Shielding pickup/control cavities?

[anthonyc007]

Does anyone have experinece shielding the pickup/control cavities with copper tape or tin foil? Did it make a difference? Was it difficult? Waht mateial did you use?

[photoweborama]

I do it on all my guitars. Paint works well also, but it is expensive.
I use cheap metal tape I get at the hardware store for about $4.00 a roll. I can do about three guitars with a roll.

I even do my humbucker guitars, but only the control cavity.

It does make a TON of difference, but some stuff still gets through. Like computer monitors....

It does change the sound only because when you shield, it connects to ground and adds to the total capacitance of the circuit. But I really can't hear it myself. I think they sound great.

There is more work to do it with the cheap tape than copper, but I'm too impatient to wait for copper to be shipped to me when I can pop down to the hardware store in a couple of minutes.

[Bongolation]

I don't bother with this, myself, but if you use the metal tape, there's a little device made specifically for electrically bonding conductive tape in tight spaces and in curves which is really invaluable for this sort of thing. It has a little swivel offset wheel of tiny, sharp little teeth that penetrate the layers of the tape and peen them together through the adhesive, making solid electrical contact.

I've been trying to take a webcam shot of the one here at my desk, but it's so small I can't get a picture of the teeth to show.

I don't know what these are called officially. We called thm "pingers" in the old days. I got mine from slide guitarist Roy Rogers about twenty years ago.

[photoweborama]

I've seen things like that before, but I don't remember where.

For some strange reason, the last two guitars I did made contact without doing anything. but I made my "magic strips" anyway to ensure connectivity...

[Kap'n]

Something like this?



They're used for tracing patterns in sewing.