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Are there any pots that have a 0 ohms reading when turned all the way up or dont. I have a 10k pot that reads 10k in one direction and 470 ohms all the way the other direction. I would like for it to read 0 ohms in one direction, is it possible?

you could jumper across lugs 1 and 3, then there would be no resistance across the pot. it would also make the pot almost useless. what are you using it for?

Thanks for your idea but, as you said it would render the pot useless, not really what im trying to do. I'm trying to have the pot 0 ohms at full turn. The only way I could figure out was a switch pot wired backwards, You turn down the distortion as the pot turns up. I am building a ruby/noisy cricket amp. I found that if you wire the 1 and 8 lugs direct it has a higher rate of distortion, reason being the pot still has 470 ohms on it when at full clock. I'm trying to make a mini amp that covers all bases. Any other suggestions for the ruby circuit? I found the tone knob doesnt really do anything as far as tone goes, it just kinda cuts the sound a bit.

I beleive the only way to have no resistance is to cut the track at the end so you have contact until you go past the cut.
fender does it with there no load tone pot.

any idea on how that would be done? If I bought a fender pot would that be a way to do it? Sorry I'm kinda lost, I havent done this stuff in a few years.

Just try another pot. Usually you get a few ohms but very close to Zero.
With a 10K pot you should get far less than 470ohms when the wiper is to
one side or the other.
Pots are the weakest tolerance part in any pedal. (20% +/-)
The pot you have is just bad basically...

JOhn

That makes sense, thanks. I am actually using a 10k pot temporarily because I was not able to find a 1k at the local store. If the tolerance is 20% for pots than a 1k should have no more than 200 ohms at full turn, that might be just good enough for me. One more question, If I use a adio pot where a linear pot is called out for whats going to be the outcome? My guess is that most of the resistance is going to come in the higher range of turning the knob, kinda un even per say. I have a mouse pedal were the filter know does this, drives me nuts.

doh, now I get it I had totally misunderstood your original question.

It depends on the circuit but 1k is a typical fuzz face, tonebender value.
Usually a 1K reverse audio taper is best but a Linear will work ok.
An audio taper pot will have all the action at the last 10% of the pots
travel. A 1K pot should go very near zero ohms.
The tolerance is the total value not necessarily the ohm reading when turned off.
Alpha pots aren't precision devices by any means so it will vary.

Very informative link, thanks for posting that. I think I might rig up a pot bypass switch. I am actually building a noisy cricket amp and noticed that there is more gain when I hook up pin one and eight directly without the pot.

why not use a switched pot?