Grounding Question

I'm working on a fake Tele project with a humbucker pickup at the bridge. It would be easy to connect the main ground wire to one of the screws that hold the pickup in the bridge. But those screws are in contact with the metal pickup cover, which in turn is soldered in two places to the bottom of the pickup.

Would attaching the ground wire this way create an electrical problem? (You can probably tell that this is my first attempt to wire a guitar....)

[edit] It occurs to me that if I connected the ground wire directly to the bridge, it would have indirect contact to the bridge-mounting screws anyway--so is this a non-issue? BTW, I tried soldering the wire to the bridge plate (never done that before, either), but the solder just sort of skated off the black-finished plate.

You'll need to sand or grind a spot to solder a wire to the bridge. I think you can do as you suggest. Why not run the ground wire to the top of one of your control pots and solder it there?

Interesting--I didn't know that was an option. Thanks!

I had forgotten about this method, but will putting a ground wire (with the end stripped and flattened) between the bridge plate and the body be enough?

You should solder it. That black finish could inhibit a good ground. Backs of pots are better grounds. All grounds are headed that way (to the grounding lug on the jack) so it makes good sense. Practice soldering on junk. Solder sticks to pot cases very well. Just don't heat your pots too much. Fast contact. Medium heat.

Thanks! Even after I ground everything to the volume pot body, don't I need to run a ground from there to some larger chunk of metal? Just trying to make sure I understand.

Everything ends up grounded at the 1/4 inch output jack lug. All grounds lead to that point. That's your true ground in the circuit. It is preferable to use your volume pot case as a ground. It is not practical or common to run every ground to the lug on your output jack.

Thanks!

Is the pickup already grounded? If the cover of the pickup has a connection to ground (check it for continuity, it should be) then you do not need a separate ground wire to the bridge plate. That wire, usually just squished under the plate, is meant to give you a string ground so when you touch the strings it quiets certain kinds of static noise. You don't need it if the pickup plate or cover is already grounded, since it will connect via the screws to the bridge plate, and then to the saddles, and the strings. Again, that separate wire is something that came from older teles with single coil pickups, no ground plate underneath, and two unshielded signal wires running from the pickup to the controls. Your humbucker probably has shielded cable running from the pickup to the controls, so there's already a shield and hence a ground connection on the covering of the pickup.

Well--the pickup cover connects to the bridge plate via the mounting ears and mounting screws, so I guess it probably is grounded. Thanks!