Tin Foil Shielding

[Flint Stone]

Went into a local music store for a switch and a shielding kit recently. A rather gnarly old guitar tech told me that they didn't sell the shielding because "tin foil will work just as well, and there really wasn't very much copper content in the foil sold in these kits."

Any opinions on this???

 

[Grindspine]

Re: Tin Foil Shielding

Copper is what I use; it is a great electrical conductor and it works.

I have heard tell of people using aluminum foil as shielding. I have not tried it so cannot recommend it though.

 

[idsnowdog]

Re: Tin Foil Shielding

3M spray adhesive and heavy duty aluminum foil works just as well. Aluminum foil is still conductive but not as good a conductore as copper. You can use two layers of foil for extra RFI protection if you like . Beware of using single ply pickguards because they like to warp when the glue dries. 3-Ply guards usually are rigid enough not to warp. Also remember that shielding only works if it is grounded. If it isn't grounded it is a antenna.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Tin Foil Shielding

you can find some aluminum tape at Home Depot or Lowes. might be in the plumping area, if memory serves... or just ask them. aluminum works fine and a lot more cost effective than the conductive copper. technically speaking, to reduce as much external interference as possible, you'd do a layer of each... as each blocks certain frequencies. the good thing about the aluminum tape is that there's enough on a roll to do several guitars and it's cheap enough to not have to worry about being really thorough when doing your shielding project.

 

[King IzzO)))]

Re: Tin Foil Shielding

^ that. It works and it's cheap.

 

[Flint Stone]

Re: Tin Foil Shielding

This tech has been playing, repairing, and building guitars for many years so I thought that there may be some validity to the information he was giving me. Most of these sheilding kits are relatively cheap, less than $15. I was just a little taken aback by his attitude that if spent this amount of money on something I shouldn't spend more than a 25 cents on I was a dumb@ss!!!

 

[~Vintage~]

Re: Tin Foil Shielding

I get my copper shielding tape from StewMac.

I noticed the other day that DiMarzio has branded copper tape on MF. ???

 

[dazco]

Re: Tin Foil Shielding

Coincidentally, I just saw this post after swapping a mag into a 59/hybrid and noticed duncans now have foil around the coils ! Granted, this was the 1st duncan i have owned and taken the tape off of for god knows how many years. I've been using dimarzios for years till now. But this is the 1st HB i've ever owned like this. And it makes me wonder.....if i remove that tape what i'll hear besides more noise. Has anyone done this? I ask this question because in the past i have tried shielding p/u's the same as this duncan and guitar cavities. And one thing i have found without exception is shielding has always deadened the tone of any p/u i've shielded or any p/u in a guitar i've shielded. This is why devices like the suhr backplate are said to be so good. Shielding IMO always changes tone, and for me always for the worse. So i'd really like to hear from someone who's removed the copper foil from a duncan and what they found/liked/disliked. By the way, how long has duncan been doing this?

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Tin Foil Shielding

I've used both the copper shielding kits and aluminum foil. The kits don't have much foil in them, barely enough to do some types of guitars and not enough to do many others. And it's relatively very expensive. Spray adhesive and aluminum foil works just as good, and it's extremely inexpensive. I haven't noticed any effective difference between copper and aluminum. Aluminum is a very good conductor and is even used in some house wiring.

 

[Flint Stone]

Re: Tin Foil Shielding

Heavy aluminum foil and spray adhesive it is!!!

Thanks for all the input.

 

[King IzzO)))]

Re: Tin Foil Shielding

Coincidentally, I just saw this post after swapping a mag into a 59/hybrid and noticed duncans now have foil around the coils ! Granted, this was the 1st duncan i have owned and taken the tape off of for god knows how many years. I've been using dimarzios for years till now. But this is the 1st HB i've ever owned like this. And it makes me wonder.....if i remove that tape what i'll hear besides more noise. Has anyone done this? I ask this question because in the past i have tried shielding p/u's the same as this duncan and guitar cavities. And one thing i have found without exception is shielding has always deadened the tone of any p/u i've shielded or any p/u in a guitar i've shielded. This is why devices like the suhr backplate are said to be so good. Shielding IMO always changes tone, and for me always for the worse. So i'd really like to hear from someone who's removed the copper foil from a duncan and what they found/liked/disliked. By the way, how long has duncan been doing this?

They only do it on certain pickups. I've removed the tape from two different Screamin' Demons and a Detonator, I don't notice any difference, good or bad.

 

[tonello]

Re: Tin Foil Shielding

I use copper shielding from Warmoth. Works the best for me. I don't see why you couldn't use aluminum, but I don't think it works as well as copper.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Tin Foil Shielding

There's no practical difference.

 

[guitarded]

Re: Tin Foil Shielding

I noodled around with aluminum foil once on a noisy strat for a friend. His strat had the dimarzio area set.... I have two strats set up like that which are dead quiet but his was noisy. The aluminum foil did not help and it introduced a new problem of the pickguard picking up increased static electricity from our picking hands.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Tin Foil Shielding

It's very simple.

Any grounded conductor will do. Doesn't matter how thin, you could use gold rolled so thin you can see through it. The conductive properties of the different metals play no role given the amount of material. You can even have holes as long as they are smaller than the wavelength you want to block.

So yes, kitchen aluminium foil works just as well - shielding-wise. Whether it is pleasant to work with and how quickly it ruptures later is a different matter.

The only conductive issue you can have is very low quality conductive paint which might have so little conductive material in it that there is significant resistance. But I haven't seen that in practice.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Tin Foil Shielding

I noodled around with aluminum foil once on a noisy strat for a friend. His strat had the dimarzio area set.... I have two strats set up like that which are dead quiet but his was noisy. The aluminum foil did not help and it introduced a new problem of the pickguard picking up increased static electricity from our picking hands.

You need to ground the aluminum foil shielding. It's picking up static electricity because the electrons have nowhere to go. Either run a wire from the pickguard shielding to the body cavity shielding or back of pot; or run some of the body shielding up over the top of the guitar between the guitar and pickguard at a screw hole (so the pickguard screw will connect the pickguard shielding with the body cavity shielding).

 

[zenmindbeginner]

Re: Tin Foil Shielding

You need to ground the aluminum foil shielding. It's picking up static electricity because the electrons have nowhere to go. Either run a wire from the pickguard shielding to the body cavity shielding or back of pot; or run some of the body shielding up over the top of the guitar between the guitar and pickguard at a screw hole (so the pickguard screw will connect the pickguard shielding with the body cavity shielding).

Brilliant.