Warning for squire classic vibe strat guard changes

[Iceman0124]

Found a slight but easily dealt with issue regarding the classic vibe single coils, after I changed the guards I was getting intemitent "popping" sounds, similar to moving the switch, it happend mostly when picking fast single notes around the middle of the neck or higher, it was driving me nuts.....Different amps, different cables.....I dont how many times I opend it up to check connections i just couldnt make it go away, I finally dicovered it was from my hand bouncing on and off the bridge pup screw, eveytime I'd touch it it would make a static sound, I did notice on the original guards they went to a lot more shielding effort than most guitars in that price range and even higher, replicating the shielding solves the issue completely, most important is the joint where the control shileding meets the pup shielding, as indicated in the red circle,

stock guard,



Depending on technique one may never notice, but if yuor hand touches any of the pup scews, it'll make noise....and likely drive you nuts depending how often it occurs. A temp solution was simply taping a length of solder on the screw head and anchored it to the bridge, problem gone. I've never had this problem on any other strat and I've had a few...The pups sound great, but apparently something with them requires the extra shileding,

Hope this helps some folks

[Jason]

Thanks for the heads up! (double thanks actually, since not only do I own one of those guitars, but I work for a guy making pickguards... though we do try to replicate the shielding exactly)

[Iceman0124]

Anytime, I'm just glad I figured it out as it was driving me insane, think I had it licked, then it was back, over and over again....the material on the back of these must be somewhat conductive or something, and your hand touching the scew turns your body into a capacitor, having the shielding joint meet 50/50 or close to it over the screw hole solves it, bridging them together with the screw makes it go away.

The most shielding I ever had on my other strats a little foil where the controls are and that was it.