Does anyone make a long shaft blend pot?

[aguyinaustintx]

Does anyone make a long shaft blend pot, or a long shaft 3-way that will fit in a hollow carved top Tele? I could use either for pickup selection, but the body will not have a 3-way switch cut out. The holes will be in the "CT Tele 3 Control" configuration. A mockup of the guitar build is attached.

 

[BigSteve22]

Damn, that looks nice! You have those parts on order?  ???

Sorry, I can't help with the parts question, but I just had to comment on the mock-up.....

 

[TBurst Std]

As far as the 3 way, there is no long.  You use a reach nut as Gibby has on every LP

 

[aguyinaustintx]

Damn, that looks nice! You have those parts on order?  ???

Sorry, I can't help with the parts question, but I just had to comment on the mock-up.....

Thanks for the compliment! I'm hoping the guitar looks as nice as the mockup. Yes, everything has been ordered. The Koa top imaged in the mockup comes from the W image of the top I selected. My avatar has an example of the wood pickup covers from an earlier W build. This one is a few months from being finished. I will definitely post the results.

 

[rgand]

I'm sure it will look even better than the mockup. All the ones I've done were like that. When you get a real photo, there is so much a mockup can't show. And that mockup is pretty nice.

 

[aguyinaustintx]

Thanks, Mark. You were right -- the 3-way reach nut with the tall Switchcraft is the best bet. The angled switch won't work, it's threaded section is very short. I'll need to take a little wood off from under the top, between the f-hole and the hole for the switch. That should be doable but nerve wracking! The latest prototype is attached. The neck is real, the body top is from the Warmoth wet photograph, all the hardware added in Photoshop. The neck looks much better in real life, there's chatoyance on the fretboard! The body should too, once it's finished.

 

[aguyinaustintx]

It turned out that long-shaft pots do not fit because there is not enough vertical clearance, and short-shaft pots do not fit because the top is too thick. It's the same story with 3-way switches. I wound up having to countersink the holes from inside. This was tricky, because there's no control cover opening -- the back is completely closed. The details on how this was done are shown in the Koa Tele post under “A Work in Progress”.