Wiring problem defeating me! Please help...

Treewig1

Hi. I hope someone can help me with a wiring problem I've got.  
I've made my first guitar (a tele) but I can't get the final wiring to work!
I have a set of BK County Boy pickups.  When they are wired in properly, according to BK's wiring diagram, the Middle position is out of phase (nasal tone, low volume). So I swapped the bridge pickup wires around and that sorts the out of phase issue (and the Middle position sound right) BUT with a ground wire in place (volume to bridge) only the neck pick up works (there is no volume for the Middle or bridge position) and when I remove the grounding wire, I get a really loud buzzing when I touch the metal parts of the guitar when the selector is in the middle and bridge position (all is fine for the neck position).  If I  don't  touch the guitar, the pickups work perfectly in all three positions. What am I doing wrong? Any ideas? So frustrating!

sweepy

Sounds as though the earth is shorting somewhere, do the electrics work ok if you unscrew the control plate and undo the socket from the plate ?

Treewig1

I'm good with timber but come up short on electrics (soldering holds but is ugly).  Which socket do you mean?  Sorry!

ICBM

Vintage Tele style bridge pickups will have a ground connection from the coil eyelet to the baseplate, which means that if you reverse the wires the bridge will then be connected to the pickup hot - silence if the bridge is also grounded, buzz if it isn't.

Look at the bottom of the bridge pickup, there will be a link wire from the baseplate to one of the eyelets. Either move it to the other eyelet, or if you're worried about damaging the coil, just cut it and use the separate bridge ground wire.

Treewig1

Ah.  Terrific.  Thanks. The silence/buzz scenario is exactly what I'm getting. I shall take a look. 

Treewig1

Treewig1

Hi @ICBM. Your suggestion has almost fixed it and I have one (final) query.  The bridge pickup has a very short metal wire soldered to the brass baseplate (between the black and White braided wires) and I removed that short wire and put electrical insulation tape around it.  The pickups work in all three positions now and sound good but in the middle and bridge position there is still an audible (but much, much quieter) buzz and a popping/clicking sound when I touch the strings or the metal plate.  The buzz is considerably reduced and is manageable but I wondered if there was anything else I should do. I'm guessing the popping sound when I touch metal indicates something amiss and it would be good to do away with the popping/clicking, which is annoying. Many thanks.  So pleased with this major progress!

ICBM

Some noise when you're not touching the grounded parts is normal, and a slight pop when you touch one of them is fairly common. The neck pickup may not show it up as much because it has a cover over the top of the pickup coil - the bridge doesn't. That's why originally Teles had an 'ashtray' cover over the bridge, although almost no-one other than Albert Collins ever left it on.

You could try adding a ground wire to the pickup baseplate - attach it to the cut wire you left - but it's unlikely to make any difference unless the ground contact to the bridge and then to the baseplate isn't very good, although that can sometimes be an issue if the bridge is a bit corroded underneath.

Treewig1

Ok.  Thanks so much for your help.  Kind regards, Tree