Tom Bradshaw | Pedal Steel Guitar Products | SGHOF | PSGP | Restorations | Strings | Bars

Products: Potentiometers

Dunlop "Type J" Potentiometer
Price: $25.00 including shipping.

Basic Truths: The quality of the popular brands of Allen Bradley and Clerostat deteriorated in recent years. That forced me to find another potentiometer that measured up to the quality demanded by our military when the "Type J" pots were originally manufactured. In my estimation, the Dunlop pot exceeds the quality of the older Type J pots. It provides a million revolutions of trouble-free performance. The only way to test my claim, short of asking the hundreds of purchasers who have bought them from me, is to do the following. Install a new Dunlop pot in your pedal and set your amp volume to a reasonable level with your volume pedal at full volume. Play your guitar some, then promptly plug your guitar directly into your amp and play some more. There should be virtually no difference in volume and tone between the two tests! If you do this and don't like the sound from your pedal, return the pot and I'll reimburse you for all your costs. As yet, no one has done this. Shaft length of the Dunlop pot: One inch, but can be cut to desired length if necessary.

A "Dying" Pot: A volume pot will "die" slowly or it will "die" fast. If it dies fast you know it because you hear scratchiness in the output sound from your guitar and you can't make it go away by "pumping" the pedal several times. It has "died" if it develops dead spots in it: when the output signal from your guitar has breaks (no volume at all) in it.

A "slow-dying" pot is one that begins producing a "scratchy" noise in it when you first begin to use it, whether you play your guitar through it or not. Your efforts at "pumping" the pedal for about 5 seconds can eliminate the scratchy sound or reduce it significantly. You tend to believe you have corrected the problem, but it returns each time after a break in your playing. You repeat the pumping exercise, but the noise always returns and takes a bit longer to get rid of it with each pumping routine. Using various chemicals sprays inside the pot to rid the scratchiness also works for awhile on a "slow-dying" pedal, but the scratchiness always returns.

When the "slow-dying" begins, it is wise to get a replacement pot to have on hand, because you are eventually going to get tired of "pumping" the pedal, and in time the pot will truly die.

Good Advice: You should always have an extra pot on hand in case of a breakdown of the pot in your foot volume pedal. When you do get around to replacing the old pot, you will likely discover that with a Dunlop pot, your sound will be truer than the pot you had in your pedal before.

My pots come with complete installation instructions. Tom

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