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Grounding Mini Humbucker and Hardtail Bridge

I've built 3 cbgs so far and haven't grounded any of them. This one, the one I'm moving the bridge on, really needs to be grounded. And I'm not 100% confident I know the right way to do it.

I'm going to take a stab at it though: I need to solder a wire to one of the terminals of the output jack (Or the volume pot?) and that wire needs to be (somehow) soldered to the bridge. Am I right so far?

I saw a Chickenbones video where he drilled a small hole through the neck so that the ground wire from the output jack would touch a guitar string going through a ferule would ground the guitar or something like that.

I'm going to guess that this might be similar. I drill a hole or make a channel for the ground wire to go from the output jack terminal to the screw that's going to hold the bridge plate to the guitar? Or is there a better way that involves soldering a wire somewhere on the bridge and running that wire through a small hole in the box lid to the output jack terminal?

Or am I all together missing the obvious, easiest way to ground the thing? :)

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Permalink Reply by Danny B. on October 23, 2016 at 10:03am

Well I just drilled a hole under the bridge and layed the wire under there flat, like a 1/2 inch of stripped wire so it flattened under the bridge nice and tight when I screwed it on you know?

I do the same thing with my tailpieces now that they are flat and screwed on the back of the box.

Seems to work, I found it very difficult to get solder to stick to a screw when I tried that way before.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Wilkins on October 23, 2016 at 2:17pm

Ok I think this will be easy. Just a wire from volume pot to bridge. Here's a pic of how my volume pot is wired. Got it from CB Gitty pre wired. Black wire goes to pickup. Grey wire goes to output jack.

Attachments:

IMG_3054.JPG, 1.9 MB

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Permalink Reply by Danny B. on October 23, 2016 at 2:22pm

Haven't done it that way but it should work, I've been grounding to the jack seems to work too.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Alexander on October 23, 2016 at 2:27pm

It would be real easy if you had some copper tape, but if you run a piece of wire from the ground terminal on the jack, you can poke the other end into one of the holes for your bridge screws.

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Permalink Reply by darryl kernaghan on October 23, 2016 at 2:56pm

All those methods will work, but i was taught it's better to have your grounds connecting to a continuous wire to the jack to avoid looping effect on the grounds, how correct that is, i'm not sure, maybe one of our elect. guru's can help with it?

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Permalink Reply by Richard Wilkins on October 25, 2016 at 2:36pm

Ok, guys, it's grounded!

THANK YOU ALL for bearing with me!

I soldered a nicely tinned black wire to the ground terminal on the output jack (so neatly, it would give Wayfinder more willies) and poked the other (also neatly tinned) end up through the lid and then screwed the bridge down on top of it as previously suggested.

No buzzing! Notes sound nice and clear. Oh and the intonation issue is resolved as well.

Happy camper

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Permalink Reply by darryl kernaghan on October 25, 2016 at 2:48pm

Great stuff Richard, it is a good feeling when you get a way around a new problem

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Permalink Reply by Danny B. on October 25, 2016 at 11:54pm

Sweet.

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Permalink Reply by JL on October 25, 2016 at 11:58pm

In a big scale, a ground loop is when your amp and the PA system are on different grounds in the wall outlets, 2 paths, can make either/both noisy. The "ground lift" button on an amp disconnects the line-out ground from the amp's power ground to help when that happens.

On the small scale (inside a GIT) your wiring diagram ought to look tree-like. Any point along your ground should have only 1 path to the jack's ground. If it can take either of 2 paths, you have a loop like the old UHF antennas on tube-type TV's which can pick up RF noise. Similarly with the hot/red/signal side, any point should have 1 path to the jack's tip or to a ground point, 2 or more paths to the same point makes that old-fashion UHF hoop antenna again.