Tele Wiring Question

[jch4v]

Hey Guys,

I am going to be wiring a tele that I am building in a few days... and I was wondering if you are supposed to run a ground wire from the control cavity to the bridge? I don't have any wiring diagrams that say that I do, but on my strat, there is a ground to the back where the springs are... is there anything similar for the tele?

Thanks!

John

[jwsamuel]

You only need to run the wire if you want it to work.

Run the wire from under the bridge into the cavity and solder it to the back of the volume pot.

[jch4v]

Do I also Solder it to the bridge?

['ol hank pank]

The pressure from the screws holding the bridge in place should be more than enough contact for the ground to work just fiine. A chunk of solder under there could also affect the contact/coupling of the bridge to the body. Some even notch out a little space for the shield part of the wire some only the copper touches the bridge.

One of Dan Erlwines big points about teles is coupling. Meaning the neck should be as tight as possible to the body as well as the bridge to the body. I even sanded the underside of my bridge to take any small ridges off when I modded it.

[orni]

I prefer to attach the ground wire tightly around one of the pickup screws. Even a small wire stuck between the bridge and the body will compromise pressure on the body, affecting the sound. IMHO

[Kevin]

Good answers from everyone... Unfortunately, they're wrong -- or, at least partially wrong.

You do not need a ground wire if your bridge pickup has a grounded baseplate -- that's why there are none in the wiring diagrams. The baseplate is grounded to the pup, which is grounded to the pots. The bridge is grounded to the baseplate by the mounting screws.

If you have a vintage-style pup with a baseplate, it will work just fine without a separate ground wire, thank you very much....

That said, the newer AS of MIM pups don't have a baseplate, but they have a grounding tab connected to the ground wire of the lead pup. That tab goes around one of the pup mounting screws, so that it will ground to the bridge. That's why there's a "notch" in the pup cavity of newer bodies -- so the tab will fit.

[riggergreg]

Anytime I rewire....Just for the heck of it

[nic'o'caster]

When ground travels by 2 (or more) ways, it may bcome a problem (see ground loop at guitarnuts.com)

[BB]

As Kevin said, if you have a copper, steel, zinc plate on the bottom of your tele pup, you do not need the ground wire to the bridge. If you pop in a Lil 59'r, Virtual Vintage, humbucker, P-90 or any other bridge pickup without a bridge plate, then you will need to run a ground wire.