bad hum on tele clone

Hi there, I have a Brazilian made telecaster clone (Tagima) which I am fixing up, a quick look under the control plate and I can see that the wiring is really messy, so will re-wire it when I have the time. It has a really loud hum (not just a single coil type hum) Everything works and the hum is ok if I keep my hand on the bridge or the control plate (a bit better with fingers on the strings too). What is the best way to earth all the components on the tele? For now I would like a quick fix as I want to record a couple of things using this guitar but I will do a complete re-wire later.

That's normal, just move your body until you find the least noisy position, and keep your palm on the strings/bridge. Keep your recording stuff and rig away from computers, dimmer lights, and other obvious rf troublemakers.

To ground the bridge plate there should be a wire under the bridge plate that goes to the vol. pot if I recall.

Yeah, this wire sometimes has bad contact with the bridge plate. I recommend soldering it on. But you'll need a powerful soldering iron, because the bridge plate is a good heatsink.

Imo quick fix is a time waster. The complete re-wire will fix it.

The "loud hum goes away if I touch the bridge" means it is not earthed, and that is a safety fault.

A neat and tidy re-wire will get rid of most hums and buzzes.
Twisted-pair and star-earth!

Hi Guys thanks for the info. Yes I am not using the guitar with an amp at the moment because of the safety aspect. I have it plugged into a tascam dp008 for the moment. If I run a wire from the bridge plate to the other earth wires (soldered to the volume pot) it makes no difference at all though.

Hmm, that doesn't sound good but a new set of pots and wires ought to fix that.

One trick that can work is reversing both pickups so that the outer end of the coil is earthy. Otoh sometimes the coil wire shorts down onto the magnet poles which are earthed, if the inner end is earthy then the pickup still works, and the poles are grounded too. Test the pickups when you do the re-wire.

All my guitars hum if i dont have my hands on them.

yes this is a real bad hum tho, much more than a normal single coil type hum :( actually slightly worse on neck pickup for some reason). Had it to bits just now and the wiring is messy but correct. The input jack is actually a horrible plastic thing fitted to a small metal plate. 3 way switch is actually the type with a small pcb and contacts are a bit iffy so I think the lot needs replacing

I bought a tele on E-Bay several months ago.Not a Fender and found out the hard way the builder put cheap economy parts in there.The neck pickup had a plastic base and he must have know it was broken because i found a lump of crazy glue holding the spring in place.When the glue finally broke away from the spring i was left with a neck pickup which fell in the pocket.Thanks to this forum, i have replaced several parts that would have eventually failed.

When I got my eBay tele (a Fender MIM), it also had serious grounding issues. I took it to a luthier, he grounded it and shielded it. Hum gone. It still has a 60 cycle hum, but very minimal. Granted, it wasn't cheap, but if you think your tele is worth a hundred bucks or so of TLC, go for it.

Yes I am working on a budget here because parts are difficult to get hold of in Brazil and when you can get them they are about 2 times more expensive than in England (so probably 3 times more than in the States) - I can see all these lovely bits for teles on ebay REALLY cheap but the government here slaps at least 100% tax on any import over $50 :(..........so it's probably going to be a diy job