Modded Stratocaster tone knob being weird

[zRobertez]

I have a strat, my only gtar, that I modded over the summer for something similar to the blender pot mod. The knobs now are master vol, master tone (even on the bridge), and blendy knob. The blendy knob mixes in either the neck or bridge pickup depending on which position the selector is in. And with the blendy knob at minimum, it supposedly bypasses the mixed in pickup (you can hear it when it kicks in even just a bit, but theres a diffy)
But recently, the tone knob has been being weird.

For future reference this is bright ---------- to dark tonez
The tone knobs sweep is like this -> 3-10 covers about this much of the spectrum (---)-------
And 1-3 covers about this much ---(-------). And when you get near 1-3, the pot gets all scratchy sounding.
And you have to turn it completely down to get about here ------(--)--
And when its in that area, shaking or playing the guitar sometimes knocks it up to ---(---)----

Any ideas about what's goin on?

I haven't opened it up yet but I will at some point and I can take some pictures and find the wiring diagram I used for the mod but I have to go to class soon so I cant but any help is appreciated!! Thanks, dudes!!

Also, how much does the tone cap thing affect the sound and function and blahblahblah? I noticed last time I had everything opened up, the tone cap was dusty, nasty, ugly, and everything that could look bad about it did. Could the cap somehow just be running out of miles. It's like 20 years old.

[dubkitty]

it sounds to me like you need either a change to a lower capacitor value or, more likely, need an audio-taper pot on the tone control. the symptoms you describe sound like a pot-taper problem. and yes, caps do sometimes wear out, especially if they get overheated when being installed. the little clip heat sinks you can buy at Radio Shack are your friend.

the wiring may be shorting out, too. check to see that nothing with an positive charge is grounding, e.g. a wire could be contacting the back of a pot or the grounding paint that they use in many Strat bodies. you want everything with a positive charge to be insulated/isolated from ground.

[zRobertez]

Thanks dude! I'll start doing a little more research about those.

[pinkjimiphoton]

sounds to me more like you may wanna check the grounds inside the control cavity. a cold solder joint will often cause these kind of issues.

[AxAxSxS]

or it could just be dirty, get some deoxit and spray inside the pot, then twist it back and forth, if that does not improve matters I would then flow the solder, then if no improvement, think about replacing parts.

[zRobertez]

lol guys. its been 6 months since i posted this and it never got it working as expected. I just learned to deal with it and completely forgot about it. I might open it up and mess around some!

[AxAxSxS]

lol, necro fix that shit