Static from my Tele

[No-name Maddux]

purchased a Mexi made Fender Tele. I obtained it from a dealer on line. The previous owner had put a set of Shep Tone pickups in it. Sounds fantastic, I am pleased with the pu's and the guitar handles excellent. One thing, when I received it and started to play I noticed that when my hand rubbed across the pickguard it made a noise, like static. I started to rub my ringer back and forth across the length of the pickguard and it makes a crackle sound/noise. I think it's a ground problem? There isn't any bad ground noise if I take my hand off the strings or off the bridge, it's relatively quiet other than the noise from the pickguard. Everything looks O.K. underneath, no loose connections. Do I need to shield the underneath cavity or the back side of the pickguard, maybe both? Can anyone confirm this and explain what I need to do to correct the problem? Thanks...Mike

[muscmp]

It may just be static from your pickguard. use a clothes dryer anti-static cloth and rub it over the pickguard. that SHOULD solve the problem. i keep one of them accessible and rub it prior to touching any of my electronics. no use zapping your equipment with static electricity!
hope this helps.

MikeB

[No-name Maddux]

Thanks for the idea Mike.B, I own several guitars and the Tele and one of my Strats have this problem. I noticed that my Les Paul is starting to do this on occasion. I'll have to try the dryer sheet/static sheet idea. Maybe I'm full of static, I really don't know why it does this??? I appreciate your help...Mike H.

[muscmp]

i live in so cal where we can have very low humidity and dry winds. that is usually the only time i need to worry about the static situation.

MikeB

[David Schwab]

This is a common complaint about newer Fender basses over at TalkBass. They must be using some kind of plastic that produces a lot of static electricity for their pickguards.

[Sweetfinger]

I had a customer come in who was complaining about this very thing. He said he'd had the guitar for years and it "just recently started doing it". I told him the problem was static electricity and some people rubbed anti-static "dryer sheets" on their guitars. I know one pro who actually keeps a bottle of anti-static spray in his gig-box 'o stuff.
He was curious as to why it had never done it before. I asked him if he was in a new band. He was. I asked him if the band's "dress attire" was different than his old bands. Yes again. The fabric in his new band threads was more prone to rubbing up a charge!
I have also noticed on a couple occasions that guitars with star grounds seemed to be more prone to static electricity noise.