Author Topic: Strat Shielding (Read 4050 times)

Jonesy76 · « **on:** December 17, 2007, 03:35:44 PM »

Right.........

Before I go down the route of wiring up this new Strat project of mine I have a querry.

Essentially everything else in my collection has two humbuckers and a whole load of vintage shielded wire, so I'm not really 'au fait' with shielding which I hear is fairly necessary if you have single coil pickups to stop the buggers picking up interference. Now I've brought some posh copper shielding for my strat project but was wondering where I have to put this?
Just on the back of the scratchplate where the controls are?
Or all over the inside of the guitar including the pickup cavities?
And do I then need to earth this?

Sorry to ask so many questions, but these Stratocaster thingies are like some form of alien life-form to me :P :D

sgmypod · « **Reply #1 on:** December 17, 2007, 03:48:55 PM »

http://myfolder.se/myspace/?k=noiseless
http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shielding/shield3.php
couple of places for info on shielding strats..can shield cavity where electrics sit and pick guard around electrics(pots) or full thing like in them sites

Ted · « **Reply #2 on:** December 17, 2007, 04:55:21 PM »

Quote

Just on the back of the scratchplate where the controls are?

Yes, just that.

You can get the full scratchplate sheilding, but thats OTT IMO.

No need to screen the pickup cavities.

WezV · « **Reply #3 on:** December 17, 2007, 05:10:31 PM »

if you shield the pickup cavity it will alter the magnetic field and therefore alter the sound of the pickup slightly..

Personally i prefer to leave pickup cavities unshielded and if you are going to play a strat with true single coils you have to live with a bit of noise

Philly Q · « **Reply #4 on:** December 17, 2007, 05:57:40 PM »

There's some useful info on the Kinman site too. Note that he's not a believer in the star grounding suggestions in the GuitarNuts piece:

http://www.kinman.com/html/toneWorkshop/perfectGuitar.htm#shielding

http://www.kinman.com/html/toneWorkshop/perfectGuitar.htm#shock

Following on from what Wez and Ted said, there was a thread recently (sorry, can't find it at the moment) where someone had been advised by Tim not to shield the pickup (as opposed to control) cavities because it dulled/rounded the sound. I think it was a guitar with humbuckers or MQs, not a Strat.

I don't think the effect on the sound is necessarily a bad thing though, as a humbucker person I often find unshielded Strats/Teles a bit spiky and sort of "ragged" sounding. I like a smoother tone. But when I change the pickups on my Robert Cray Strat I may leave it unshielded, as an experiment.

I've always used conductive paint in the cavities of my Strats, and copper foil over the whole back of the scratchplate. You can use copper foil in the cavities too, but it's a bugger to get it tidy (be prepared for lots of "paper" cuts on your fingers). And wherever there's a separate piece of foil you need to solder the join for continuous electrical contact.

For earthing, you can overlap the paint/foil onto the top of the body at one or two points (preferably near screw holes) so it makes contact with the foil on the scratchplate. And I copy Fender and have an extra wire soldered to a pot, with the other end attached to a lug screwed to the bottom of the pickup cavity, again in contact with the conductive paint/foil.

pagan7 · « **Reply #5 on:** December 18, 2007, 10:45:56 PM »

It was me that Tim advised to remove the copper shielding from the pickup cavities and it was on a mahogany bodied thruneck Ibanez RGT with nailbombs which were sounding muffled and lacking dynamics. They sound fantastic with the tape removed. Like Philly when it comes to my Strat its sheilding all over the inside of the scratch plate and shielding paint in the controls cavity.....oh and Fender noiseless pickups for extra hum cancelling :)