Grounding the Trem - not working

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Seratone
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Grounding the Trem - not working

Post by Seratone » Thu Nov 19, 2015 4:18 am

My Tremolo was making some static 'pops' so I watched a couple of Youtube video's and proceeded to sort that out. I have a Partscaster with an MJT Body, Classic Player parts and Pickup Wizard p/u's. The reliced MJT body is swamp ash - so it's really soft - the ground wire had sunk a little. I thought I had it sussed - Oh no. I think I removed the strings and the trem about 4 times - Grounding isn't working. When I touch the strings the guitar 'howls' - literally screeches. ( I don't use an an AMP - I use an Atomic Amplifire and effects under headphones ).

For the final try I even extended the ground wire so not only was a portion of exposed wire pressed under the trem plate, but had a extra piece outside the trem plate so I could manually ground it. Still the howling and shreeking.

Something that seems so simple isn't working - BTW: where is the other end of the ground wire attached to through the hole in the body cavity?

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Re: Grounding the Trem - not working

Post by cbrown » Thu Nov 19, 2015 6:06 am

The ground wire would normally run to the pots and be soldered to the case of one of them.

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Re: Grounding the Trem - not working

Post by Seratone » Thu Nov 19, 2015 8:24 am

I'm definitely checking the other end of the ground wire as soon as I can.
I did swap out the pots a few months ago so it could have a loose solder situation

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Re: Grounding the Trem - not working

Post by SneakyT » Thu Nov 19, 2015 12:03 pm

I'm not overly fond of grounding to the trem on offsets. I prefer to ground to the bridge thimbles/cups as you are much less likely to have corrosion issues.
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Re: Grounding the Trem - not working

Post by Seratone » Thu Nov 19, 2015 1:19 pm

I have read that some people ground to the bridge thimbles.... how to get access to those though?

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Re: Grounding the Trem - not working

Post by SneakyT » Thu Nov 19, 2015 1:49 pm

Seratone wrote:I have read that some people ground to the bridge thimbles.... how to get access to those though?
Pull the thimble closest to the control cavity (I usually use needle nose).
Drill a very small hole between the thimble hole and control cavity.
Put a small stripped ground wire in the hole between the two cavities.
Make sure to push in enough wire into the thimble cavity so that when you push the thimble back in place it will push the wire down and make good contact.
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Re: Grounding the Trem - not working

Post by Seratone » Fri Nov 20, 2015 3:42 am

Last night I took off the pickguard - I was amazed to see the ground solidly soldered to the volume pot. I removed the whole ground wire and replaced it with a new one. I couldn't get a drill bit into the cavity near the thimble - and it appears the Classic Player comes with a little 'eyelet' which I hooked around one of the trem mounting screws. The ground issue is fixed. The whole guitar sounds more brittle and treble (ly) to me now - but I think that's my mind playing tricks on me :) - one more repair it appears I can pull off on a Jazzmaster.

I'd like to get a Masterey Bridge for it - but I have had absolutely no problems with the 'tunamatic' bridge it came with.

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