ShortScale.org

I'm about to change out the pickups on my fanciest, most expensive guitar, my Aerodyne Tele. Probably the fanciest, most expensive guitar I'll ever own.

Part of the change is going to mean adding two push pull pots in place of the current pots. I've bought some CTS ones, because fuckit, it's my fancy guitar and I'm up for using only the fanciest, most expensive stuff on it.

The issue is that they are imperial, so they don't quite fit through the metric holes on the body.

For some reason I feel squeamish about opening up the holes on this. Anyone else feel this way or have any thoughts?

I'm not sure if you're asking how but if you are. I like to use a round file and just turn it counterclockwise alternating from front to back until the opening is wide enough to accommodate the pot. Everything stays centered and looks clean.

Oh yeah, I've done it plenty of times before on other things (when making knives, for instance).

I suppose what I'm asking is, am I being silly for not wanting to do this imperceptibly small alteration on a nice guitar? I think I want to be told "yes, you're being silly, go ahead and enlarge the holes."

It bugs me that it's a "mod" that can't be returned to absolute stock.

Completely get where you’re coming from, but the only real reason to worry about it is if you think you’ll sell the guitar. Even then, probably makes little difference if it’s done well.

Buy republican Alpha metric pots instead. There's no real difference I suspect. I read several years ago that CTS pots quality isn't any better these days

There was this boutique guitar maker Anderson who principally installed alpha pots in his 3-4k guitars claiming that CTS pots were terribly inconsistent