Old Jazz Bass issues.

[Daryl Kosinski]

I took out the old Jazz bass last week. I really should test the equipment before the gig. The volume seemed low but at the time I didn’t have time to investigate. I finally got around to it yesterday. The bridge control didn’t seem to work. The neck was fine. When the bridge control was all the way up the total volume was cut way back. Backing off the bridge control a little brought the volume back to normal. No signal from the bridge control.

Now it’s time to take it apart and find out why. With my meter I checked the pickups, they were both OK. All the pots checked OK (almost). On the bridge pot there was a resistance between the soldered connection and the rivet holding the terminal to the phenolic. The wiggling just in the checking broke free some of the 50 years of corrosion. All is back to normal.

I will order better quality pots from Newark and rebuild the controls. I will keep the old ones in the case for the collector nut cases when I am dead and gone. Having spent 39 years servicing industrial electronics I am immune to the mystical hype of the electronic challenged.

[David King]

Finding decent replacement pots is a pain. Most of the pots out there are terrible with totally arbitrary tapers. I would try a P.E.C. panel mount pot since you can use that on a J bass. You will probably need to shorten the shaft depending on what you can find.
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/e ... -ND/523421

If you can come up with something better at Newark I'm all ears.

[Daryl Kosinski]

That is a very good choice. Thanks for the Digi-key link I didn't think of them now that I am retired I don't order electronic parts like I did when I was working. When I do play bass I always leave the controls full on so the pots have very little effect on the sound except when they are corroded and full of crud. I may get a new plate from stewmac, mount the new controls, then I would leave the old one intact in the case. Or I could go real cheap and bypass the controls and go directly to the jack. Or do nothing as it works now and I don't see a bass gig in my near future.

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

You might try just cleaning the pots with DeOxit or something similar. I would also run a ground wire across the cases of the 3 pots (if there isn't one there) to the sleeve lug on the output jack. If your plate is rusty enough to make you want to replace it, the grounding by contact might be a little flaky as well.