Interchangeable caps

Parker

Much like switchable pickups as a concept, how easy would it be to install some sort of retainer between wires so you could easily change between capacitors to play with different sounds? 

Roland

Dead easy to wire up. The biggest hurdle is deciding how to switch it in and out. eg additional toggle switch, or push-pull on one of the pots

Parker

Roland said:

Dead easy to wire up. The biggest hurdle is deciding how to switch it in and out. eg additional toggle switch, or push-pull on one of the pots

I'm thinking something more semi-permanent, Always in phase of the wiring, but can just easily be switched out for an alternative type or value. 

Alegree

Rotary switch ?

WezV

Do you want some kind of socket rather than some kind of switch?

Roland

Parker said:

I'm thinking something more semi-permanent,

By the time you've opened the control cavity you might as well re-solder the capacitor. You could always leave several capacitors in there, with the wires wrapped in tape, to reduce the amount of unsoldering/resoldering

Gagaryn

Parker said:

Roland said:

Dead easy to wire up. The biggest hurdle is deciding how to switch it in and out. eg additional toggle switch, or push-pull on one of the pots

I'm thinking something more semi-permanent, Always in phase of the wiring, but can just easily be switched out for an alternative type or value. 

If you want to just audition a few just use short crocodile clip cables 

ICBM

In general there's only a fairly limited usefulness to changing cap values, so when you've tried a couple you probably already know either which you prefer, or whether you want to go further in one direction - but even then the scope is quite small. Essentially the only useful values for a normal tone control are .01uF, .022uF, .033uF, .047uF and at an outside possibility .1uF (the vintage Strat value, very rarely used otherwise). Some people like in-between values like .015uF or .018uF, but the difference is quite subtle. Once you've narrowed it down to one of those you probably won't need to change it again.

If you do want to experiment more easily than with soldering, just get a double piece of chocolate-block strip, solder two solid-core wires to the places in the circuit where the cap goes and use that to connect the caps.

Ravenous

You could try mounting a little DIL switch under the pickguard, with several caps in place, and switch on one at a time.

One example (probably easier to just scavenge one off some old equipment if possible):

https://www.rapidonline.com/ece-edg104s-excel-4-pole-8-pin-dil-switch-80-0304

Another thing is a big rotary switch, like the old "Varitone", but that's big and permanent looking!

(I think Les Paul used varitones on some of his...)