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Best way to ground floating bridges?

So this is my second build and (as with the first) I have a hum when plugged into my little pignose battery amp. As soon as I touch the metal shield of the jack lead it goes away completely.

On the first build (piezo with volume) I patched in a small wire under one of the strings ends and soldered to the metal body of the 1/4" output jack - crude but effective.

This is the second build with mortal coil and no volume (straight to output). What is the best way to ground out the strings without having ugly wires everywhere?

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Permalink Reply by sparky37 on November 19, 2016 at 3:30pm

How about ground one of the strings at the tailpiece. The fret on the bridge and the tailpiece will ground out the other two strings. I grounded one of the string ferrules in my tailpiece and the zero fret grounded the other strings. I believe Shane (The King) did a video a while back on this subject.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Hall on November 19, 2016 at 4:15pm

Great minds think alike Sparky haha - that's actually how I did the first one, had a quick tinker with this one and another "crude but effective" fix. I will pretty it up one day - looks kinda steampunkish at the moment. It takes away 90% of the hum, palm on the strings behind the bridge the rest.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Hall on November 19, 2016 at 4:29pm

Yep - thanks Wayfinder. Bridge is a fret and nut is a bolt. Cheers.

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on November 19, 2016 at 11:46pm

Here's how I do it.

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Permalink Reply by Timothy Hunter on November 20, 2016 at 3:51am

thank you ! doing my neck today and fortunately i havent drilled for the rivets yet... great video.

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Permalink Reply by Ron Siddall on November 20, 2016 at 4:19am

Does anyone know why this hum occurs?

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on November 20, 2016 at 8:53am

Basically it's the magnetic fields generated by lighting, TV and computer screens and sometimes by electrical circuits in building. These induce electric currents in the wiring of the guitar and associated cables, creating an unwanted signal which is heard as a a hum through the amp. Hum cancelling "humbucker" pickups were developed to reduce the problem. Poorly shielded wiring and guitar leads make the chance of generating this unwanted hum even more likely.