I am rewiring a Gretsch that I resently refinished. If I plug it in all I hear is hum and if I touch any of the switches it will quiet down, but not completly. It has two humbuckers and it didn't hum before I took everything out. I read about sheilding but that seems to be for single coils. There is a ground wire coming from the bridge and it looks like it is aimed toward the jack/pickup volume knob area. The jack is grounded already so I don't know where it is supposed to go.
Any ideas?
The wire is not to ground the jack, it is to ground the bridge and the strings. Connectiong that to a grounding point should stop most, if not all, of the humming.
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Wow Thanks. I just soldered it to the bottom of a pot and no hum. I thought the ground had to travel from one part to the next. You can solder to whatever is grounded nearby. Am I right? This is my first time doing anything like this and I appreciate the help.
Thanks
I thought the ground had to travel from one part to the next. You can solder to whatever is grounded nearby.
Not necessarily. You might run the risk of creating a ground loop. Ideally, you want all your connections going to one common location, such as the back of the volume pot, and then out through the ground lug on the output jack.
More info here:
http://alexplorer.net/guitar/basics/grounding.html
"Everybody got to elevate from the norm."
I found a color coded schematic for a Gretsch on that site. Thanks. Great site too, it has everything I had questions about.
One thing though... when soldering he says to heat the metal first, then apply the solder. I ve tried this over and over and I just cook the wire. So I heat it up and just barely touch the iron with the solder. Improper technique. What am I doing wrong?
I'm using .062" solder and I have a 40W iron.
Thanks again
It only takes a second or two to heat up the component esp. with a 40w iron. I believe mine is 25w and I've totally toasted a 3-way toggle switch before by overheating the part.
Check out the video links on this page:
http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/telescope/soldering.htm
Clip 4 is the most relevant to what you are asking about.
"Everybody got to elevate from the norm."
It's done. The video clip was what I needed. And I star grounded everything. Thank you very much.
