Got rid of "phase" problem, picked up "hum" when touching strings- Help needed!

[BigDaveyTwinkle]

Hello - I have dropped a Lollar Regal into a 72 Telecaster Custom. Neck and Bridge positions good, middle was that honky/nasally out of phase sound. I have reversed the bridge pickup hot/ground wires and that seems to have fixed the phase problem but I now have a ground hum in the middle and bridge positions. The guitar is unshielded of any kind from the factory, not even the paint stuff they use on the modern Teles. Is this just a matter of shielding cavities or is there a hot/ground issue at the jack I should explore first before pulling the bridge?

Thanks in advance !

[BigDaveyTwinkle]

Checked the capacitor wiring on the tone pots. They were off on both bridge and neck pots. Shielded the pickup and wiring cavities and resoldered the tone pots. The single coil hum is gone and there is no electric hum when touching the strings any position. I do seem to have burned out the bridge tone pot and will replace that tomorrow.

[Wally]

IF there is a connection between the 'black' lead on that bridge pickup and the ground through the bridge, then you need to separate that connection at the pickup. FWiw, there is no way to 'burn out' a pot in a guitar circuit.

[Jason Lollar]

email lollar at the .com address and explain whats going on to get help

[AJBaker]

Is there a metal base plate on the bridge pickup?
If so, is there a wire joining the plate to one of the eyelets on the pickup?
If so break the connection and run a separate wire from the base plate to the back of a pot.

[BigDaveyTwinkle]

I have thrown my hands in the air and taken the guitar to a local shop. I fixed the bad pot. problem which appears to have been a cap that took too much heat from the soldering iron and had started to melt a bit. New pot and new cap in place and I was back to the same problem: out of phase in the middle and if I switch the bridge hot and ground wires to correct the phase issue, then I get "hum" when touching any metal/strings on the guitar in the bridge and middle position.

There is no metal base plate on the bridge pickup and I am not experienced in trying to separate jumpers or break connections on the back of pickup(s).

I just noticed that Jason Lollar dropped in on the thread! Whoa! Kind of like seeing the hand of God in all this. :-)

I should know after the July fourth holiday what my local guitar wizard can make of this. I am attempting to run treble bleed mods on both volume pots and the 72 full independent volume control mod and hope that we can salvage some of the non-standard wiring I have introduced in the circuit.

Thanks for everyone answering in on this.