Left handed Strat: changing pots

[DougMen]

Oh, the taper? Really? You want a left handed taper? On your pot? Wow. I never would have thought that that was really a thing. Sorry for belittling your quest. I understand now. Wow.
As someone who never turns his volume down and doesnt use tone controls, (we exist!) All I can say is 'pick your battles' on a Squier??!!
I submit that you should spend more time writing and practicing and, you know, PLAYING the guitar instead of worrying about a left handed taper on your pots.
Its the NOTES that count. I'M SO outta here!

Some people are left handed and play left handed guitars! Duh! You seem to be the one that needs help understanding simple concepts such as that. How accomplished a player can you be if you don't even know how to use the volume and tone controls on your guitar to enhance your playing, since you seem to think you know so much more about playing that all of us simpletons here. Grow up!

 

[AllroyPA]

Alright all you repair snoots in this thread just calm yourself down and realize not everyone is as smart as you are ...

 

[Uncle Ralph]

There ARE left handed pots, they are called "reverse audio taper" or anti-log pots. It's actually good to know Allparts has them. You probably need to swap the wires going to pins one and three of the pot (compared to what it was). That should make it make sense rotationally.

 

[DougMen]

There ARE left handed pots, they are called "reverse audio taper" or anti-log pots. It's actually good to know Allparts has them. You probably need to swap the wires going to pins one and three of the pot (compared to what it was). That should make it make sense rotationally.

We've already gone over that, as explained by @Slacker G. It's just that some people call them "left handed pots". It's only on log/audio taper pots where it matters, because linear taper are the same in both directions, so only swapping the outer lugs is necessary.
We're talking about the same thing, just using different terms.

 

[Rollmeaway]

It seems every one got the idea. We are looking at the bottom of the pots when talking about wiring. As in every wiring diagram I have seen.

I don't have first hand experience on this. Just explanations from left handed Strat players. They all say the same thing. If you wire a lefty guitar with right hand pots, and ground the right hand lug on the volume pot, the pot will work correctly when you turn it clockwise. But, for a left handed player this is not intuitive. The lefty friend I am trying to help wants to be able to hook his pinky finger under the knob and pull up, CCW, like us right hand players.

Now, every single forum I have been to that has lefty players most want CCW to increase. (volume, tone) that makes it much easier for them to control the pot. And if you ground the left hand lug on a right hand pot, it will work CCW but somewhat wonky. No taper. Almost wide open to nothing. This is what they say.

The thing is, that it is all over the place. Very confusing. Look at the fender website. First look at the Mexican lefty Strats. The numbers on the knobs are arranged in clockwise order. Just like a right hand guitar. This means they cheaped out when they made them and just used the right hand pots they had in stock.

Then look at the American made lefty Strat. The knobs have the numbers Counter Clockwise! These guitars are using lefty or reverse taper/log audio pots. There is a reason why CTS, Bournes and Alpha make reverse taper log pots. So lefty's have the same playing experience as right handers. A right hand pot wired lefty will not work the same as a right hand pot wired for a righty.

So say all the left hand players I encountered in the last few months.

And yes they do make knobs with the numbers that increase CCW. Just search.

I just replaced the vol. pot on my lefty partscaster......looking at the back of the pot (installed on the pickguard) the right lug goes to the switch, the middle from the output jack and on the left side, solder to the case to complete the circuit.
The old one was intermittent turning the vol down so I changed it.......here is the old one:
View attachment 257179

^this is correct for a reverse taper log pot. It's easy to remember ground the right lug on a right hand guitar and ground the left lug on a left handed pot in a left handed guitar

There ARE left handed pots, they are called "reverse audio taper" or anti-log pots. It's actually good to know Allparts has them. You probably need to swap the wires going to pins one and three of the pot (compared to what it was). That should make it make sense rotationally.

Yup...

 

[Rollmeaway]

That makes perfect sense. After all, any pot has a carbon track with terminals at both ends and a wiper that travels across the carbon track. If the wiper on a 250k pot in in the center, it's 125k from there to either end. The wiper doesn't know or care how the other two lugs are wired.
I feel like a fool for buying into the BS I read online from several "experts" that claimed that you somehow had to have a reverse taper pot to have the correct smooth taper, because that's impossible with a linear taper pot (because both would be identical), but could very well be true with an audio taper pot. I don't know enough about their construction to say one way or the other.

