Standard Pot Pinion and Gear?

[petemoore]

  I'm looking to gear up my alphas to a pinion/treadle.
  I can find gear sets for cry baby and other wah types [with the large diameter shaft with flat side], but nothing that would fit a standard potshaft...
   any ideas?

[jmusser]

If the shaft is still too big for the gear, then just mic the shaft, and drill it out to that diameter ( I believe it's .25). If the gear is too big, the you ought to be able to put a "C" shape piece of metal in there as a shim (like a piece of copper tubing), and the open end of the "C" will allow you to use the standard set screw that came with the gear. If you're drilling it out, you'll either need a drill press and a vise, or clamp it lightly with vise grips and use a hand drill. I believe those gears are aluminium, so it wouldn't take much force to take that little bit of metal out. Steve has the rack and pinion gears at Small Bear, so I plan to build me a wah from scratch using them. The thing that puts pressure on the rack to keep the pedal from moving, is nothing more than a plastic cable clamp, so that easy enough to do. Weren't you the one that made the wah totally from scratch? I was just thinking that if the ID of the gear is too big, you could fill it with JB weld, and the drill it out the diameter you need. There's a buch of different ways this could be done. E Mail me if I can be of any help.

[petemoore]

  The 'wah' type gear for 'wah' pot shafts has
  A flat side, no set screw
  Large ID much larger so that alignment of the gear [if one were to JB weld it] would require a fancy accurate jig AFAICTell.
  I thought about The C" shape of metal to match the ID of the gear to the OD of the smaller shaft, but where to get the C shaped metal piece and no set screw [JB weld would do there I think...but not sure about using it on a greasy [?] plastic item.
  What I [we] need is a gear/pinion set, but with a setscrew or JB weldable gear with ID that matched standard pots. These two little items are difficult to just conjure up.
  I've made treadle systems of various DIY types and they work as intended, but that's alot of going through and then depends on springs or rubber band [I use thicker tape player belts] and strings [I use tuner indicator string from old recievers] that could wear out...gear system wouldn't...and would be comparitively sweet and ALOT easier than forging a DIY system.
  Ok wah pots are beefier...I dont' care...I'll put regular pots to good use...if your'e going price per mile, it's something like 10 X 2$ pots for one wah pot...ok sure you have to change them, but I'm willing to bet price per 'mile' is much lower when wearing out 2$ pots in lots of 12 vs a wah pot.
  I just want it so I can take basically Any Pot and foot control it, any value, dual gangers etc. and not have to spend 20 or more on a pot...I haven't tried the 'new breed' of wah pots, but the wah pots I've used [standard dunlop issue] aren't what I'd call 'durable' by any stretch, just too expensive for my tastes.
  Right now I want to foot control a 1k linear pot.