How To Rig Up a Strat Capacitor Test Jig on Your Strat

millstap Guide 2 years ago

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If you feel like testing your bag of caps, this is an easy way to do it. Don't ever spend more than $6.50 (Mojotone Vitamin T Paper-in Oil) for a Strat tone capacitor. Even the Fender Custom Shop uses run of the mill cheap caps in their builds. The capacitance value is the most important factor in your decision, .022 uF to .1 uF is the common range. In this video, I decided on the .047uF Mojotone Vitamin T because it did have an overall good tone and touch sensitivity. I finally realized that the capacitor will bleed a very slight, almost imperceptible, amount of signal to ground even when the tone potentiometers are full up at 10. This is where capacitor construction (i.e. ceramic, film in foil, polyester, and paper in oil) could be a factor as well as capacitance value. When everything is on 10, you want your Strat to sound its best. I "seemed" to notice a slight improvement in touch sensitivity with the Mojotone PIO cap. This is why my thumbnail says "and get completely confused." I sat there for about an hour trying every cap and had a difficult time discerning the difference in capacitor construction. The capacitance value is very noticeable.

NOTE: When I tested my vintage 1964 Strat ceramic disc, 50X .1, with my Sprague Tel-Ohmike TO-5, it leaked like a sieve. So don't go buying vintage caps when they are most likely leaky pieces of junk. The interesting thing is it worked so I am not sure how important the integrity of the cap is when bleeding off frequencies. It's main purpose is to block DC voltage and the guitar signal going through the cap is an AC signal.