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Hey guys, maybe im just being daft here but for grounding the guitar is there specific wire in the kit intended for this or will any do? ive noticed in my other guitars that the grounding wire seems to be unshielded, and was wondering whether this matters or not?
theres two unsheilded malleable bits of wire included in the kit but they are so soft and pliable im thinking they must be solder! i just wanna get the grounding wire in place now so i can get the bridge screwed down and not have to fiddle about with it again
cheers
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Just use a decent piece of insulated wire and strip the ends as required. It could probably be a bare wire if all the others are isulated, but really, just use an insulated piece and avoid any potential earthing woes.
The super malleable unshielded stuff is probably solder as you thought.
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yeah i checked my tele and it was an isulated wire, dunno where i got that idea from. cheers!
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Yea BenWA, stop being a daft noob! ;). Just kidding, question is a good one. As Stan has said, use an insulated piece of wire, if a bare wire is used and happens to come in contact with a live wire you will short out the sound and get issues. Grounding is very important and the wiring diagrams need to be followed exactly. Grounding the metal bridge and thus the strings is critical too. If you decide to shield the control cavity, then you can generally skip the grounding wire on the tone and volume pots. Just a trick when soldering ground wires to the pots is that you should heat the case of the pots and then apply the solder to the case. Solder always follows the heat source. Many people battle to get the solder to 'stick' to the pot casing and this leads to issues with the ground wire pulling free of coming loose.
Hope this helps with the soldering and grounding task!
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as always Gav, full of helpful friendly advice
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Wot Gav said! :)
Also, it helps to ensure good solder adhesion to the pot if you remove the zinc coating in the area you want to solder the wire to. Just scratch it off with a screw driver or file.
