Drew's ES-5V first (ish) build

[blinddrew]

Question for the assembled experts:
Is it worth upgrading the standard pots if I'm not going to be changing the pick-up? (budget will probably extend to the former but not the latter)
If so, any suggestions on what I should be looking for?
Thanks
Drew

[Simon Barden]

If so, any suggestions on what I should be looking for?

Don't ask Bono.

As you can fit them through the pickup hole rather than the F-hole, I'd go for standard sized pots. CTS, Bourns or Alpha. 500K is normal for P90s, audio taper for volume, linear or audio taper for tone. Linear gives a smoother response on tone, whilst audio can be is lot more abrupt in tonal change.

If your knobs are the push-on type, then you'll need split shaft pots. If grub-screw type then solid shafts. Split shafts come in two types, with 20 or 24 splines. You need to know the number of matching splines in your knob. Get them mis-matched and they knob won't fit on the shaft properly, so start counting!

Then you get long or short shaft pots. Short shaft ones are the normal ones for pickguard mounted pots (like on Strats), whilst long shafted ones are often used on guitars like Les Pauls with rear control cavities and several mm of wood between the cavity and the top. You'd be safer with long shafted pots, especially with full-sized pots and a curved top, but you may need to use some spacing washers in order to not have too much of the shaft poking out of the body.