dporto Posted February 27, 2013 Share Posted February 27, 2013 As the title says, the volume pot for the neck pickup on my 339 is scratchy/noisy at the low end of the volume curve. I tried shooting some cleaner (De-oxit 5)in around the shaft of the pot and it helped for a little while, but the pot itself is sealed so I can't get directly to the wiper (as you can in traditional pots) any rec's besides replacing the whole unit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcgruff Posted February 27, 2013 Share Posted February 27, 2013 It's time to replace the entire wiring harness with good quality components from CTS, Bourns, and Switchcraft or equivalent. You'll have to fish it all out anyway so you might as well fix it so it stays fixed. This is also an opportunity to consider some different wiring schemes such as Jimmy Page wiring for coil taps & some other new tones such as series out of phase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted February 27, 2013 Share Posted February 27, 2013 I'm of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school, but if pot cleaner doesn't do it, it doggone may be considered "broke" and time to make a change. I think Mac has a good point on making additional change at the same time on a semi. My guitar? I'd do some research and figure what I wanted that might change/improve what I'm getting at the current time on the piece for my own preferences. Your inclination likely would be for something different from mine, hence my reference to research. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunner Posted February 27, 2013 Share Posted February 27, 2013 Try just rotating it back and forth 25-50 times through the scratchy part. I haven't had a scratchy guitar pot that I recall, but this works quite well on amps. Just last night I was tuning up an old Peavey bass amp and had to work the pot for about 10 minutes but the scratchiness finally went away. BTW you should use a contact cleaner with lubricant on pots, not regular contact cleaner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluemans335 Posted February 28, 2013 Share Posted February 28, 2013 It's not hard to replace a pot or two in a F hole guitar, especially volume pots, as they're in easy reach. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dporto Posted March 1, 2013 Author Share Posted March 1, 2013 It's time to replace the entire wiring harness with good quality components from CTS, Bourns, and Switchcraft or equivalent. You'll have to fish it all out anyway so you might as well fix it so it stays fixed. This is also an opportunity to consider some different wiring schemes such as Jimmy Page wiring for coil taps & some other new tones such as series out of phase. Really? Different wiring scheme? New tones? I don't think so...I just want the volume pot to quiet down when being turned... "Geez - the 339s have only been out for a while, and I thought Epi had started using higher-quality innards, so am a bit surprised at a scratchy pot so soon. Yhea, I've only had it since September '12 - My feelings exactly...i think it should be covered under warantee, but I don't want to go through all the bs "BTW you should use a contact cleaner with lubricant on pots, not regular contact cleaner." Yup, Caig De-oxit D5...look it up The problem isn't the cleaner, it's that I can't get it where it needs to be (on the wiper, not the shaft) Thanks for the replies! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcgruff Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 Really? Different wiring scheme? New tones? I don't think so...I just want the volume pot to quiet down when being turned... The reasoning is that you have to pull it all out anyway to get at the faulty pot so why not replace the components with quality parts so you never have to do that again. Less trouble in the long run. Warranty isn't a great deal of use if they're just going to use cheap parts again. I forgot you already have coil taps on the 339. Series out of phase can be a cool sound though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dporto Posted March 1, 2013 Author Share Posted March 1, 2013 Yhea, I understand where you're coming from (and it does make sense in some twisted sort of way )but I LIKE the guitar just how it is - I don't want to change it - I just want the neck volume pot to work quietly... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dporto Posted March 1, 2013 Author Share Posted March 1, 2013 Then the obvious short answer is to replace that one pot with a high-quality component. But like with many Epiphones, if one goes, the rest are sure to follow sooner or later, and since the job is more labor-intensive with a semi-hollow, a completely new control assembly is worthy of consideration. It of course depends on how much money you want to spend and/or work you want to put into it at present. I think I'll give it one more shot by removing the pot so I can get the cleaner where it belongs on the wiper of the pot(I was hoping to get lucky by just shooting it in at the shaft junction). Should this fail, I'll consider doing the whole harness but probably won't unless the other components start to give me trouble. A good quality 500k push/pull pot goes for about $9.00 from Stew-Mac...Too bad, I just ordered a bunch of other stuff and forgot about the scratchy pot... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amx05462 Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 i think youll have much better luck with the pot out of the guitar shootng down the shaft is hit or miss and most likely the majority of the cleaner went along the edge of the can instead of on the contact where you intended it to go. if you get no results at that point id replace it. shouldnt take more than a few minuts since its already out of the guitar. best of luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dporto Posted March 4, 2013 Author Share Posted March 4, 2013 i think youll have much better luck with the pot out of the guitar shootng down the shaft is hit or miss and most likely the majority of the cleaner went along the edge of the can instead of on the contact where you intended it to go. if you get no results at that point id replace it. shouldnt take more than a few minuts since its already out of the guitar. best of luck. Yhea, I popped the pot out Friday night just before running out to a local jam. It took all of 10 minutes start to finish and it worked beautifully. No more scratchy noisy volume changes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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