hi there, new to this site but spent the last few weeks absorbing the collected knoledge

I am re furbishing an old chepo acoustic guitar as a practice for my first cigar box and I wanted to do something a bit different to a normal

I am attempting a rig  2 piezos + volume + passive distortion using diodes instead of tone control

so first question will that even work? I have seen diagrams (for pups ) that include 2 diodes wired opsite to each other in parallel insted of a tone cap but i seem to be having issues,

second question, is it possible to blow a pot, if so i seem to have detroyed 2 already trying this circuit.

(as a background, i have sucssfuly installed piezos and piezos with vol controls and completely re wired a couple of electrics before without issue)