Bridge Grounding

[knighty76]

Hi everyone,

Possibly a silly question, in fact probably but what the hey.. On a Telecaster bridge stringed through the body, where is the electrical contact point between the strings and the bridge plate, for the purposes of grounding? Is it between the string and edge of the bridge plate holes, where the strings are angled down and through from the saddles? Is it usually the saddles themselves, to the bridge plate via the saddle mounting screws and/or the saddle feet?

The reason I ask is that I am fitting graph-tech saddles on my Telecaster bridge, and I believe these are some kind of polymer which I doubt is electrically conductive. Seems a bit hit and miss to rely on the strings contacting the bridge plate as they angle through the holes, but there again looking at the geometry of the thing they are probably quite taught against the plate. I'm probably talking rubbish..

Anyone? Ahh thankyou!

Rich.

[JohnH]

I dont have a Tele to check this out properly, but Im looking at a picture of a Tele bridge in a book. Any metal to metal contact will connect string to bridge, and it looks like the string has to press on the side of the bridge plate to change its angle as it emerges from the body. Its under tension so unless there is something non-conductive in the way, it would have to connect, as you suggest.

[thedoctor]

It sounded silly at first but the more I thought about it the more I got concerned. If your strings make a clear shot through the holes in the bridge without touching the plate and your saddles are non-conductive, I don't know WHERE the strings will get ground. I guess you either need to file slots in the top of the body, beneath the bridge, to make sure they hit the metal OR push a ground wire in with each of the string ferrules. Good scenerio for thought!

[frank falbo]

The strings always touch the baseplate on the way over to the saddles. You'd have to have the saddles back pretty far for them to be suspended inside the string through hole. When in doubt, you could always use a brass nut, or a Floyd style string tree. That way, down a the headstock all the strings would be connected to eachother. Then technically, only one string needs to make good contact with the bridge.

I'm going to do a wooden chassis bridge on one of my next guitars, so I thought about making an insert for the ferrules that pre-grounded (well, joined) all 6 of them. Ground would be made when the insert was put in place. But the ferrule holes I made are flawless, and they're recessed and everything. So I didn't want to mess with it. Since I'm using metal steinberger style saddles, I'll install a brass plate under them that's grounded. But grounding the ferrules is a possibility, although way more work, and not necessary in this situation.