Noisy Ric American Academy

[Brad Richard]

I bought an American Academy recently and love it. Great sound EXCEPT it's a bit noisy. I'm sure it's a bad ground (if I touch the horseshoe pup it's quiet), but I'm not sure how to fix it and I don't want to screw it up. Can someone wise me up, please. Thanks!

[Brian Cheetham]

Take the cover off and look for a loose or disconnected wire. Here’s a wiring diagram I used for my Model B


Here’s what mine looked like after redoing the wiring

[Jack Hanson]

Also, the strings need to be grounded somewhere. On most guitars, there's a ground wire in contact with either the bridge (if metal) or the tailpiece.

[Brad Richard]

Thanks, guys. I think it probably is the bridge grounding, Jack. The problem is, it's bakelite formed in the body so I don't know how to ground it. I PM'd Rick Aiello for help asked him to post it here so all could benefit.

[Rick Aiello]

The Ace and Academy usually have an aluminum back plate that is not grounded ... hence the hum.

I have three of them ... drilled a tiny hole in the aluminum back ... put on a tiny screw and nut ... and ran a wire to the jacks ground ....

Quiet as a mouse now ...

Hope that helps ...

[Brad Richard]

Thanks for the reply, Rick. I get what you're saying. Pardon me for being so dense, but where is the aluminum backplate?

[Brian Cheetham]

These are all Bakelite, even the bridge. You cannot run ground to the bridge or tail piece as you would on a modern instrument. The wiring diagram (above) shows that the pots have a lug connected to the ground of the output jack, along with one of the wires from the pickup. It’s a very simple circuit and produces a very quiet result.

[Bill Sinclair]

This is how Mike Auldridge apparently did it on his B model. Note the paper clip. I'm sure it could be made less conspicuous by weaving a copper wire through the strings but since this was Mike's guitar I'm just going to leave it for the time being.

[Rick Aiello]

Brad ... I've seen a few with no back plate ... just a piece of aluminum over the control bay.

As mentioned above ... try and rig up a scheme to ground the strings ... as Bill has pointed out ...

[Brad Richard]

Thanks for all the help, guys. Gives me some good direction to get started. I'll fool around with it and see what I can do. Worst case is I just have a noisy steel (which I can live with). Maybe the easiest solution is to just keep my right hand butted up against the pup to ground it, but still be able to mute.

[Brad Richard]

Well, I tried to leave it alone, but.....
Anyway, here's what I ended up doing. I weaved some copper wire through the strings, ran it down through the high E string hole and soldered it to the ground. It is quiet.

[Jack Hanson]

A quick and easy (albeit somewhat inelegant) solution. Good job, Brad!