Humbucker Cover To Ground

[el pucho]

Hi,

I have a few more dumb questions

I have noticed when playing my Les Paul with a metal slide that I get a crackling sound from the amp, the guitar seems fine at all other times, it only crackles when I use a metal slide. I assumed this was some kind of grounding problem so I checked using a DMM and it turns out the covers on my pickups (metal cover over humbuckers) aren't connected to ground, everything else seems to be connected to ground (bridge, strings etc).

So I was wondering should the covers be connected to ground, and is this likely to cure this problem, and also what is the easiest way to make the connection if it's needed.

Thanks

[spazzyone]

if its needed just solder the cover to the bottom plate

wich should be grounded

[el pucho]

Thanks for the reply,

I checked and the covers are soldered to the base plate (I also checked continuity using a DMM between the covers and bottom plate, and the is no continuity).

Perhaps the problem is due to the baseplate not being grounded? I'm not entirely sure of the best way to ground it, if anyone has any views I'd appreciate the help.

Thanks

[Samba Pa Ti]

you can ground it to the volume/tone pots by running a bit of speaker cable from them to the baseplate/cover. thats a bit of a crude way of doing it but it saves opening the pups up

another thing you can do is shield the pickup cavity with grounded copper foil and then tap the ground off that

Edited August 20, 2006 by Samba Pa Ti

[el pucho]

Thanks for all the help, I think I've found the problem.

I very stupidly hadn't realised the braided core of the PUP wire was connected to the baseplate (4 wire PUPS). In my defence I wired the guitar quite a while ago when I had even less knowledge than I have now (Which isn't much).

Thanks again for your help, I appreciate it.