Shielding a Strat?

[baconbag]

Anyone know how to shield a strat with copper tape? I'm under the impression that I only need to sheild the control assembly on the pickguard, and the hole where the control assembly goes. But, I've read something that talks about wiring and soldering, so I'm a bit nervous. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

 

[baconbag]

I'm mostly confused on how connect the ground to it. Does it go bridge -> copper tape -> switch?

 

[Rook]

Nonono

The copper tape sticks to the underside of the pickguard around the control cavity. You then just need to somehow connect a lead to it. You just need to somehow solder a lead to it and connect that to something grounded. Seeing as the backs of your pots should be connected to ground (the ring of the jack) connecting it to that is fine.

 

[Mordacain]

Anyone know how to shield a strat with copper tape? I'm under the impression that I only need to sheild the control assembly on the pickguard, and the hole where the control assembly goes. But, I've read something that talks about wiring and soldering, so I'm a bit nervous. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Personally, I'm in the "Shield the entire Guitar and make a star ground" camp as far as strats go. However, most new strats come with a fully shielded body cavity with a ground wire attached via an achor screw. That ground wire goes to your main ground point, usually the volume pot.

I use this instead of foil: Aluminum Strat Pickguard Shield- Universal Screw Holes

Copper foil is a PITA to work with. The first time I shielded a body cavity I didn't know to wear gloves and had dozens of small cuts everywhere. It works fine, provided you get the foil with conductive adhesive backing. Otherwise, you have to solder each overlapping layer of copper to ensure continuity of ground.

The point of shielding the entire guitar cavity and entire pickguard is to make a sort of Faraday Cage (Faraday cage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

 

[Rook]

^^^I thoroughly enjoy reading your posts!

 

[baconbag]

My new plan is to sheild the entire thing. As far as the ground is concerned, do I connect the bridge to the sheild, then to the volume pot? I'm looking all over the internet to figure out how to ground this properly.

 

[Rook]

Ground is ground is ground.

If something is grounded, then anything connected to that is also grounded.

It doesn't matter what it is or what order. Ground is always the same. You can solder your bridge to the shield, or direct to the ring of the jack, or to the back of a pot...

 

[snowblind56]

It is a little more expensive than shielding tape, but you could always get shieilding paint. Stew Mac sells it.

 

[baconbag]

I've read about something called a ground loop. Do you have any insight to what that is and how to prevent it?

 

[Rook]

In the simplest possible terms, ground loop is where one thing's 'ground' is not the same as another, hence the potential difference between them makes it succeptable to noise from just about everything.

This won't be an issue with a guitar because there's a common ground, it normally occurs when things are plugged into different wall terminals and then connected together

For example plugging your pod or axe fx into one outlet, and then the output from that into a computer on another outlet. The grounds are then connected together, and if there happens to be a potential difference between them (caused by nominal resistances, thick gauge wires or long lengths of wire by a source of noise - the wiring in your house I mean) then it'll cause a ground loop, and you'll hear all the noise caused by everything plugged into those grounds. EVERYTHING lol.

 

[baconbag]

Ok, excellent. I have 1 more question for you. Typically the ground goes to the volume pot, but I have 2 volume pots (1 tone). Would it go to the switch? or just one of the volume pots?

 

[Rook]

You need to ground everything that isn't live, this I how you reduce noise and how you close all connections.

 

[baconbag]

Thanks for all the help. Here is my plan.

Does this look like it would work? Let me know if something is unreadable.

 

[Rook]

Yeah looks fine.

The thing you marked 'hub' I'm assuming is an anchor of some sort? It should be a conductive anchor screwed into your shielding ideally - assuming you're going to shield the entire cavity.

I'd also ground the base of the pot market T, the bottom of pots is a common source of scratchy static.

 

[Mordacain]

Everything Fun said +1

I would change your jack and bridge ground points. I've had better results creating a "star ground" which is an anchor point where you attach all grounds to and from there to the jack. You already have the anchor (hub), just move your jack and bridge grounds to that. If your screwing that anchor into the body you shouldn't need another ground wire from the shielding, so you eliminate another wire in the process.

/EDIT - a side bonus from using the star is that you can swap out your pots much more quickly if you are not using them as the ground juncture.

 

[Rook]

^^^The man makes good sense.

 

[baconbag]

Ok, here is what I think you guys are recommending.

So, it's pretty much a star grounding (except for the pickups going to the pots). But, since the pots are also attached to the shield on the pickguard, doesn't that create a ground loop? Let me know what you think. Thanks.

 

[Rook]

No, it doesn't create a ground loop, ground loop is normally a mains issue. You have to have different voltage sources to get ground loop anyway, here there's just hot (the pickups) and ground, which is connected to the ground of the amp - the only thing that is actually grounded lol.

That diagram looks good, go for that.

 

[baconbag]

Ok, great. That's what I'll do. I'm still waiting for my wire to get in, but I will post on how it turns out. Thanks for all the help.

 

[baconbag]

Hopefully, you guys havn't forgot about me because I have another question. What is the point of having the low terminal of the volume pot connected to itself (on the casing)? On guitarnuts.com, they recommend removing that, but I think that is assuming that you are connecting the pickups ground to the hub (center of the star), so I think that's conflictive for my schema. Any info on this?