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My Squier 70's CV Jag is in most respects a pretty stellar guitar, but I've got a perpetual buzz - the type I've experienced from all my other guitars that goes away when you touch the strings, only in this Jag's case it *doesn't* go away when touching the strings, but DOES when touching the control plates. Other than learning to rest my pinky in an awkward position to defeat the noise, what's the likely solution to this grounding problem?

I've heard some Jag's have a grounding wire in the tremolo cavity, but when I opened that up there's no sign of one there. Peeking under the control plates, nothing looks particularly amiss (loose wires, etc.), but I'll admit this aspect of guitar maintenance is usually beyond me, so I'm thinking of just taking it to a tech, unless anyone has an easy fix to suggest. Thanks for any advice...this is my first offset, so it's been quite the learning experience all around.

Some Jaguars ground the strings via the vibrato, some do it via the bridge thimbles.

You can open up the control cavities and see if there's a wire coming from the bridge thimbles. You can test it for continuity with the thimbles with a multimeter, to make sure there's still good contact.

If the ground wire is missing or disconnected, all you need to do is run a new one to either the thimbles or vibrato plate, and connect it to any of the ground points within the control cavity.

Thanks for the advice- I’ll check what’s going on around the thimbles; it’s admittedly one spot I’d overlooked!

Yup. On my CV Jazzmaster, the rocking bridge meant constantly shorting its ground and making noise. I fixed that by drilling a new tunnel from the tremolo cavity to the lower controls and running a ground wire to the trem. No more noise! I imagine the Jag may have the same issue.

BatUtilityBelt wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 23, 2023 9:05 pm

Yup. On my CV Jazzmaster, the rocking bridge meant constantly shorting its ground and making noise. I fixed that by drilling a new tunnel from the tremolo cavity to the lower controls and running a ground wire to the trem. No more noise! I imagine the Jag may have the same issue.

After a little investigation this morning with my Jag, it definitely seems like my grounding problem is similar to yours. The thimble itself appears to be grounded, but the rocking bridge isn't making proper contact with it - if I move the bridge to an angle, the buzz goes away. Frustratingly, the problem only happens when the bridge is in the proper (re: fully upright) position, and any strong trem bar wiggle makes the grounding buzz come and go. I may take your approach to putting a ground in the trem cavity to circumvent this, unless I can find a way to make the bridge make better contact with the thimble area.

Thanks again, folks. This led me down a path I wouldn't have figured out on my own.

rhyming orange wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 24, 2023 9:51 am

After a little investigation this morning with my Jag, it definitely seems like my grounding problem is similar to yours. The thimble itself appears to be grounded, but the rocking bridge isn't making proper contact with it - if I move the bridge to an angle, the buzz goes away. Frustratingly, the problem only happens when the bridge is in the proper (re: fully upright) position, and any strong trem bar wiggle makes the grounding buzz come and go. I may take your approach to putting a ground in the trem cavity to circumvent this, unless I can find a way to make the bridge make better contact with the thimble area.

Thanks again, folks. This led me down a path I wouldn't have figured out on my own.

Glad to help. I'm pretty sure you'd have found it on your own, but forums make these things faster to resolve! I got the answer on another forum, so we're just paying it forward. Here's a picture of the mod as I was making it. I drilled the route to the controls, but warning: It takes a very long drill bit to do this.