Help With Noisey Rails

[Jeff5]

I put a cool rails neck in my strat as well as replaced the switch and the pots. The pups work, but I get a TON of noise. (I have a hot rails bridge and JB jr. in the middle) I have the green and bare on all 3 pups grounded on the back of the volume pot. When they move (any of the green and bare), is when I get a the noise. So for instance when I put the pickguard assembly back on and it kind of squishes the wires etc.

Should I be grounding them somewhere else? How can I fix this? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[ArtieToo]

Re: Help With Noisey Rails

Jeff; A couple things to keep in mind. The back of a pot is just a "parking space" for a ground connection. The only "true" ground on a guitar is the sleeve connector of the output jack. Of course, if you have any sound at all, you must've made that connection.

The other thing to watch for, (this just bit me the other day), is the 3-way, or 5-way, or whatever switch is usually an "open" design. That is, exposed terminals. Add to that bare ground wires, as in the one that you tie to the green, and you have a good likelyhood of one touching the other as you put everything back in the cavity.

Just double-check everything. Look for the unexpected. Its in there somewhere.

[Jeff5]

Re: Help With Noisey Rails

Thanks Artie. So should I not ground those out on the volume pot? Should I ground them somewhere else? Maybe just soldering them together and taping will do the trick.

[ArtieToo]

Re: Help With Noisey Rails

Grounding to the back of the pot is fine, (even though I don't do it), its been done that way since the beginning. Just be careful not to overheat the pot, and melt/distort the plastic parts inside.

Then, make sure you have a wire that also runs from that connection to the sleeve terminal of the output jack.

[Jeff5]

Re: Help With Noisey Rails

I actually did heat up a tone pot too much and had to replace it hehe. I do have the ground or whatever from the jack connected to the pot and its still horribly noisey. Not sure what to do...