Flipped Control Plate For Telecaster®
For October, we will take a break from the usual electronics mods! (Whew.) Instead, we will focus on a more practical mod for your Telecaster. Lindy first saw this mod being used by Bill Kirchen and soon used it on all of his Telecasters. Introducing the Flipped Control Plate. This mod gives you easier access to your Volume Pot for volume swells.
Within a few steps, you can perform the Flipped Control Plate mod for a whole new world of functionality under your fingertips. Let’s dig into the mod and see how to perform it:
THE MOD:
The Flipped Control Plate modification requires more than simply unscrewing and flipping the plate around. Flipping your Tele control plate requires you to re-order the pots and flip the switch. More often than not, a good wiring job has tidy, short leads between connections and a nice, clean look. This tidy wiring job presents a few problems with this modification: you might be unable to “flip” the switch, and your Neck pickup lead might not reach the switch in the first place.
If you’re interested in this mod, I recommend stripping everything off the control plate and starting from scratch. It will make your job easier. You should also have some extra Cloth Wire handy, your soldering iron hot, and a little patience!
Before We Start
You’ll be moving the switch to the opposite side of the control cavity. Make sure your control cavity has a unified depth, instead of a deeper pocket for the switch. See below for an example:
WIRING DIAGRAM
Please note that the Volume Pot will be closest to the Neck pickup in this drawing, and the Switch will be closest to the Bridge.
HOW IT WORKS:
Your first knob closest to your neck pickup will be your volume pot. You can easily grab this with your pinky finger to create some awesome-sounding volume swells a la Bill Kitchen and Danny Gatton.
Your Tone Knob is next in line. Nothing has changed about it, so, you know what to do.
Your Switch is still intuitive. Position 1 is your Bridge, and Position 3 is still your Neck. In other words, your Blade Switch will point to the pickup it’s selecting like it always does. It’s a relatively simple mod to perform, but if you don’t want to get your hands dirty, grab a Prewired Tele Control Plate from us, and we’ll wire it up how you like it!
Get Us To Wire It Up:
Prewired Telecaster Control Plate
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View ProductWell, that’s about it. It will take some time to get used to, but I have found this mod very useful. Lindy got me hooked on it, and we’re sure you’ll also love it. Let us know if you do anything different in the comment section below, and happy modding!
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A. Is the cap. on the Tele diagram a tone filter? If so is that where to change values to alter tonal filtering or B. is the “tone bleed” a cap (and resistor) connected elsewhere. I think it is A.
This wiring diagram is flawed. There will be no sound, from either pickup, in middle position.
I wish I could attach a diagram here, but I’ll try to do it with words…
The pickup leads should be attached to the common terminals of the switch. But they’re not. The commons are on the far end of the poles, so the way the diagram is shown, bridge should connect to the bottom lug on that side of the wafer. And neck should connect to the top lug on it’s side. And then the Z-shape jumper should be flipped mirror image, so from the left top, down to the right bottom. And the yellow wire to the vol pot should come off the Z jumper, so from the top left switch terminal.
Hey Joe, thanks for pointing this out! It’s been corrected. Thanks again.
what am i doing wrong? I’ve been playing my tele for a couple months now and I’ve never bumped the switch. Is it because I play primarily country on the tele, and it’s just always down in bridge position? 🙂 I want to learn what the rest of you fellas are doing that has you constantly bumping the selector switch: hard strumming in a punk band, maybe?
What an obviously great mod for a Tele , especially if you are swapping play with Strats, puts vol knob in at least a similar, closest knob, location. …. and who doesn’t go to their volume knob at least ten times more that the other controls ? Thanks for suggestion – great time killer for the pandemic too.
I’ve done that mod to every tele I’ve owned for many years. The main reason is I got tired of smacking the switch with my picking/strumming hand and moving the switch to pickups i did not want to on. It was also nice to have the volume control on top and close at hand. That, and I enjoy tinkering with my wire cutters and soldering gun 🙂
Neat!