I just picked up a tele, its a little rough in some spots (literally). Beside the asthetics or lack ther of it hums like crazy and I'm not sure exactly where to start. I fixed the wiring on the input jack and wiggled/jiggled stuff to try and find loose connections or a break from the noise. If the amp is turned up at all it's unplayable, if its quiet its tolerable but can still clearly be heard over the playing.
Its a bit of an odd bird, vol, tone, 5 way selector, 2 lipstick pups in neck as a humbucker(not sure how theyre wired) and single bridge pup. Unless I got all new wire and redid it wire by wire im not sure I could do it the same. wiring is a bit messy and could be cleaned up but solder joints are strong. Im not convinced that the wires themselves are not the issue.
Any assistance is appreciated.
Edit: I should mention it stops when i hold the 1/4" plug from the cable. Grounding issue?
So after some looking around, how do you properly ground the bridge? I tried the base plate of the pup, still hums. I tried soldering to the bridge directly, even after scraping off some of the chrome the solder would not stick. My iron sucks though and the bridge likely wasnt hot enough. Would a pup screw work? But then why didnt the baseplate work? All having a metal to metal connection with the bridge.
One of the traditional approaches is to simply run a bare wire from a ground connection in the control cavity to somewhere just under the bridge plate. No need to solder it to the bridge. Physical contact with a bare wire will be enough.
This. Just lay the bare wire around one of the holes for the baseplate mounting screws. I'd be surprised if you can't see an indentation in the body where the wire used to be
Even with the bridge pickup plate grounded or the pickup mounting screw with a ground wire going to the ground ,i have seen ground issues & i think the bridge having it's own ground wire works best .
the bridge ground is important and must be resolved...
and now for another point of view.
I have always found that those silly tight tele selector body cavities are always too small.
Its not that difficult to jam all those wires into the cavity and have a live wire touch up a ground wire someplace.
To see if this problem is a possibility, unscrew the base plate and pull the plate out and place it on the body.
Have a quick look at the wires to see if anything is touching something that its not supposed to.
While the plate is still out, plug the guitar in and see if the noise has gone away.
MAke sure the volume and tone controls are turned on.
IF there is no noise, and while plugged into an amp, place the wires and control plate back into the cavity to see if you can generate the noise.
If the noise starts up, you now know that some wire is being pushed against another wire making a bad contact.
Fix that problem and start playing as soon as possible.
G.
Especially if its shielded with copper tape. The tape can come loose and can be touching something it shouldn't.
Nathan
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