cap and the pickup, gradually letting the cap drain off more and more of the treble.

Some humbuckers need to have a 1 Meg volume pot in order to 'breathe'. 500 k is a good value to start with, but if you find it sounds a bit dark, try using a 1 Meg pot. Its an easy change, and a lot cheaper than getting different pickups.
Lordathestrings
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