Anyone know what the vintage tone cap value was?

Hi slowride65,

I believe that a .1 uF cap was standard on Fender Strats until about 1970 when they switched to .05 (brighter sound).

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Tone caps were .01µfd up until around 1960, when Fender switched to .022µfd. The current standard value seems to be .047µfd.

I personally favor .022µfd for most of my builds fitted with traditional single-coil pickups.

HTH

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

"Tone caps were .01µfd up until around 1960, when Fender switched to .022µfd. The current standard value seems to be .047µfd."

No, the originals were .1uf -- .01uf is a very low value, .1 is a high value (as far as tone caps are concerned).

High values start passing signal at a lower frequency so they're darker sounding. Low values only begin passing signal beyond a higher frequency so they're brighter sounding.

.1 is the biggest common tone cap and is the darkest sounding, .047 is approx half that and noticeably brighter, .022 is halved again (roughly) and even brighter, .01 is halved again and is very bright (.01 is most associated with neck humbuckers).

Many of the Reissues use the historically correct .1uf caps.

Original is 0.1 microfarad

The Fender Stratocaster Complete guide.... by A.R. Duchossoir

Thx for the info. Now if I can decide which vintage-type pups to use...

'57 reissue pups would seem appropriate, period correct, and they sound awesome.

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Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.