HELP my tone pot doesnt work

ok heres the story i bought an ibanez jem a year ago and i swear to god the tone pot does nothing to effect the tone. is this normal? i thought nothing of it till i started to get good now i hate not being able to switch it. What do i need to fix this?? im assuming a strat pot, but what specs. and will it be hard to wire, ive done pickups and pedal mods before

Thanks alot. chris

May be it was dissabled on purpose in your guitar.

Anyway, the tone pot is a potentiometer and a capacitor .. try connecting the circuit again if it's dissabled , or you can buy the components if you did't them inside.

I don't remember the value of te capacitor, but the potentiometer is usualy 500 kohms (like the one in the volume pot).

Have you taken the electrics out and had a look at them ?

It is very easy to switch out and replace pots with new ones if they are not working or crackling.

I recently did this to a strat volume pot (as well as shielding the internal cavity).

Have you checked out stewmac.com ?

They also do a video describing the workings of either a Fender or Gibson type guitar (they are about 10 bucks each). They are very good for people who have never done this type of repair before and a refresher for old hands that think they may be a little rusty.

This thread may also be useful:

http://www.guitartricks.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=4727

i hear the 250k ohms have a sweeter sound but how would it sound with a humbucker? i play almost entirely lead use single coil more than anything. ok whats the difference between the pots at stewmac.com? tone blending and stuff like that

Ibanez typically uses a 250k vol pot and a 500k tone pot, a 250k tone pot would probably sound a little better on the single coil, but might take a bit of the treble off the humbuckers. Take a look at it, someone may have clipped the connection, it's pretty unusaul to get nothing when you turn the pot, you should at least hear some scratches or pops..................

thanks man ill have to check it. Yeah i definately get nothing, no change in tone, no crackling, dead silence. im assuming this is not normal on the jem. i dont see steve vai never changing the tone knob. what exactly should i look for? are we talking wires that are unsoldered or capacitors or what.

thanks

The tone pot should have one tab grounded to the back of the pot, sometimes by a short piece of wire, sometimes the cap is used to make the ground, the middle tab should go to the vol pot, same thing, sometimes a short wire or the cap itself is used, the tone pot connection will be on the same tab of the vol pot as the 5 way switch, just look for something missing or disconnected, a Volt/Ohm meter, a couple of small alligator clips and a short piece of wire are handy to have around for troubleshooting these kind of problems, good luck............