Wiring question - pick-up ground wires

I am building a GR-1SF - first build. This is probably a novice question:

I noticed in all the wiring diagrams that while the pick-up hot wires are connected to the associated pot (bridge or neck), the pick-up ground wires get connected to same bridge pot or the neck pot, not the respective pots that the hot wires are connected to. (Wiring includes two pickups, two pick-up volume pots, 1 master volume pot, one master tone pot and a three way switch)

Also saw that this wasn't the case on one of the demo videos for another model guitar.

Is it important that the ground wires are connected this way or can they be connected to the same pots as the hot wires? Appreciative of any guidance.

Thank you

Hey man. The ground wires can go to any grounded point. That can be all on the back of a single pot, all on the back of each pot or whatever you choose. The important thing is that then all the pots need to be grounded. You need to either solder a wire between the body of each pot to connect them all (and then connect this to the ground with from your bridge) or make sure they are all electrically grounded in another way (eg connected via the shielding).

Personally I solder a wire between all the pot bodies (just to make sure) to ground them all (i don't rely on the shielding), solder a wire from the shielding to one of the pot bodies, and solder the bridge ground wire to the shielding.

cheers,
Gav.

Yep, as Gav said, connect the grounds wherever it's most convenient, either a common ground point or to their respective pot casings. As long as there is a solid consistent path to the jack ground from any individual grounding point you'll be fine.

Due to the minimal shielding options for hollowbodies it's generally considered good practice to ensure there's only a single path to ground from any given point. So, ideally it would go from jack ground -> pot casing -> pot casing etc. and branch off to pickup grounds etc. where needed, as long as there's no other ground paths back from a specific branch.

In any guitar wiring situation, it's good practice not to have multiple ground paths, so make sure there aren't any loops in the ground wiring. Star-wiring grounds to a single point is best, but not always practical, otherwise use a branching ground system with no loops.

Make up a wiring harness using the minimum lengths of cable necessary. For the longer cable runs (and with the distributed control arrangement on the GR1-SF there are several) it is best to use shielded cable to minimise noise pickup.

Thank you all

Here's a related question... If I am using shielded wire for everything else, does it matter if there is an unshielded ground in the cavity as well? In other words, do ground wires need to be shielded as well? May be a silly question...

No, no need to shield ground wires. They are all at the same potential. You'd only be encasing a ground wire in a ground shield. Any noise picked up on a ground wire is simply taken to the main ground potential when it hits the amp input.

Great, thanks!