Shielding paint

dsuigdsf

Active member
Hi.
What is the maximum resistance (in ohms) I can have when using graphite paint in a guitar for the shielding to be fully effective?”
 
Zero is ideal but scan be hard to achieve. I didn't get good results with the graphite paints and saw them increase resistance over time. I don't know why. I switched to nickel MG Chemicals recommended by an active bass builder. Its not cheap. It still takes 2 coats with 30 minute dry time between. Sometimes 3 if the wood is porous. It seeps into pores just like finish would affecting the meter readings until its built up more. There may be better graphite products out now.
 
Not saying dont do it.
But I foiled a couple strats and didnt notice any differance.
They claim a true faradey cage would need to be 1/8" thick. So I just use a shielded puckgaurd and call it a day now.
 
I measured 15–50 ohms in different places (usually the farther away, the higher it gets). The original paints in guitars also have from a dozen to several dozen ohms.
 
Not saying dont do it.
But I foiled a couple strats and didnt notice any differance.
They claim a true faradey cage would need to be 1/8" thick. So I just use a shielded puckgaurd and call it a day now.
It only needs to be 1/8" thick if you're worried about 5 lightning bolts hitting your guitar at the same time.

With the very small amounts of electrical current that your guitar will ever face, the "cage" only needs to be conductive. It doesn't matter how thick it is... 0.001" to 0.01" is fine.
 
I measured 15–50 ohms in different places (usually the farther away, the higher it gets). The original paints in guitars also have from a dozen to several dozen ohms.
Sounds like either you didn't stir your paint completely (this has to be done everytime you use it and several times while you're using it) or you have defective paint.

I know the instructions say to use 3 or even more coats to be effective, but I tested that once and found that even one thick layer got perfect continuity wherever I tested it with the multimeter leads.
 
I heard that from Dylan pickups as well as another source.
Just sayin didnt work for my axes. Not debating do what works for you.
I find Dylan talks out his butt occasionally
He has stuff he wants to sell
And his videos are often trying to make his inventory look better than the less expensive stuff people use

Capitalism

Marketing

Lying

Call it what you want
 
A faraday cage is a pretty simple device. You take a conductive material and make a box out of it, then ground it. Because the material is conductive, when an electromagnetic wave hits the box it is transmitted to the ground and fails to pass through. The box can be completely solid, or made of a mesh (with the mesh, you need to calculate the size of the holes in the mesh to determine which frequencies will pass through and which will be caught).

The thickness of faraday cage materials just needs to be thick enough to carry your EM wave to ground. A piece of aluminum foil is more than thick enough to block out most high frequency waves that are going to be floating around in the air in your home. If you want to block out very powerful low frequency waves, then thicker will work better. 1/8th of an inch thick seems like ridiculous overkill . . . a 1/8th inch copper wire is 8 AWG and can easily handle 40-50 amps of electricity at a couple thousand volts. If you have anywhere near that amount of EM power going through the air, you're probably not going to worry about interference with your guitar because you'll be dead.
 
That 1/8" inch is wrong if you are trying to be technical. By my math using the skin depth formula, 60hz requires 8.42mm (11/32") thick of copper to reduce noise levels to 37%.
 
RIght or wrong on faradey cages dont matter to me. I tried it it didnt work for me so just dont do it.
If your milage varies cool have at it🙂
 
RIght or wrong on faradey cages dont matter to me. I tried it it didnt work for me so just dont do it.
If your milage varies cool have at it🙂
If it didn't work, you missed a step somewhere. The science is fact whether you choose to believe it or not. That fact that you choose not to is telling.
 
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