Great stuff Marcel. You have saved me writing lots as you have covered it all.

One big question for those more knowledgeable than myself.....

Can anyone explain the differences between CTS, Bourns & Alpha pots and a sensible argument as to which is best.

We should all have a basic understanding of difference between A (Audio taper) & B (Linear taper) plus the 250k vs 500k requirements by now.

Other than price point and the unique way CTS pots look, why would someone overlook Alpha which seem to be the cheapest, Bourns somewhere in the middle, and CTS at the upper end?

I have used mostly Bourns minis as all my guitar builds have had very tight & cramped control cavities or F holes to contend with. On one Tele I chose CTS minis and really liked how easy they were to solder up and on the recently finished ES1 Alphas were used purely based on cost and trying something different to see if in fact there was any discernible difference at all (I couldn't pick any).

On both explorers I used Bourns Push/Pulls and from memory they are minis or maybe only come in the one size, can't remember. Seem to recall one played up and swapped it out only to discover the pickup was faulty instead. If space is tight in the control cavity and you want to do coil splitting I highly recommend the Bourns. They work well, are easy to wire up, and not noisy when switching between HB mode and split. An alternative is mini DPDT switches but that can end up looking messy if there are too many of them.