How do I eliminate buzz on my very simple guitar?

[Paul Seager]

My father built me a lap steel which has very simple electrics: One single coil pickup (tele neck type) and an output jack. There was a volume control but after the wood on which it and the jack were mounted split, I removed it and just wired the pickup straight to the jack and this works fine except for the buzz.

The buzz occurs when my fingers touch the pickup, which happens quite a lot when one is muting and so on.

I guess it's an earthing problem but I am a dunce on electronic stuff (so please answer at that level!) A friend suggested that I run a wire to the bridge but there is no channeling to pull a wire through to the bridge (a Les Paul Junior type).

[Scott Duckworth]

There will have to be a ground to the bridge...

[Lane Gray]

you're gonna have to run a wire to the bridge from the ground wire. There are ways to do it hidden

[Jerry Jones]

My guess is a pole piece shorting to the inner coil wire as well as the pickup cover. Try reversing the wiring at the jack and yes ground the bridge.

Edited to add that if your Tele neck pickup already has one of its lead wires connected to the pickup cover, that's the wire that connects to the output ground…..you might have them reversed.

[Glenn Uhler]

Sounds like grounding the bridge to the ground side of the pickup will help a lot. Lining the pickup cavity with metal foil and grounding that will also help.

[Paul Seager]

Many thanks, I'll experiment before drilling! Couple of questions:

Do I have to solder the ground wire to the bridge or is it enough to just place the wire between some screwed point?

If I had say a stacked single coil, would that eliminate the buzz or just lessen the problem? (... and I suspect the answer is "neither"!)

Have a good weekend.

\ paul

[Lane Gray]

If the bridge is metal, just smooshing the wire between bridge and guitar should be adequate.
Since the hum/buzz is a grounding problem, pickup choice might reduce, but not eliminate it.

[Stephen Cowell]

You tell us it's a Tele neck pickup type... this means that it has a chrome metal cover. You get bad hum when you touch this cover.

You need to ohm the cover to the pickup wires... I'm guessing that one of these wires is directly connected to the cover... this is the one that should be grounded. I'm betting you just have the wires reversed.

If this is not helping, try grounding the cover of the pickup somehow.

[Peter Harris]

If the bridge is metal, just smooshing the wire between bridge and guitar should be adequate.
Since the hum/buzz is a grounding problem, pickup choice might reduce, but not eliminate it.

...and you just might find that 'smooshing' a strip of adhesive-backed conductive copper tape (stuck to the body of the instrument) is an easy way of accomplishing all this without drilling holes anywhere....assuming you can let the other end dive down into the pickup cavity to make the other end of the connection where no-one can see how you did it..

..the bridge on my vintage reissue Jazz Bass gets its ground that way via about an eighth-inch wide strip of tape which never gets in the way or lifts off after 30 years..

HTH

Peter

[Lane Gray]

Adhesive-backed copper tape would not need to be hidden. Sculpt a tail of it decoratively, trailing from bridge foot to pickup.
Copper is pretty.