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Topic: Remington T-8 Tone Pot Question |
Bill Eisele
From:
New Mexico, USA
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Posted 21 Jun 2021 10:54 am |
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Hi All,
I have a recently acquired Remington T-8 that had a noisy tone control pot. I added a couple drops of contact cleaner to the interior of the pot and now I don't have a signal whatsoever. I checked continuity through the remainder of the circuitry and everything seems intact. My guess is that I need to replace the tone control pot. Does anyone know what the correct value is and whether the pot is linear or audio taper? If I thought the pot was functioning I would just clip it out and measure the resistance but I'm guessing that's not the case. The T-8 has three single coil pickups that are pre- Jerry Wallace Truetones. And, if anyone has a schematic of the circuitry that would be great. And, lastly, is there a way to bypass the tone control pot with a jumper somewhere in the circuit that would pinpoint whether the pot is the culprit or not? I tried at the locations that seemed logical to me, but no success.
Thanks! |
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Jeff Highland
From:
New South Wales, Australia
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Posted 21 Jun 2021 11:08 am
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I don't know the circuitry for the remington but if it is a standard tone pot, it is NOT in the circuit between the pickup and output but bleeds off a controlled amount of treble through a capacitor to ground.
Failure of a tone pot can't leave you with no signal, only leave you unable to adjust the treble.
You have probably disturbed something else or shorted the signal to ground somewhere.
_________________
Duesenberg Fairytale
1949 Supro Supreme
1950 National New Yorker
2008 Highland Baritone Weissenborn
2020 Highland New Yorker.
2020 Highland Mohan Veena
2021 Highland Weissencone |
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Bill Eisele
From:
New Mexico, USA
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Posted 21 Jun 2021 11:15 am
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| Thanks for your very helpful insight, Jeff. What you're saying makes sense now. The tone pot does sit off to the side and is not in-line between the pickups and the output. I will continue to look for a break in the circuit or where there is short. Kind of like a rat's nest in there, so difficult to sort out. |
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Bill Eisele
From:
New Mexico, USA
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Posted 21 Jun 2021 11:59 am
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Okay. Found the break in the circuit and I now have a signal when jumpering the break. But the tone pot is still noisy. If anyone knows the value of the pot, please let me know. Otherwise, I will remove it and check its value. At least it's not completely bad, just noisy.
Thanks! |
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G Strout
From:
Carabelle, Florida
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Posted 22 Jun 2021 5:57 pm
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My D8 Remington uses 250k audio taper. Can't see where yours would be different. General rule of thumb in guitar electronics seems to be ...single coil pickups 250k pots Humbuckers 500k pots
_________________
Melbert 8, Remington S8, Silk 6 string, Rick B6, Tremblay 6 lap steel, Marlen S-10 4&4, Prestige Guild M75 and Artist Award, Benedetto Bravo, Epiphone Century Electar (the real one) and a bunch of old lap steels.... mostly Ricks and Magnatones' |
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Bill Eisele
From:
New Mexico, USA
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Posted 22 Jun 2021 7:40 pm
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| Thanks! I will keep that in mind if I need to replace it. Once I got the loose connections resoldered I found out that the tone pot was no longer scratchy sounding. So the contact cleaner must have worked it’s magic while I was troubleshooting and soldering. I really appreciate everyone’s help. |
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Jeff Highland
From:
New South Wales, Australia
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Posted 22 Jun 2021 10:27 pm
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Check that the tone pot etc are mounted tightly. Pots moving around are a common source of broken connections.
_________________
Duesenberg Fairytale
1949 Supro Supreme
1950 National New Yorker
2008 Highland Baritone Weissenborn
2020 Highland New Yorker.
2020 Highland Mohan Veena
2021 Highland Weissencone |
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Bill Eisele
From:
New Mexico, USA
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Posted 22 Jun 2021 10:38 pm
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| Thanks for the tip, Jeff. I did make sure that the pots were mounted securely to the panels before I buttoned everything up. You make an excellent point because the number of signal and ground wires beneath the panels is significant and I noticed that it was easy to short out the signal to ground just by slightly moving the wires around even after repairing the broken connections. A loose pot would definitely do that and pull on the wires to possibly break cold solder joints again. |
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Danny Roy
From:
Calgary Alberta, Canada
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Posted 25 Jun 2021 3:26 am
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| I replaced the tone pot on my Steelmaster T8 with a 1 Meg pot, just like a Stringmaster, and it made a world of difference. I now can get a much wider range of tones between dark and bright, somewhere in the middle being my “neutral†tone. It also gives you a quick response for wah-wah and boo-wah bar slams, but also darkens really nicely for those butter tones. Why a 250k pot was used for a humbucker is a head scratcher for me. Hope this helps. |
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Bill Eisele
From:
New Mexico, USA
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Posted 25 Jun 2021 11:59 am
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| Thanks for the info, Danny! When I was looking up the appropriate value for the Steelmaster tone control pot, I found that the Stringmaster had the 1 Meg pot. Good to know that you can dial in the tone you want with that value of pot. I guess it really comes down to the brightness of the pickups given their DC resistance and how much you want to tame it. I really won’t know the value of the control pot in my Steelmaster T-8 unless it needs to be replaced and I have a chance to measure it outside the circuit. I will report back on the Forum if/when that happens. Oh, and my Steelmaster has single coils so if they are inherently bright like Fender single coils then the 250k ohm pot would make sense. |
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Danny Roy
From:
Calgary Alberta, Canada
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Posted 25 Jun 2021 1:23 pm
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| Oh that’s right, you bought the early version white T8 with singles that was just up for sale. I would have bought it but he wouldn’t ship to Canada. You got a steel of a deal on that one! |
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Bill Eisele
From:
New Mexico, USA
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Posted 25 Jun 2021 2:35 pm
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| Yes, that’s the one. I did get a steel of a deal on it! My friends are making fun of me because it’s a triple neck. And, my back is complaining because of the weight of the console and case. It’s heavy and unwieldy. Packing it up tomorrow to take to a gathering of guitar guys at a house and not looking forward to it. I had a Remington S-8 and an eight string lap steel and I decided to sell them to buy at least a double neck console. I’d say if I ever did sell it to try something else I would probably just consign it because the thought of packing it would be daunting. Tom Campbell did a great job packing it and I don’t know if I could do as good a job. Thanks, Tom! But I will keep you in mind, Danny, if I ever decide to let it go in the future. |
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