bought some copper tape, white and black wire (for grounding) from stewmac, and copper pickguard shield from monteallums.
now, let me reverse a little, the issue i was having was a buzzing issue that would stop when i touched the strings, and static on the pickguard and (weird) the neck itself.

i took abought 2 hours carefully cutting the copper tape and covering the body cavities,
checked with my multimeter for continuity. soldered a wire from the copper tape to the volume pot.
imho i havent noticed a change in tone yet, if there is its miniscule.
now its quiet and zero static.

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"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

oogway, kungfu panda 2008

If you had the issues with an amp connected make sure the amp is ok.

Cheers,
Robin

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http://www.youtube.com/robinstrower
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I checked the strat in 5 different amps, nothing would
Change.

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"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

oogway, kungfu panda 2008

I'm certainly happy that you found the noise issue.

I've said the following and received a bit of flaming, but I think it's worth repeating because it is simple and cheap.

Many times, noise is caused by impedance on the ground side. This can be from a dirty pot, a bad solder joint or other things. What I have found in guitars......especially when I buy one from someone who has left it in a closet for years.... is that the ground side of the output jack corrodes and does not make a good connection. I just fixed 2 guitars that had the exact symptom mentioned in the first post. Take your hands off the strings and you hear lots of noise. In addition.....play the guitar and get some random electrical crackles now and then.

Here's what I did. Remove the 2 screws for the output jack housing. Take some 600 grit wet or dry sandpaper and sand the + part of the connector where the tip of the cord connects. Do it until the whole thing shines. Next, roll up the sandpaper small enough that you can insert it into the connector from the scallop side. Sand thoroughly so that corrosion from every side inside and out of the contact cylinder is gone.

Both of these guitars were then plugged in and all noise was gone. An alternate method is to simply replace the jack with a new one. I was just too lazy to fire up the soldering iron this weekend and wanted to play a newly acquired guitar.

Where this won't work is if someone messed with the electricals in the guitar, causing noise. It's been mentioned many times to make sure to make a star connection. On mexican strats (don't know about US), the volume pot case is that star.

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2002 mim Telecaster
Jimmie Vaughan Stratocaster
Mexican HSS Stratocaster
6 non-fender guitars
2 kids (not for sale)
1 wife (uh....no comment)