Short-shaft or long-shaft pots for rear routed tele?

[ragamuffin]

Hi all, I'll be ordering a rear routed tele body in the near future and I was wondering if short shaft pots will work. Does a rear routed body need long shaft pots? It's going to be a flat top body, not carved top.

Also, does anyone have an opinion on who makes the best pots? I was thinking of using a pair of the  Emerson specced CTSs

Thanks!

 

[Logrinn]

Short shafted should suffice.

About pots, I wrote this in another thread:
http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=27624.msg391811#msg391811
and
http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=27624.msg391838#msg391838

 

[ragamuffin]

Short shafted should suffice.

About pots, I wrote this in another thread:
http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=27624.msg391811#msg391811
and
http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=27624.msg391838#msg391838

Thanks a lot! I thought I remembered reading about those Bourns pots on here, I might have to give them a shot. Where's the best place to buy them from?

 

[Nando Vallart]

On my tele needed long shaft

 

[mayfly]

On my tele needed long shaft

Ditto.  Sorry to disagree, but I think you should go with the long shaft

 

[Kostas]

...does anyone have an opinion on who makes the best pots? I was thinking of using a pair of the  Emerson specced CTSs

Emerson pots have ±8% resistance tolerance. These are guaranteed to be 250k or a little higher. Mine were matched & measured at 261k, I used short shaft for my rear routed tele.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/CTS-True-250k-SOLID-SHAFT-Quality-Audio-Taper-Potentiomer-Tested-250K-or-Higher-/231192570613?

 

[ragamuffin]

Hmm, thanks for the replies guys, it seems there's a bit of a discrepancy here.  I have some cheap short shafts lying around, so maybe I'll wait till I have the body and see if those fit before buying some nicer ones.

It's going to be a p90 guitar (just snagged a pair of Roadhouse True Blues, can't wait to hear them), so I think I'll be using 500k pots.

 

[Cagey]

You can almost always use long shaft pots in place of the short shaft version. You just set the lock nut up a bit off the pot body so it doesn't protrude out the front as far.

 

[ragamuffin]

You can almost always use long shaft pots in place of the short shaft version. You just set the lock nut up a bit off the pot body so it doesn't protrude out the front as far.

That's a good point Cagey! Unfortunately in the case of the Bourns 95 pots I was looking at, the long shaft cost almost twice as much :sad1:

 

[Cagey]

The way I try to see it is it usually only costs a little bit more to go 1st class, and you're rarely sorry. A typical Warmoth build runs between $900 and $2000. In the grand scheme of things, I wouldn't think $20 for pots instead of $10 would be a deal-breaker. Besides, pots take a beating. You really don't want to cheap out on them, or you'll be replacing the little rascals early. That's more than twice as much work as doing it right in the first place.

 

[ragamuffin]

The way I try to see it is it usually only costs a little bit more to go 1st class, and you're rarely sorry. A typical Warmoth build runs between $900 and $2000. In the grand scheme of things, I wouldn't think $20 for pots instead of $10 would be a deal-breaker. Besides, pots take a beating. You really don't want to cheap out on them, or you'll be replacing the little rascals early. That's more than twice as much work as doing it right in the first place.

Wise words. While I always look for the best price, everything else on this guitar is going to be top-shelf (Warmoth, Hipshot, Roadhouse pups), so a few more bucks for good pots can't hurt. As long as everything works out this should be my main guitar for a long time.

 

[Bob Hoover Ross]

This may be self-evident, but based on my recent experience with a rear-routed Warmoth body the critical dimension isn't the length of the shaft per se, but rather of the threaded collar. And you definitely want that to be longer rather than shorter.

 

[ragamuffin]

This may be self-evident, but based on my recent experience with a rear-routed Warmoth body the critical dimension isn't the length of the shaft per se, but rather of the threaded collar. And you definitely want that to be longer rather than shorter.

Alright thanks, I think I'll go with the long shaft to be safe

 

[vinlander]

I put short staffs CTS in my latest rear routed tele build but that was a bit limit, not much thread was protruding but I could make it work.
For anyone reading that thread in the future, as the others suggested, go with the long ones