after several experimentation with my american std strat, changing pickups etc...
i rewired the american std with its stock pickups. well, it had an annoying nasally tone.
it wasnt very noticable, however it was there, cleans were unusable.
tweaks of pedals, eqs etc would semi fix the problem, but the tone was that of very cheap pickups.
so i had posted on the forum a question, if pots could get damaged?
several answered pots could take alot of heat. nik even took out the blow torch and torched the pot to prove that theyre built like tanks.
well searched for pickups to replace the std pus, then a new form user had an interesting post that made think and decide to try to fix this strat once and for all.
so i had a new 250 k cts fender pot and took my time to replace the pot.
then rewired the strat back and viola, tone restored.

i believe i had a cold solder somewhere and the pot was fine, but still replaced it did a pretty clean solder job at that too.
i wish i had taken pics to show.

thanks umpdv50000, for indirectly encouraging me to try to fix it.

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"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

oogway, kungfu panda 2008

Fender pots ( and other manuf pots) have not the same vallue for 250 k. Some could be 200k or 300k.

Same for the 500 k pots

Yeah you get a slight varying of values. Cold solder's can do weird things to your sound.
Myself, I like a 300k volume pot. Minimal difference of 50k makes just enough of a difference. I find it to be a very nice value to use with HSS guitars.

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No no and no

im by no means experienced at soldering techniques, but i realised what i may have done wrong the 1st time.
i couldnt get the solder on the pot to start melting. so i was heating the solder through the wires, so im sure that was not proper technique.
i guess i could describe the tone as not full, slightly nasally, enough to make a diff in sound.
once i replaced the pot and used "correct" tech. making sure there were no cold solders.
i immediately noticed a major difference, my strat sounded full again.

i may still get a callaham or gfs block to experiment with, to see if there is a difference.

_________________
"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

oogway, kungfu panda 2008