Foil Sheilding

Re: Foil Sheilding

Foil sheilding is copper or another conductive foil that is attached to the control cavity walls of your guitar to sheild the comonents from RF interference. Many guitars from the factory have a sheilding paint in the cavity, some like Carvins use copper foil from the factory.

Humbucker loaded guitars generally don't need extra sheilding as the pickups and pots are already sheilded to a degree. Single coil guitars or guitars with split coil wiring often benefit from some added sheilding and it help to supress hum.

Aluminum foil and spray contact adhesive is a good way to go, and it's cheap.
 
Re: Foil Sheilding

Robert,
I'm curious to know how you feel about shielding in a single coil guitar.

I compared my shielded strat to my non-shielded, and removed the shielding, as I felt it really did bleed some highs. However, I don't think I really completed the job of shielding properly ...

just curious what you think

I know that some need shielding for other reasons, though

(sorry for the interruption) :)
 
Re: Foil Sheilding

Sheilding single coil guitars does change the tone from what most people say. I don't play true singles at the moment because of my rig. True singles and the high gain channels on Mesa amps don't always sound good together as the noise is unbearable.

I doubt yourissue was related to the installation process, sheilded guitars do sound different.
 
Re: Foil Sheilding

I used one of the aluminum pickguard shields from Callaham and the star grounding techinque from www.guitarnuts.com , and my set of Custom Shop 54's are dead quite in all position....and the middle isn't even RW/RP.
 
Re: Foil Sheilding

Ok, this is a really, really old thread that I'm digging up, my apologies. But, it has some really good information.

Sheilding changes the tone on a strat? Alot? The upside is that, aside from the reduced noise, nuances and better pickup clarity is achieved, right? I'm gonna sheild my guitar this weekend with copper foil tape when I install my new pups. But, now I'm a little worried that I'll lose a bit of the top end edge.

Should I worry or just do it cuz I'm gonna love the sheilding?
 
Re: Foil Sheilding

Guitar Toad said:
Ok, this is a really, really old thread that I'm digging up, my apologies. But, it has some really good information.

Sheilding changes the tone on a strat? Alot? The upside is that, aside from the reduced noise, nuances and better pickup clarity is achieved, right? I'm gonna sheild my guitar this weekend with copper foil tape when I install my new pups. But, now I'm a little worried that I'll lose a bit of the top end edge.

Should I worry or just do it cuz I'm gonna love the sheilding?

you will lose a very small amount of high end from the additional capacitance of shielding in the circuit. I don't see this as a problem personally as trying to tame the highs a bit on my strats is always an ongoing dilemma that shielding aids with very nicely.

Search this forum for a thread called "Shielding he beast". I posted photos of the work I did on one of my strats tht may help you out.
 
Re: Foil Sheilding

TheArchitect said:
Search this forum for a thread called "Shielding he beast". I posted photos of the work I did on one of my strats tht may help you out.

Aha! There it is. Right here I did a search with "sheilding" to find your post but, I spelled "shielding" wrong as did the author of this thread, and I missed your thread.

Thanks. The pics are very helpful.
 
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