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Joined:
December 2004
Posts: 65
Location: Phoenix | …Pickup selector switch and volume pots on my Tornado were getting rough. Time to spray some Deoxit in there I figure. So I reach for the first top hat knob on the volume pots…hey why won’t it pull off? Man, did somebody put glue on it? Let me pull harder…oh fudge, the skirt on the knob broke! Multiple expletives when the knob finally came off—and I noticed the set screw! What? Since when have top hat knobs had set screws? You mean all I had to do was loosen a simple set screw? Curses.
So now I have pulled the entire wiring harness out, pots and pickups and switch and all. Wow this is weird. The pots are on a brass channel, and the pickups plug into a 1/8” plug on each brass channel. Pots are miniature square body, and what’s these two resistors in there (besides the tone cap).
I’m awfully tempted to just go to a standard Gibson style instead, with four CTS pots and pickups and everything hard soldered to the pots. Then standard pull-off top hat knobs for a ES335 since finding an original,Ovation knob ain’t likely. The set on EBay at the moment listed as for a Tornado do not match my guitar and I am quite certain mine is original. |
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Joined:
October 2012
Posts: 1091
Location: Yokohama, Japan | Oh man. Don’t you hate when that happens! Add some alcohol (not to the guitar) to the scenario for some real guitar carnage! All joking aside, there’s a set of Tornado top hat knobs on E-bay right now (kind of steep though!) at the following link…
https://ebay.us/m/5ISMzM
Not sure if that’s what you need, but hope you can find a good fix for your predicament! Good luck!
Edited by arumako 2025-08-17 4:13 AM
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Joined:
December 2004
Posts: 65
Location: Phoenix | I saw that set on EBay but they don’t match what’s on there: the EBay set doesn’t have the words VOL and TONE, they don’t seem to have a set screw, and the indicator marks are missing.
I looked on Google and some pictures of the Tornado match exactly what I have, but many others seem to have replacement knobs. Doesn’t seem to affect the price terribly. The real question for me then: try to duplicate the small pots (8mm mounting bushing, small body) that are in there and rebuild the existing setup, or just ream out the mounting holes and go with standard 1” pots like we find on a ES335 with the pickups soldered directly to the pot lugs, rather than using the existing plug-in scheme. If this were a really collectible guitar, I’d keep what’s there, but even though it’s a very nice guitar, this isn’t so collectible that I’m not sure that jumping through hoops to preserve the smallest detail is warranted. Good working controls (that still look good) are more important. |
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Joined:
December 2004
Posts: 65
Location: Phoenix | Ok, just in case someone searches for “Ovation Tornado volume and tone pots”…the existing setup had 250k pots (since these blade pickups are Schaller-made Hofner 513 single-coils) and .022 cap. Existing volume pot was likely linear taper (had a 100k resistor to emulate a log taper) and the tone was IMHO unnecessarily complicated. I removed the existing vol/tone assemblies still in their brass U-channels and set them aside as-is. I clipped off the plugs on the pickup wires to store with the old vol/tone assemblies. Fortunately there’s plenty of wire available. Then I used Alpha metric pots with an M8 bushing (rather than larger CTS) so I only had to ream the existing holes out slightly. (I advise a hand reamer, NOT a twist drill bit!). Vol pot 250k, audio taper. Tone pot 250k, linear taper. .022 tone cap. Wired them in the Gibson 50’s wiring configuration. Used dental floss to pull them back up through their holes. Note: use long bushing pots, standard length won’t quite give enough room for nut to thread on. Guitar now sounds great, no wonky pots. Good balanced sound, not too bright nor too dull. By the way, I consider pots (and other components like electrolytic capacitors) to be “consumables” just like strings. There’s no mojo in defective, damaged or out-of-tolerance components, no matter what certain online “experts” claim. Shucks, even Martin owners have come to realize their cherished vintage guitars need a neck reset… |
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Don’t work on stuff when sleep-deprived (Tornado woes)
