2 Humbuckers/2 Volumes/2 Tones/Coil Tap & Reverse Phase

the typical for humbuckers is 500kohm audio taper pots for volume and 500kohm linear ('generic' pot) or audio taper for tone. the choice of taper for tone depends upon how you want the treble to roll off with rotation. linear taper will be more subtle until the extreme end of the range. audio taper will give you a more spread out treble roll-off range with rotation, but some feel it is too aggressive while adjusting from 10 down to 6 or 7. some find the former (linear taper tone) very good for making subtle tone adjustments, while the latter (audio taper tone) is useful for simulated wah effects by rotating the pot while playing.

some players have opted to use liner taper on their volume controls for a similar reasons: manual volume swells are a bit easier to do with linear taper pots, as the volume level increases rapidly moving from the 1 to 4 range. but most people would rather have the 'smooth and gradual' volume increase over the entire 1 to 10 range as is provided by an audio taper volume pot.

some players have opted for 1 Mohm pots as these can help deliver a bit more of the pups' amplitude and high freq, but this choice also makes the guitar slightly more tonally sensitive/susceptible to cable capacitance and therefore tonally sensitive to cable quality and length. RFI susceptibility can also be a bit worse with 1 Mohm pots. FWIW: a similar effect can be achieved by modding a 500kohm pot to disconnect the resistive track from the circuit at the extreme end of the rotation, thus taking the pot completely out of circuit. however, given your experience level, this is def a mod (to the pot innards) for someone else to perform.

heres a link that discusses how to determine the best tone capacitor for your use (there is no one answer):

http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2008/Mar/Auditioning_Tone_Capacitors.aspx

I agree with all of the above, 'nuff said.

Wow, the link to capacitors was extremely interesting and informative. And makes a difference when you play!

For years I used .20 - .22 uf (microfarads) on Fender with a 250K pot and .47 - .50 uF on Gibson/Humbucker style with 500K pots. Then started experimenting with 1 meg pots and .33 uF caps and had some interesting, more flexible tones.

After reading the article, which is entirely valid and very helpful, I might look elsewhere for that variety such as a 3300, 4700 or 6800 pF (picofarad) cap, plus some others to try. However, here especially in the Orange Drop selection. A .01 or .015 uF would be reasonable and safe IMO. That should be adjustable to your taste, instead of following tradition.

http://www.guitarelectronics.com/category/electronic_parts.capacitors/

For the pots, you can get them here - probably the long shaft due to your possibly carved or arched top/maple cap = thicker guitar top; so look for 3/4" of thread in the 500K audiotaper or logarithmic. I'm afraid I don't see long shaft pots in linear taper, nor do I see the longshaft push/pull pots here either, in linear. It was a good idea, but not available here?
http://www.guitarelectronics.com/category/electronic_parts.pots/

Here's your beginner's guide to pots, or I should say basics, no offense, just FYI. http://sound.westhost.com/pots.htm

I use good strong pots, and occasionally those little baby alpha mini pots - they don't take much heat at solder-time, yet can be made to perform if treated with care. But generally, stick with the larger format and quality such as Audiotaper, CTS or DiMarzio - I strongly trust their push/pulls, and go out of my way to get them. However, Guitar Electronics gets favorable review from users, so there should be no problem. 8)

Wow - thanks a million fellas, I think I am going to learn alot here! Much appreciated....I'll let you know how it goes..

Cheers

I had a look at your schematic and I have a couple of suggestions. If you are going to follow this you should move the push/pull (or better still push/push) pots to the tone pots. You can only get push/pull pots in a min-pot size and these are generally of a lower quality than the larger pots. You probably want the better pots on your volume controls.

Another option to consider is the Seymour Duncan Triple Shots for the coil tap controls. I have these on one of my guitars (controlling P-Rail pickups) and they work great.