Electric guitar repair question

I recently bought a guitar (like this one but green https://reverb.com/item/886680-vintage-applause-gtx-23-1980s-guitar-hss-electric-guitar), and the volume pot is scratchy and has a dead spot in it. It was pretty cheap (less than 1/3 the price of the one in that link) so needing to fix it is no big deal. I haven't ever worked on a guitar before though, so does anyone here have suggestions of how to get it working properly?

I would suggest replacing the offending potentiometer. Should be less than $10 for a good quality part. 5 minutes with a soldering iron and a screwdriver should have you rocking.

Yes contact cleaner can work wonders but a can of the good stuff is often more expensive than a nice cts pot.

Find put if it is 250 or 500k, measure the shaft and thread size, go to Amazon and get a new unit!

I recently replaced the volume pot on my son's early 90's Mexican Strat. I forget where I got the replacement, something like guitarparts.com or something. Just make a note of where the wires attach when you pull it apart. Take a picture if you need to. There are probably a ton of videos on youtube showing the procedure. If you can solder (and you can!) you can successfully replace the pot.

That guitar looks pretty sweet.

Like the others have said, figure out what the specs are on the potentiometer and replace it. If you can solder, you can replace it easy. Not a bad job at all!

I tried cleaning the pots with contact cleaner, which actually temporarily fixed the problem but now they are seized solid and will no longer turn. Can you still measure them if you can't turn them anymore? I tried but I couldn't find anything online about how to do it that I could understand. I ended up buying another cheap guitar from a repair shop that everything works so I may just give up on this one. 

Disconnect the pot and measure the resistance across the 2 outside connections (the center is the wiper).

Note: there are different tapers that denote the response curve of the pot.

Linear and Audio come to mind there may be more.

Will that still work if you can't turn the shaft at all anymore? 

Tk8398 said:

Will that still work if you can't turn the shaft at all anymore? 

It should. It's value is also likely stamped on the back of it. Like mentioned above you'll need an audio taper pot to replace it. 

A good guideline is that humbuckers and P90s use 500k pots and single coils use 250k.

You have both which makes that a crap shoot. 

In general the higher the value potentiometer the more high frequency passes (Or is prevented being shunted to ground). So 500k potentiometers will be a tad brighter sounding but will function fine.  Gretsch folks tend to use 1Meg pots to get a really bright twang.

Tk8398 said:

Will that still work if you can't turn the shaft at all anymore? 

Yes, the value of the pot is the full resistance, which you get across the two outer terminals no matter where the knob is.