Printable View
Does it reduce the treble frequencies or attack? If so, how does it do that? Is it the grounding or is it the closeness of the copper to the magnetic fields or a combination? In other words, if I just cut the ground wire from the pickup shielding to the control cavity, will it restore the lost tone?
I can easily take it all out even after final assembly. I am looking for that biting Tele tone.
Then don't shield the pickup cavities.
One of my luthier friends did shield all the cavities in his strat and promptly eviscerated the shielding in the pickup cavities. I talked with the luthier who is currently building me a Tele black guard clone and he also is emphatic about not shielding the pickup cavities.
Talk to some Tele luthiers first. You are right though, you can easily pull it out. No harm, no foul.
I read on a couple of websites that if you shield the pickup cavities and connect them with separate wires to the control cavity, you will get a radio antenna effect from ground looping. Is that why luthiers don't do it, or is it tone loss? It might not be so bad if something good is on the radio...
These same websites said that pickup cavity shielding has no effect on tone, other than allowing you to turn it up without hum.
I'm not using pots on the LeoCaster, so there wouldn't be ground loops from redundant wires to the pots and control faceplate.
Guess I'll just fire it up and see what happens, and remove the pickup cavity shielding if it sounds like an SG (I love SG's, but not when they are inhabiting my Tele).
it adds capacitance to the circuit, thus taking away the tele chime and snarl.
i personally don't shield anything. if it comes painted then i'll live with it, if it's copper tape i take it out. i'm really old school in my approach to building and modifying. i'd say to go ahead with firing it up, if you don't like it you can always pull it out.
best of luck.
I'm not a "Tele" guy per se John, but I agree with Chuck -- go ahead and give the guitar a try as-is. If you find the shielding has exacted a toll on the high end you can always remove it.
Finished the wiring today and put it all together. It sounds great. I especially like the pickups in series. The neck pickup phase switch is very useful, it gives a high jangly sound with certain amp settings. The Black Ice distortion is very subtle, basically it mutes the sound a little like Santana and it only works when the pickups are in series (12K ohm). The GFS gold lipstick bridge pickup sounds very Tele.
I left all the shielding in to try it out and I'm very happy with all the tones. I'll probably take it out to see the difference after it comes back from the art show in two weeks. Wow, it sure is quiet compared to my other Tele.
The 47K resistor is too low to reduce the volume much, so I'll put two in series and see what it does.
Gonna put the LeoCaster headstock decal on tonight and the gold strings, then drop it off for the art show tomorrow. I was going to price it at $2000, but someone might buy it, so I'm selling it for $5000 so nobody buys it.
Here are two photos of the wiring:
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/y...ds/wiredup.jpg
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/y...platewired.jpg
Here's the finished LeoCaster, gold strings an' all (and it sounds fabulous):
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/y...ds/artshow.jpg
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/y.../headstock.jpg
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/y...tshowready.jpg
Mighty fine, John!
Be sure to post a tonal report after you remove the copper sheathing from the cavities. If you find it make little or no difference, I'd re-install it.
I'm loving the tone of it with the shielding still in so much that I haven't taken the time to remove it and see how it is different. One day I'll try it...
Here's the tone as it is (rhythm and lead): http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8355988
John
San Francisco
yep, lookin good!
I just think the Lion motiff is soooo unusually attractive!
Great job...