Shielding guitars.

[Jeff White]

I just have to share this on here. I spent all day yesterday shield-painting my single-coil guitars with this stuff, combined with some copper tape that I found at StewMac as well. I worked on my 1998/1999 MIM Frankenstrat, my '03 USA Telecaster, my '03 CIJ Jaguar, and my 2001 CIJ Mustang bass all at once in order to get everything out of the way in a day. I also decided to shield-paint my 1999 MIM wine red Strat body (which is for sale) as an extra buying incentive. My StewMac order, along with new screws for my Strat pickguard (all are currectly rusted out) was under $60.

The Strats and the Telecaster each got 2 separate coats. Since the Tele is a Highway 1 without a clear coat finish, it sucked up the paint easily. I had to put on a thicker second coat for both of the MIM Strat bodies. Stew Mac says to wait 24-hrs between coats, but I let them sit for 6 hours and then used a hairdryer on them between coats. Then I was able to re-assemble them all same day, set them all up with .11s, and test them out late last night.

The Jaguar and the Mustang bass only got copper tape. Seemed like the Jaguar was already shield-painted and the Mustang bass had only a little inside to do. All in all I'm pretty dumbfounded at how much of a difference this has made. My Telecaster is the most drastically improved, so much so that the stock PUPs are now sounding really good to me. It's really quiet, not silent but much much much improved. I can be really close to an amp and simply turn to a null position (where any hum is at it's lowest) and the signal to noise ratio is really great for single coils. The Mustang bass is DEAD SILENT. It's crazy how quiet it now is. You can't even tell that it's plugged in! The Strat also had some solder work done to clean up some dirty connections on the 5-way and it's kicking ass again (note: this entire guitar has been rebuilt several times since purchasing it in 2000; now has GFS strat pups in it, wilkinson bridge pulled flat into a hard-tail, sperzel locking tuners, 1999 neck and 1998 white body). The Jaguar was the least improved; not bad but it seems like it was already shielded, so I simply copper-taped the new pickguard, the tremolo and control cavities, and made sure that all shields in everything connected. Definitely improved, just not as drastic. The stock PUPs suck so they're getting replaced soon. Just dull as shit. Zero vibe. However, now quieter!

So at under $15 per guitar (with more than 3/4 of the paint left!), I cannot recommend this enough. It's really a great improvement that any DIYer can do for cheap. I'm gonna use my Telecaster all of the time again. So inspired to play it now.

Jeff

[kslight]

Yeah I've done the copper tape thing. It still just boggles my mind that guitar manufacturers won't take care of this out at the assembly line.

[Jeff White]

I know, right? It makes such a difference, especially on single-coil guitars.

Jeff

[dubold]

I spent an hour gluing heavy aluminium foil into the cavity of a chinese squier strat and was blown away by the improvement. less than a dollar's worth of materials and the difference was incredible.

[lyman]

The copper tape works well, but careful with the edges. They can get knife-like. I cut my finger smoothing down an edge of a piece that had crinkled up and was almost like a serrated knife.

[Jim Williams]

Do line the pickup cavities as well, the body will generate buzz when the guitar is placed against your gut from the rear of the pickups. Use a continuity meter to check that all the copper pieces are grounded.

I find lining the pickup covers gets rid of the remaining buzz. I do that with strat and p-90 pickups as well as my p-bass. Once the entire circuit is screened you can take your hands off the strings, no buzz.

Install a .022 uf 250v film cap in series with the bridge ground. That will prevent lethal shocks from poorly grounded live mics.

[rhythm ranch]

The copper tape works well, but careful with the edges. They can get knife-like. I cut my finger smoothing down an edge of a piece that had crinkled up and was almost like a serrated knife.

This stuff works great at protecting digits.

[strdsk]

Thanks for sharing!!

[Brett Siler]

Interesting... Do this that stuff would work on other noisy equipment like noisy outboard gear?

[frans_13]

Interesting... Do this that stuff would work on other noisy equipment like noisy outboard gear?

Guitar pickups and horrible wiring act as antenna and draw noise into the circuit. Noisy outboard has most likely other problems, so in most cases it won't help.

It's funny how guitar companies seem to ingnore most common sense things about shielding and proper grounding, huh? A lot of people also won't understand grounding and ground loops, no matter how. There are postings on the net that go like "star grounding won't work, because..." - a typical example of said behaviour. It's easy, grounding wants it's wires to run like the branches of a tree, at least. Star grounding is recommended.

[Andy Peters]

There are postings on the net that go like "star grounding won't work, because..." - a typical example of said behaviour. It's easy, grounding wants it's wires to run like the branches of a tree, at least. Star grounding is recommended.

... except that "star grounding" is a band-aid, and doesn't always work. And grounding doesn't want its wires to run like the branches of a tree ...

-a

[The Scum]

Interesting... Do this that stuff would work on other noisy equipment like noisy outboard gear?

If the outboard is already in a metal box, and the box is grounded, then paint and tape are probably redundant.

[frans_13]

... except that "star grounding" is a band-aid, and doesn't always work. And grounding doesn't want its wires to run like the branches of a tree ...
-a

There's still a lot of stuff that can go wrong, besides wiring. Topology, interconnection, etc.etc. if there are other problems, yes, then star grounding won't help. The whole issue of how to run paths in a circuit is a topic unto itself neither of us can wrap up in a few sentences. With "like the branches of a tree" I meant interconnections, not necessarily in a circuit and I wrote "at least". That's the downside of trying to pick out details in stuff you need the big picture. We use stuff in conjunction so concentrating on one aspect won't get us far.

[Jeff White]

I've read that star grounding works / star grounding is a waste of time. Can someone point me in a solid direction regarding a proper ground instruction for all of my guitars? I'm about to go pickup crazy and while I'm in there I'll do the work if it's going to give me solid results.

Jeff

[Jim Williams]

Don't over think this stuff. It's very simple. The guitar needs 100% screening. Line all the cavities with 3M copper foil tape. Solder each piece together. Check continuity with a meter. I use silver/teflon 24 AWG wire to connect the pickup cavity to the control cavity on Les Pauls. Any wire will do.

Then you have a faraday shield around all the electrical components. This is a ground plane in operation, the ground return impedance is so low, it's as if it was 'star grounded' without all those extended ground wires to the central point. That may make things worse doing that as every ground wire to that central point adds series resistance and can cause ground currents to form. The copper foil screen is micro ohms of resistance and is the best solution.

Next, add a .022 uf cap in series with the string/bridge ground. That will prevent microphone lip burns on badly grounded sound systems.