Guitar Copper Shielding - How to Shield a Strat
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- Опубліковано 3 лис 2018
- Shielding a Stratocaster using copper shielding tape. In this video we cover how to create a perfect Faraday cage and how to ground it.
Shielding your guitar is useful if you gig a lot in front of stage lights and large amps to protect your guitar from EMI (electro-magnetic interference)....if you're a bedroom player, it’s not quite as important. Nevertheless, if your guitar is vulnerable to unwanted electronic feedback, shielding the electronic components using copper or aluminium tape to create a Faraday cage is a great way to help reduce unwanted noise.
It is a simple enough thing to do but it is imperative that you achieve full continuity between the pickguard and the control cavities beneath.
The copper shielding tape shown in this video and other guitar wiring & shielding supplies are available from our website.
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![GUITAR SHIELDING 101: A [Relatively] Quick Guide to Working with Foil Tape](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-mLBo4y9t8Y/mqdefault.jpg)
Had horrible noise from my squier strat vintage modified unless I was touching the strings. Watched your video, followed to the t and now experiencing noise free strat bliss. Thanks a lot, man!
If it went away when touching strings, that's a grounding issue.
@@cydonia9342 That is the most common misconception about ground on the internet. The issue is with the ground if the buzz doesn't go away when touching metal parts. And even his comment confirms that. Otherwise if it was lose ground cable, how shielding the cavities woud have fixed a lose cable?
@@cydonia9342 you don't have a clue about electricity
Definitely a good Mod.
Im gonna do the same thing asap.
Another thing that works for non-conductive adhesive is to fold a part of the overlapping copper tape over so it touches the joining piece and just cover it with a small piece to hold it down. Just a small strip at each overlap is all it takes.
Does that negate the need for soldering then ?
Keep teaching the world sir, never stop
Dante Rosales I will do my best sir, thank you!
This is one of the best videos I've seen for PROPER shielding.
Thank you.
I finally shielded my Squier strat and the results are fabulous. I followed your instructions and it works 100%.
The best guitar shielding video I've ever seen. Thanks for sharing.
My heart is so happy that I just did my first ever guitar shielding haha! I've watched your video and it really helped me a lot! It was so fun. Thank you for this video 🙏✌
Thank you for your explaining, made huge difference for me. Already did it with my previous build. Had everything covered in copper tape but didn't connect the cavities. Now i'm ready to rock!
Thank u question if u have humbucker pups do u think u still have to cover it with copper tape ?
Great video. I appreciate your attention to details. I especially appreciate your explanation for adding the ground from the body to the volume pot.
Just like to say you did a great job making the video and showing exactly what to do. You explained everything and now I feel I would have no trouble shielding my strat. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. It is much appreciated.
Thanks for watching 👍
I did this to my fender jimi hendrix style strat, and after replacing the input jack and volume pot because I messed them up soldering (was my first time soldering anything), I put it together and it sounds GREAT!!! Now I have to do it to my other strats! Thanks for the video.
Good Job! Very comprehensive and best explanation on how to create a decent and useable Faraday shield in a Strat. I will be using your method in the very near future, Thank You so much Bro!
Can't believe I was considering stacked single coils in my strat to resolve the hum. I've shielded a Tele and an SG in the past. Doing it to a strat was by far the easiest and the difference was night and day. Good tutorial bud.
just finished and tested this, man this is night and day difference! my guitar is so quiet now!
thanks for clear instructions, God Bless you!
That looks amazing, I before and after sounds test would be cool.
One way to get around the solder blob between every piece is just bending over the edges. Shielding my guitar, I would bend over an edge of one piece that laid on top of the other and then I'd put another little piece taped over that just to hold that folded edge down. I have full continuity from one cavity to the other across all cavities without issue. I did need to solder a wire from the neck cavity to the control cavity on to the copper shielding (it was a tele) but it worked well, I stopped picking up radio stations.
Thank you for the video. I followed everything you did and I still had buzzing really bad. Thought it just wasn't gonna work but when I pulled the pickguard back off I saw that one of my grounds had came loose. Soldered it back and now it's the quietest guitar I own
Thanks, I needed to see how to complete the ground to the tape.
It was all going so well and then in the last few seconds “thanks very watch for muching” 🤣
Excellent video mate. I’m still finishing my paint and then I’m coming back here to follow your instructions 🙌
Most concise videos about guitar maintenance online. Thank you!!!
thanks - really appreciate that!
Amazing job. Well done. Congrats.
This completely transformed my old
CIJ Jaguar, properly soldered the ground wire and shielded the lot, it’s absolutely noiseless now
this channel is a GODSEND. Been binging your vids on wiring and such, thanks so much for all your work 🔥🙏🏻
Jack socket plate to main cavity is connected. The ground from the socket is attached to the plate which touches the copper tape flared around the edges.
Love this demonstration. Perfectly done. Thank you sir
I'm late to comment but thank you, you explained this process perfect and clear!
