Pretty straight forward at this point. There are two different potentiometers used on the Black Strat, one being the volume potentiometer and the other are for the tone potentiometers. To some, this might not matter, but it is still important to recognize the differences to really qualify your build to be "faithful."
The first Potentiometer is a Guitar Electronics Precision CTS Flat-Back 250K Audio Taper Potentiometer, designed to have a tolerance of ± 5%. This has the split shaft, used for installing the plastic knobs used on Stratocasters. This will be used as the Volume control, as seen on the real Black Strat, so having a Potentiometer with the appropriate value will help me in playability and performance. Don't forget that the 1/8" pickguard does add to length when it comes to using a standard 1/4" shaft Potentiometer. This Guitar Electronics CTS Potentiometer has a 3/8" shaft, which will give me enough to go through the pickguard and to hold down the second selector switch too!
The second Potentiometer used are the standard CTS Vintage Dimple Case 3/8" brass split shaft 250K Audio Taper Potentiometer with a ±10% tolerance. These are pretty standard to the majority of all Stratocasters, except that standard Potentiometers use a 1/4" shaft, not a 3/8". These Potentiometers were purchased from WD Music, and I got two to use for the Tone Potentiometers. I opted for the ± 10% tolerance, since Genuine Fender Potentiometers have a tolerance of about ±20%, some almost as high as 35%! The purpose of a Potentiometer is to set you to a specific point, have a tolerance of up to 35% really puts you in the grey area.
Okay then, how do we get access to all this tone control! There was a part that Fender somewhat caught on that most guitarists used to fiddle around with... Well how about the Selector Switch? How about a 3-way Selector Switch! Yeahh, i'm talking old school switching over here. We'll see why this was used rather than the conventional 5-way, or maybe it's the other way around?
David Sarmiento
