Advantage of using bare/uninsulated wire for grounding?

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

I've seen some guys use this for their ground wires when wiring guitars up and whatnot. Is there actually any advantage or is it all preference?

 

[Wiltonauer]

All else being equal, insulation on a ground wire might help support it mechanically and keep it from breaking due to excessive movement, and it will help keep it from shorting out points that are carrying signal — like the places where solder connections are made to tie components together at points that will experience other than ground voltage. You don’t want to short those points to ground while the guitar is in use, and an insulated ground wire could help with that.

 

[LeftOurEyes]

I mean it is usually a little cheaper to buy bare copper wire, plus if you have extra wire of the wrong color lying around you could just strip any of them and now its a ground wire lol. One really inst better than the other for ground though, other than the above mentioned accidental short from bare wire. If you keep your wiring neat then either is fine really. The cost savings for bare copper would only help giant manufactures not someone at home wiring up a few guitars.

 

[Warmart]

The advantage is soldering it in multiple places (pot tops, multi-switch common) without having to sweat stripping it.

 

[Grindspine]

My USA B.C. Rich didn't even have ground wire, everything was just soldered straight to a copper plate.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

Okay so it's not worth it, got it lol. I'll just stick with using multiple pieces of insulated wire

 

[ctgblue]

Yep, for a home builder, the ground wires get routed past so many items that could "ground them", it's best to run an insulated wire and only ground where you want.
Having recently done some complex wiring (super strat switching with kill switch), this came in handy.

 

[theunholyguitarist]

I've seen some guys use this for their ground wires when wiring guitars up and whatnot. Is there actually any advantage or is it all preference?

Luthier here, you can ground with a thick enough piece of a guitar string. If it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid.

That said, there's really no advantage or disadvantage to either.