Some of you ETSG members may remember this thread from there, but I decided to post here as well. This depicts my rewiring of my HB-30 for new pots and caps. Hopefully, it benefits someone here.
I wanted to rewire my Washburn HB-30 for 50's wiring. That, and this guitar originally had 250K pots and .033 uF capacitors. I decided to get 500K, audio taper Bourns pots. I chose Bourns as many comments I've read speak highly of the quality of the construction and the usable taper. Since the F-holes on the HB-30 are somewhat slender and narrower than a Gibson ES-335, I had to get mini-pots, as well.
While I was picking stuff out online, I decided on some .022 mF caps.
Anyway, the pictures below document the process:
First, I made a template of the hole layout. Here's the template with just the pots installed. The abbreviations NV, NT, BV, and BT stand for Neck Volume, Neck Tone, Bridge Volume, and Bridge Tone.
Here's the template wired up, and ready for connection to the guitar. You can also see the wire enclosed in clear heat shrink that makes a common ground on all the pots.
The Bourns pots have a larger boss than the other pots I had, so I had to drill the holes slightly larger. This pic shows how I taped the holes prior to drilling to minimize wood flaking. I've removed the tape from one hole after the drilling so you can see how nicely it worked.
The Bourns pots definitely do seem well-built.
I apologize for the messed up color. I was in my garage and the flash didn't go off on my camera.
Since the HB-30 has it's pickup switch on the upper bout, like a Les Paul, the neck volume and tone are moved quite a bit forward. Because of this, I can get the volume pots in pretty easily. But the tone controls can be tricky. So, I used some aquarium tubing on the tone pot shafts to pull the tone pots into place. Then I worked the volume pots in by hand. This pic shows just before I worked the tubing up through the F-holes and onto the tone pot shafts.
BTW, you can see an "Oops" in this picture. A washer for one of the pots fell through the F-hole. You can see it laying on the bottom of the guitar! Yes, I got it out.
Here it is all done.
I wanted to rewire my Washburn HB-30 for 50's wiring. That, and this guitar originally had 250K pots and .033 uF capacitors. I decided to get 500K, audio taper Bourns pots. I chose Bourns as many comments I've read speak highly of the quality of the construction and the usable taper. Since the F-holes on the HB-30 are somewhat slender and narrower than a Gibson ES-335, I had to get mini-pots, as well.
While I was picking stuff out online, I decided on some .022 mF caps.
Anyway, the pictures below document the process:
First, I made a template of the hole layout. Here's the template with just the pots installed. The abbreviations NV, NT, BV, and BT stand for Neck Volume, Neck Tone, Bridge Volume, and Bridge Tone.
Here's the template wired up, and ready for connection to the guitar. You can also see the wire enclosed in clear heat shrink that makes a common ground on all the pots.
The Bourns pots have a larger boss than the other pots I had, so I had to drill the holes slightly larger. This pic shows how I taped the holes prior to drilling to minimize wood flaking. I've removed the tape from one hole after the drilling so you can see how nicely it worked.
The Bourns pots definitely do seem well-built.
I apologize for the messed up color. I was in my garage and the flash didn't go off on my camera.
Since the HB-30 has it's pickup switch on the upper bout, like a Les Paul, the neck volume and tone are moved quite a bit forward. Because of this, I can get the volume pots in pretty easily. But the tone controls can be tricky. So, I used some aquarium tubing on the tone pot shafts to pull the tone pots into place. Then I worked the volume pots in by hand. This pic shows just before I worked the tubing up through the F-holes and onto the tone pot shafts.
BTW, you can see an "Oops" in this picture. A washer for one of the pots fell through the F-hole. You can see it laying on the bottom of the guitar! Yes, I got it out.
Here it is all done.
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