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Rod piezo problems - Help!

I just finished a guitar there which has a rod piezo installed under the bridge. The bridge is a plastic blank that I scooped out underneath to make room for the rod to fit in. Well after glueing the whole thing up overnight I tested it today and there's a huge amount of buzzing coming from my amp, but on a clean setting I can still hear the guitar fine. On a distorted setting I can hear it too but it's all buzzing and horrible sounding.

After I had soldered the piezo to the jack I checked it and it seemed ok but something could have gone wrong since I suppose. Is it bad soldering, or maybe the rod isn't suitable to install inside a plastic bridge, or maybe something else like the neck inside the box is touching the jack when I plug a lead in (which is entirely possible, the box is quite shallow)?.

How would I go about repairing it? It's glued tight with tightbond and I've put a lot of work into the body with wood burning images so I'm guessing it's a lost cause? :(

Acoustically it sounds ace!

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Permalink Reply by darryl kernaghan on June 27, 2013 at 1:49am

just my 2 cents worth,clarky,but the rods require pressure from the bridge /saddle,ideally with no looseness,rods usually don,t buzz,but a pre amp would certainly help.randy .bretz would be a good person to ask,helpful and probanly knows as much as any about rods,cheers mate

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Permalink Reply by jawbone on June 27, 2013 at 1:54am

Check to see that the metal mesh ground on the piezo lead has not slinked around and touched the centre pin on the jack. That one tricked me for a while, Also piezos put out a lot of signal from what I understand. Maybe if you were to add a piezo disc to the underside of the neck and wire them in parallel would cut it down.

The box isn't glued shut is it??

Don't do anything rash until you've heard from someone with more experience.

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Permalink Reply by darryl kernaghan on June 27, 2013 at 1:59am

jawbone got it pretty good for mine,it,s fixable certainly

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Permalink Reply by Clarky on June 27, 2013 at 2:05am

Yeah I might be able to sort it if it's that with a bit of precise poking, I'll learn from this one :)

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Permalink Reply by Clarky on June 27, 2013 at 1:59am

Thanks guys, yeah completely glued shut lol. Maybe I can get in from the side of the box with a small hole near the jack and see what's going on. Looks like some tricky stuff coming!

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Permalink Reply by Randy S. Bretz on June 27, 2013 at 3:08am

The rod needs direct pressure on it to work properly. I make a bridge with a slot for the rod to set in and use a bone saddle on top.

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Permalink Reply by Clarky on June 27, 2013 at 3:16am

Thanks, my last build had one when I cut a groove out of a large screw I used as a bridge and I placed it in there and it sounds great, the piezo is a tight fit under this plastic bridge too so there should be pressure on it. Maybe not enough though hmm, I'll try and check there's not a wiring issue as above too, time to try a few things.

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Permalink Reply by Clarky on June 27, 2013 at 9:19am

So it turns out I'm an idiot. I soldered the wires the wrong way round. That will teach me to pay more attention. I cut a square out around the jack as carefully as I could and re-did it, then glued it back together. Not perfect but fixed at least.