Correct. It doesn't matter in a linear pot. But the lefty players know that it does matter on an audio pot. That is, if you want the taper on your lefty guitar to not be an on/off switch.

Think about how we right hand players do volume swells. We wrap our pinky around the knob and pull up. This turns the volume up with a CW motion. Keeping our picking hand over the strings.

Now think about flipping your guitar over to a lefty point of view. To increase volume, the would wrap their left pinky finger under the knob and pull up CCW, but also keeping their picking hand over the strings.

Now as I have said before, if you learned on a lefty guitar that was wired right handed, you would have learned that CW increases and you adapted that way. That would be the way you want your guitar wired.

I had a specific request to help an old Army buddy build his first partscaster. He wants CCW increase with audio/log taper pots. To do this you must have reverse audio/log taper pots. They are indeed a real thing. So says Fender support, so says the tech guy at Sweetwater who pointed me to the Allparts.com site and said that's where they get them when they need them. There's gotta be some leftys on this forum that have a preference, one way or another. Or some experience with this issue.

Original Fender Stratocaster Wiring Diagrams

Complete listing of original Fender Stratocater guitar wiring diagrams in PDF format. To view or download a diagram, click the download link to the right.

guitarelectronics.com

Here is the Fender owners manual page for almost every production Strat they made. With wiring diagrams included. Left hand guitars and right hand guitars. PDF files...

Now, I have to wait for my friend to wire up the harness I put together and see if it works properly.

 

[Rollmeaway]

You can't just say right/middle or left/middle without defining which was you're looking at it. Is it looking at it with the lugs facing down or up, because right then becomes left, and vice versa, depending on the orientation.

You are correct again. I should have said "when looking at the bottom of the pots".

 

[Rollmeaway]

You can't delete accidents anymore, hmm...

 

[Rollmeaway]

I have a left handed monkey wrench for sale cheap

I might take you up on that. It will go with my left handed screwdriver and hammer.

 

[Rollmeaway]

Are there lefty knobs? Otherwise, when wired properly for a lefty, then 1 would be maximum and 10 would be minimum on the knob when turned counter-clockwise to increase and clockwise to decrease.

Yea, there is a good selection of reverse knobs. I did a quick search and found at least five vendors. Amazon, eBay, and Fender sell them, among others.

 

[Bluesman13]

thanks for all the info. It never occured to me on a right handed guitar, the knobs turn CCW to increase. I always thought when I bought a left handed guitar and the knobs turned CCW to increase (with limited effect), that that was the result of reversing the gnd lugs on the pot. I've always sought pot that increase CW it just seemed intuitive to me that they work that way. I've recently found CCW pots that are marketed as "left handed pots" (meaning that the pot has a full sweep while turning CCW. What a disservice to leftys, I thought. And I just had an AHA moment that right handed guitar pots turn CCW to increase. All these years, how stupid I feel. All this time, I could've been buying CCW analog taper pots and installing them on my left handed guitar. thanks to everyone for their input on this thread...

 

[Bluesman13]

nix that post above. It is incorrect.

 

[AllroyPA]

nix that post above. It is incorrect.

I think we understand what you were getting at, it's just the righty players turn CW & us lefty's desire CCW action on proper pots ... reverse taper I believe they are called

 

[Bluesman13]

to be honest, I want the knobs on my lefty guitar to turn CW to increase, but with a full sweep of either vol or tone, the same way a right handed guitar works, or a vol knob on an amp, or the way the top tightens on a jar of peanut butter. Since my first left handed guitar had CCW turning knobs that were right handed knobs wired in reverse, I figured that that was the choices available. Now I realize that I want right handed (CW) turning knobs wired as a righty that preserves a full sweep - that's just me though - if you're lefty and want your knobs to CCW to increase with a fully functioning vol/tone knob, get reverse taper pots (aka "lefty pots") but if you're like me and want a CW turning knob with a full sweep, use righty pots in your lefty guitar and wire them as is done for a righty pot (i.e. don't reverse the outside lugs of the pot).