In the early 2000s, well-known guitarists and their technicians began asking Bourns how to replace a blue potentiometer they had found inside their instruments. Bourns had made the pots for Schecter Guitar decades earlier.
From Industrial Controls to Guitar
In the 1970s, Schecter Guitar asked Bourns to design a guitar potentiometer based on a high-performance pot built for industrial and military markets. Bourns adapted its Model 80 for guitar use and supplied Schecter with hundreds, possibly thousands, of the blue-bodied pots.
That design became the Bourns® Model 82. In 1978, the pots sold for $6 each, a high price for a guitar pot at the time.
How the Blue Pots Spread
Schecter also sold some of the pots to repair shops and music stores. Through those shops, the pots ended up in guitars used on tour and in recording studios. By the time the requests reached Bourns, players were calling them “Old Blue.”
Gibson Finds Them Too
In 2006, a Gibson employee came across a guitar that had been sent in for repair more than 20 years earlier. Inside its electronics cavity were blue pots he had seen before in other vintage instruments returned for repair. He traced them to Bourns, and Gibson introduced an updated version of the pots in its 2008 Les Paul Standard.
The Players’ Stories
These stories come from interviews with musicians and guitar technicians about how they used the blue pots and what happened when they went looking for replacements. Their accounts have been edited for length and clarity.
- Seymour Duncan built the “Tele-Gib” for Jeff Beck in 1974 and has used Bourns® pots since the late 1970s.
- Jeff Carlisi of 38 Special tells how a failed pot and a luthier’s repair led him to identify a 500 kΩ audio taper Model 82 30 years later.
- Rick Dufay sent a broken Gibson in for repair. It sat forgotten for more than 20 years with its blue pots still inside.
- Ray Jennings put $6 pots in his 1973 Les Paul Custom and sought replacements 40 years later.
- Adrian Vandenberg recalls the magazine review that scored his guitar a “10-minus” and what cost him the point.
- Wil Kelly and Lee Dickson discuss two problems guitar technicians know well: scratchy pots and dead spots.
The Model 82 Today
The Model 82 vintage guitar potentiometer is still part of the Bourns® Pro Audio line. The line also includes the Model 95 premium guitar pot and 17 mm and 24 mm PDB Series guitar pots, with push-pull, latching-push, blend-balance and no-load versions. The Model 95 has a no-load rotational life of 100,000 cycles and an operating temperature range of −40 °C to +125 °C.
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