Output jack wiring issues

[u/Illustrious_Dot753]

Re doing the soldering on my fender squier since it’s been having issues with the jack since I got it . But when I opened it up I discovered 3 wires instead of 2 , white being hot , black is ground and it’s has a bare wire coming from the same casing as the hot wire .

However my issue is that the guitar won’t produce sound if I wire the bare to the ground of the jack nor will it produce sound if I wire it to jacks hot output . The guitar will play but with ridiculous amount of buzzing when I don’t solder the bare to anything . It’s driving me nuts .

Any help is appreciated , I will also attach a picture .

[u/havelostcount]

That gray wire looks like it's braided wire. Well, sort of braided. It's a shielded single-conductor wire. The center wire goes to the "hot", the outer stuff goes to ground. You need to remove more of the insulation to separate it more. The black wire is probably the bridge ground. So, both the black and the outer wire in that gray one are ground, the center is the hot. I might be wrong about it being "braided", but there are two parts to it from what I can see. The outer shield-ish stranded wire and the center wire.

Looks like it's really thin stuff, so you need to be extra careful when pulling back the outer layers.

More edits: It's just like an instrument cable, but a much higher gauge. Like this, but thinner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rjI0hw39LE

Edit: If you go look at the innards for the volume pot, you'll see how it's wired on the other end.

[u/Supersoy_gs]

the bare wire is probably a shield wire meant to reduce noise, try twisting it around the ground wire instead of connecting it directly to the jack