Martian, i verified that the connections are correct reading the diamgram for this particular guitar Standard stratocaster (mim) everything is connected the way it should be.....however, im not the original owner and if there were any mods done and the mods are connected wrong thats another story. I know that looking at diagrams of the 'texas specail strat' 'jimmi vaughn strat' and the deluxe strat. They are all wired differently. Now i do have on question. In the deluxe and american standards there is a "solder anchor of some sort wired to ground but it doesnt indicate where it connects to. I asume its srewed into the wood? But i have it with a guitar tech right now he doesnt charge to troubleshoot so i have him giving a second opinion. But if its going to cost a huge amount of cash to repair i plan to rewire the entire pickguard with the tex-mex pups and plan to rewire it as a jimmy vaughn signature.

Well, if you're satisfied it is wired correctly, this now becomes a dead issue.

To answer your question, many 'higher end' Fender bodies have a factory coating of shielding paint underneath their finish coats. These bodies also have a terminal screwed to the wood in the vicinity of the bridge pickup's high E side cutout. This terminal has a wire soldered to it with the other end of the wire soldered to the back of the volume pot. This link electronically ties in the shielding paint with the guitar's grounded components.

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Well, im up for any suggestions or will try anything. How would you wire the tone pots? Ive always had a sneaking suspician it was in the pots. I mean i know the pups arent bad. Necause the noise follows every pup no matter what it is. But i played some other mexistrats at GC amd now hum whats so ever. I guess the verdict is on the guitar tech looking at it today.

That makes sense about the shield paint. And the screw. I guess i cant add that to mine i can see straight down to the wood

Myself, I recommend if you're in there anyway, you should move to higher end components, and try to do as many as you feel comfortable replacing. When I take my Cali Series to my local tech I tell him "Do NOT use junk components on my sweetheart".... good luck to you!

I think Martian already answered your question. His advise should be taken into consideration a little more seriously. He knows a thing or two about wiring and pickups. What came to my mind while reading this thread is an expereince I had years ago where I accidentally overcooked a pot while doing a soldering job. After the cook job the guitar in question alternated between no sound at all in some pot positions and lots of noise in other positions. The pics posted on page two seem to show a lot of heavy solder deposit in many places and yet those connections still look like they went in on the cold side. This could possibly indicate the use of too small an iron (like maybe a 20 watt) which may have meant a very long heat time which even though it was long was still barely hot enough to be able to make the connection. A good solder joint goes in hot and fast. You want to put a good quantity of heat in a very localized place and get the solder in and the iron out quickly before the heat has a chance to be conducted to other things. A long low temp heating of the pot will eventually heat up the entire pot and cook the guts inside. For guitar work I like to use between 40 and 50 watts. Like Martian already pointed out I'm betting you have a faulty pot. Or three.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

The orange capacitor did not boost the high. A tone capacitor, like this one, just send to ground some ( high) frequency. You loose some hight. The cap won't had high frequency.

No capacitor in the tone will give you the natural and pure guitar tone.

Since you asked and again, from what I perceive from the pictures, for starters, the soldering in general is sub par. The wire is too thick and this leads me to believe that prolonged heat to try and solder them to the pots has compromised the integrity of at the very least, the volume pot. I'm not only talking about the can but the terminals as well where the cermet paths have got to have some scorching and warping. As to the specific wiring of the tone pot(s), the cap's tail to the other pot's terminal should be switched with the lead from this same other pot which goes to the selector switch.

I'm glad the paint explanation make sense to you. No, your guitar does not have the shielding paint. Even if it did, by connecting it to the guitar's circuit all it would do is ramp up capacitance and not solve your problem any way.

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Thank you for your compliments and reinforcing your point, pots will react in all sorts of crazy ways when they are even semi-fried.

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Oh i.was putting down his knowledge level, but i understand whatbyou mean by frieid pot, was thinking that becuase it was connected wrong causing a short that in turn friwd the pot. But i believe your talking about deep fried lol. Yeah i think im going to reload the pickguard infact i was just going to give this thing an upgrade. My strat is the typical brown sunburst color i was thinking about swapping out for a black pickgaurd white pups and knobs. But im going to rewire the whole guitar with new pots and controls. I know that all the schematics put all ground to the volume pot but i like to spread them out on thwr pots so i dont have to worry about cooking the pots it makws more sense to not bundle the sleeve, ground side of the pups, claw to the same pot or in the same bundled connection. It just make sence so if you have to replace something you dont have to unsolder the entire guutar. Am i right?

Frankly, with proper soldering and wiring technique, all ground wires should be at one junction to the extent possible. Further, said proper technique would not increase the chances of burning out a pot nor impede a partial un/rewire. Notwithstanding, if you want to solder your grounds here, there and everywhere, it would not be detrimental to the circuit as contrary to popular belief, no 'ground loops' would be created.

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Wow i just got the guitar back from the shop and the man said it was fine we connected it to a blues jr and it was fine. I found a way to create the noise though it was not as bad. I was told that this was just the noise a strat makes and that if im using high gain amps i will get noise. But i have an 81 super reverb and a champ 25. Those arent high gain amps are they? I mean they get loud but to my knowledge they are not high gain. Maybe i should up grade he pups to vintage noiseless?

I think im doing a huge face palm! I purchased the vintage noiselss pickups yesterday and installed them on my strat, its basically wired as an American deluxe. Out in the garage with no strings attached i plugged it into my amp and it was so quiet i had to pull out my cell phone and play music against the pickups to make sure it was on. I thought to my self perfe ct the hum is gone! So i took the amp and everything inside the house restrung it plugged it in and the hum is back! But, when i touch the strings it goes completelt silent, before it would just quiet the hum. Im pretty sure my house ground is in tact as it should be. I guess other things are plugged in my outlets are causing extra noise. The only difference from the garage and my office are the items pluged into he surrounding outlets. My garage at the time only had the main garage light on and everything else that was plugged in was off. Except the recepticle that had a water softener on it. I was plugged into a power strip.with nothing else. But in my house, especialy in my office there are so many things in the outlets. Wireless router, tv, lights, computers, you mane it its there. So i turned everything off with no avail, thouh i did notice that turning off and on the light can be heard in the amp. So maybe my issue simply was in the oodle and oodles of things that share the electricty in the house, my wife has so many things plugged into the walls, airfilters, wireless devices, iphones, ipads, no kidding theres a night light in every socket so the house is still dimly lit at night. Hmmm guess the real problem is i have to leave tue wife, ) thanks every one for your words of advice.