Tele Wiring Question, not a hard one Help! Fast!

Hi guys. I am soldering my tele electronics up nicely. Thanks to Mr. Downs' DVD I was able to do this like a pro. I gave myself an hour thinking it would take two. It took about 5 minutes.

Part of the reason it was so quick is I bought a pre-wired harness out of soldering-fear. I didn't need it. However, the pre-wired kit wich i got from RS Electronics has one ground wire that I don't have on my Fender CS Relic. It comes off the back of the volume pot and terminates nowhere. Is there a reason for this ground? Do I need to actually use it for anything? Can I cut it off, I don't know where it's supposed to go.

I know we all want answers yesterday, but I really do. All I have left to do is close her up. But I don't want to plug it in with this odd ground wire.

Help fast!

Thanks as always.

And guys, if you're nervous about soldering anything (like i was) Terry Downs' DVD is PERFECT! I rarely give endorsements for stuff like this. I part wondered if it might be some home-produced video where I watch a pro do what he does best and not give a lick of instruction. The best craftsman aren't always the best teachers. But Terry Downs' DVD is the best investment you'll ever make. It takes longer to watch the DVD that it does to learn how to do it afterwards. Any doubts? Buy it. This DVD should be in anyone's luthier aresnal along with some of Dan Erlewine's instructional DVDs.

Now please, what is this damn ground wire??? lol

Could be an extra ground they put there to ground your bridge. Can you contact them and find out from one of there tecs.

Does this wire have an "eyelet" at the open end? If so, hook it around one of the bridge pickup screws so that it is sandwiched firmly to the bottom of the bridge plate. If there is a bare ware at the open end, than I'm sorry, thats all I got. Like oldokie said, try contacting a tech. I assume you hit up google to locate a diagram for your particular harness...? Good Luck!!!

Some guitars like my Squier Standard Teles came with a wire like that, and the end of it lay splayed out flat under the edge of the bridge plate.

If you have a copper plated steel baseplate on the botton of your bridge pickup, and one lead of the pickup has a wire soldered to that baseplate, and the mounting screws thread through that baseplate, and your screws are conductive (vintage Fender style)...

or...

If you have a similar ground via an eyelet that one of those pickup mounting screws threads through (MIM Classic Series and Standard Series and MIA American Series all have this I think)...

... then you don't absolutely need that wire. But it won't hurt to thread it through the hole from the control plate and lay it under the edge of the bridge anyway!

Thanks folks. For now it's just capped and under the rest of the controls. I might just stick it undet the edge like you guys said. I have a Wilkinson bridge. Don't know what it's made of.

Thanks so much guys.

And FWIW, my Relic 50's Tele doesn't have the extra ground coming off of it at all.

More than likely, it is to ground the bridgeplate. If your bridge pickup is of the vintage ilk, it has a copper or tin plate on the bottom of the pickup. If this is the case, the bridgeplate is already grounded, because that pickup plate is connected to the pickup's ground lead, and the screws that mount the pickup to the bridge complete the connection between that grounded pickup plate and the bridgeplate.

If your bridge pickup is a more modern one, or if it is something like a Barden, it does not have that bottom plate. In that case, it would be necessary to ground the bridgeplate. That is what that extra lead is for. It does not hurt to use this lead to ground the bridgeplate even if your bridge pickup is of the vintage ilk. If you aren't hearing any ground hum, don't bother changing anything, since the guitar is already buttoned up.

It's either of two things. First, you could put the extra ground wire on an eyelet and screw it to the bottom of the control cavity so you have a ground connection to the shielding paint or copper foil if there is any lining the control cavity. Second, and more likely, is that it's there to make sure you have a string ground.

If there's hum from static, does it go away when you touch the strings? Try again touching the outer ring of the guitar cord. If you have the same effect, then the "string ground" is already there and it's working fine. Like Yegbert said, the ground wire from your bridge pickup is probably already connected to a metal plate on the back of the pickup (the black wire from the pickup probably runs a little long through the eyelet after connecting to the pickup magnet wire, then sticks out on the back of the pickup and ends in a blob of solder on the metal backplate). If so then the baseplate connects to the screws, which connects to the bridge plate, which connects to the saddles, which connects to the strings, which connects to the funny bone. If you do not have a metal baseplate on your bridge pickup, or if there's no string ground connected, there, then take the extra wire, run it through the hole from the control cavity to the bridge pickup rout, and squish the stripped end under the bridge plate.