Great video. You showed every step!
Super clean!! Great job
Thanks for that; I’m making a kit guitar now, and this info is very useful for making the best job I can.
Great video! I added shielding tape before seeing this video and now I understand what is missing to complete the job, er Faraday cage. It looks like I'll need to add tape under my pickguard in place of your fancy metal plate. My ground wire to the trem claw is already there but now I know how to ground the cavity tape to the electric bits, and ground/connect the cord cavity to the main cavity.
Thank you so much for this video! I've been looking for one for weeks
Great! Well presented with attention to the details and explanation.
o melhor de todos que já vi, muito bem explicado...
many thanks man, really didactic. I will do it as part of modying my strat to include the EC boost 😁
Thank you man! I am going to try this. Great video as well!
Your channel is extremely underrated
Thanks man. Yeah the feedback is overwhelmingly positive, however it’s hard to keep up and publish content regularly. 🙏
@@SixStringSupplies keep on making videos! This is the Best Chanel about guitar wiring
Thanks for the great tips!
thank you for this wonderful knowledge
Great job. Finally a proper shielding video.
John Rose thanks!
I know right. You must be the all knowing master of everything....fucking dick
@@vanizell7937 chill
very fine job!. Looking do this on my LP
Have fun!
0:57 thanks for also explaining WHY one would do this! I want to learn as much as I can about working on guitars, and I feel understanding the why is just as important as how... So yeah, thanks :)
Great video Thanks!
Fantastic video, thank you very much.
Awesome tutorial! Thanks 👍
One important item to also consider, when you solder your input jack back in; make sure to electric tape or shrink some plastic over the soldered connection on the hot wire (white in my case). If you don't, the wire can make contact with the shielding causing it to ground (no sound). Ask me how I know.... I did this to my strat this week and it was incredible how much quieter it made it. I didn't need the extra wire from your video but thank you for the tips on the rest! Bought the stuff on Amazon for around $13 and its the best investment in making my guitar sound better. Total time takes about an hour start to finish if you go slow and make everything clean.
Nice one. Much appreciated
Thank you so much Sir❤
Great video!
Thank you for not only describing what to do, but also demonstrating what to do. Great, thorough instructional video (as always)! Beautiful , neat, clean work. Much appreciated.
You can get copper tape in b&q its in the garden section used for slugs
You're a Wizard, Harry.
haha thats what i thought too
That was a great video. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Very good shielding video! Bear in mind that the guitar is being grounded to the amplifier via the guitar cable. Hence, the output jack and plate are the first grounded elements of the guitar. If you leave foil tabs to be captured by the jack plate and the pick guard (scratch plate) foil (or shield plate) everything else in the electrical "chain" will be inherently grounded. Adding the soldered wires is good insurance, though. Shielded coax cable from the jack to the pots is also recommended.
So if I understand correctly, potentially no soldering is needed? as long as there is contact between the jackplate, foiled pick guard, and foiled cavities?
thats what i was thinking do you have to put that wire to connect the twp cavaties?
@@AndrewAviles
neat work
Hi there! Very Very excelent job, I'll copy it, Thanks 😊
Thank you.
Tnx for this tutorial benefited from it!
I remember 2020 i also did this to my strat really helpful
Thank you!!! Best shielding video I’ve seen!!!!
I appreciate this
Good info, but your last wire was redundant because the copper tape coming over the top edge of the cavity is going to be making contact with your aluminum pick guard shield. Ppl can make sure that happens by explicitly adding extra little pieces of tape at a few places coming over the edge but hidden under the pick guard.
He did specifically address this in the video. He said it's not necessary, assuming you've done a good gob making sure the back of the pick guard is touching the cavity tape. Just in case it doesn't contact it, for whatever reason, that wire acts as a backup.
That ‘backup’ wire is not only unnecessary, it works against the effort because it forms a ground loop. Instead of undoing yourself, take the time and do it properly.
You don't get ground loops with passive circuits like this.
Amazing Job and Useful information great Vid.
Glad it was helpful!
@@SixStringSupplies
Will be lol
nice job
Good video - but beware! I took the opportunity to do it to a Strat whilst making a wiring mod to the volume and tone controls, so when it was all done and I had no output signal I assumed it was down to my new wiring being bad. But it turned out to be a short circuit between the shielding in the jack socket cavity and the positive pin of the socket itself, which was making contact with the shielding when re-assembled. The only way to definitely avoid that contact was to remove part of the jack cavity shielding. It took a while to figure that out, but the good news is, even though lots of people on here are sceptical, the process has indeed removed the hum.
John Howarth Glad it worked for you. But another approach would be using a rotary rasp bit on a drill motor to remove the little bit of wood required to gain some clearance. Then recover that spot with a bit of foil tape. That way you're not compromising your otherwise complete job. A second, admittedly Mickey Mouse solution would be to place a tiny strip of duct tape on the backside of the jack's offending contact point.
Could you simply apply some insulating tape around the positive pin of the socket?
