Les Paul Standard shielding issue

[oxyen33d]

Hi Guys, I have a Les Paul Standard 2002 re-issue 60's neck that has been working fine since purchased in 2002. Last week when cleaning the guitar the neck pickup's screws poped off of thier springs causing me to have to carefully remove it from the cavity (after removing the strings) then re-seating it. Following this fix the bridge pickup stopped working so my guitar tech re-soldered the braid onto the volume pot as had come loose!

Both pickups are now working great but I noticed that the 3-way switch clicked when changing pickups, so again my guitar tech cleaned the contacts that fixed that.

However, now I find that I have a shielding issue as when I don't touch anything there is a hum, if I touch the strings, pickups swittch metal or bridge and tailpiece it silences the hum.

My guitar tech advised that he soldered the braid onto one of the lugs rather than the back of the pot

Could this be causing the shielding issue as am not happy to need to add shielding which would devalue the guitar as no longer standard build.

If the hum disappears when touching metal parts then the ground is probably there, just not great. Soldering the braid to a lug instead of the pot back sounds sketchy as hell on a Les Paul honestly I’d recheck every ground before adding shielding tape everywhere.

 

[micklawson]

Was soldered to the back of a pot, not a lug and hum now gone, shielding just an extra that can easily be removed if needed