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i have to wire a few guitars and wanted to know if it is optional to ground the bridge and strings? is the string ground a safety measure or only needed to decrease hum if present? we are using tone pros wraparound bridges and i believe they may have a coating on them that might not conduct a ground anyway? thanks

With Actives, the ground can be left off, in fact EMG even recommends it.

With a perfect shielding job, it can also be left off with passives.... A shielding job this perfect is near impossible, especially with single coils.... Humbuckers you´ll be more likely to get away without it.

What I do (IIRC I picked it up from Dan Erlewine...): I splice a 220k resistor and a 500V / .001 MicroFarad cap (wired in parallel to each other) into the bridge ground.... Should a shock be coming your way, it´ll only let about 40 volts through, while not impeding the function of the string ground... Metal pots or Jacks can still zap you, though

Guitar manufacturers put the string ground there for a reason. Zerb knows his stuff and in a perfect world with perfect conditions you might get away without one. Too bad I dont live on that planet. Most places I play have either funky grounds, lighting spliced into the stage power or something else that makes for noisey conditions.

My big rule is always CYA.

ok, thanks for the info - i'll definitely do the string grounds...