I was thinking about this situation the whole time before I read this comment. lol
this could be happening to me , I'm not sure . I have no sound - could the metal of the body of the volume knobs contacting the copper be the issue. idk where the short is : / - ill check in the plug in
I took that into consideration while shielding my strat. I protected the jack leads with elec. tape. Works great
Thank you for addressing the adhesive continuity bit! I have been wanting to do this with my noisy Strat, but the adhesive not being conductive has kept me from doing it!
Ok this works but is a bit of effort. I did this on a MIM HSS Strat just like the video shows. However in the cavity where the guitar output jack goes I found that the foil (ground) could touch the hot (signal) end of the jack when when jack plate is inserted and screwed in. I fixed this by using some electricians tape on the foil side where the jack end could touch and also added a bit of this tape around the jack tip area. I posted this just to let others know what may be the problem when there is no sound when plugged into an amp.
A very good tip apart from the mainstream bridge grounding. Thumbs up!
Good stuffs 👍🔥🎸🎼🙏
Brilliant video, very clear and consise, always so informative! I just wanted to ask: For a telecaster shielding - where is the main ground coming from (versus the strat term claw)? and would you shield the entire scratch plate with copper tape or just the central piece and a piece going toward the control cavity so that it all connects?
Thank you for your dedication with these videos - they are so helpful.
it comes from the bridge
Good work, bro! Can you show difference between without and with this Faradays cage?
Thank you sir, very informative and comprehensive. Was just wondering why, if this is so important, that most guitars don't come like this from the factory. My strats just have a bit of black paint in the control cavity and a bit of aluminum on the inside of the pick guard around the pots. The guitar is as quiet as a mouse!
Then yours is shielded. My Fender bass came like that but they half-assed it and I had to redo it with copper tape.
great video, how did you manage to solder the second ground to the volume without the first one coming loose? its for this reason that grounds are the bane of my existence!
10:22 "W@nk" scratched into the desk LOL Reminds me of school... Also: very useful vid, going to do my Strat shortly. Thanks!
This video is so helpful. I’m from Poland and you just explained it to me better, than many local resources. Thank you!
I have just one more (maybe stupid) question. The ground in my Squier Jaguar is conected with a cable going from the jack, through the little hole, to the tune-o-matic stud. Is it fine as it is or should it be connected to the pot? I think it doesn't matter, because it's the connection between the elements that matters, but I'm a total noob when it comes to electronics, so I recon it's better to just ask.
Again, thank you for this awesome video! ❤️
Make sure your input jack is rotated properly. The hot prong part of the jack was touching the shielding, sending everything directly to ground. Took me a minute to figure out what was going on. Had no sound lol
thanks
Amazing you bru
Yeees Works 💯%Fenomenal foil. 🎸👍👍👍
Ever tried shielding single coil pickups ? I’m told you wrap “pickup tape “ around the coil a couple times to completely cover the coil , then put almost 1 full wrap of copper tape on top of that , but to leave a slight gap so as not to kill of some of the high end. Can’t remember if there was an extra step to finish the process such as connecting the tape to the pickup ground
That's what I've read too. Im thinking of giving it a shot soon also. If youve already tried it out, let me know your outcome if you would. Just curious. Good luck!
Thanks for this, great video
No worries mate! Glad you enjoyed it
Doesn't that layer of aluminium under the scratch plate connect the separate cavities, making the soldered wire redundant? Surely, there's no p.d. between the soldered wire and the bit of copper touching the aluminium? Or is it just a belt and braces approach (I've no doubt the soldered connection is better than just physical contact)? Or have I missed something?
is that jumper wire for the mic input cavity to the pickup/controls cavity still necessary? because when you wire them all up and reassemble the ground of mic input jack is already grounded to the shielding of its cavity and its ground wire is already connected to the ground of the potentiometers which are also grounded already to the shielding of their cavity.
I saved this video. Thanks for making it.
That’s pretty cool, thank you 🙏
I couldn't find a thin lead wire to go through the hole to the jack cavity so I used a piece of wire to guide a piece of tape through the hole.
I didn't want to mess with it so I took mine to a guy to do it. Still got a lot of hum afterward and it turns out they didn't shield the jack cavity. Would that really make a lot of difference?
Hi man, good guide. I use to shield my strat the same way.
Anyway, please remember that most of the interferences that's coming from outside, is caught by the pickups.
So the Faraday cage is not fully closed as it should be, to 100% protected the internal connections from interference.
It is open because of the three pickups.
To make your job more complete, remember to shield the pickups too.
It must be done putting a copper strip around each single coil's windings. The two strip ends must not touch each other, meaning you must leave a gap between the two ends (really important, otherwise you will loose top end in the sound).
Then just connect the copper strip to pickup's ground (base of the pickup's black shield), put back the plastic cover on the pickups and you're done.
Without this mod, the Faraday cage alone is useless, because the pickups still catch the interferences from outside.
Cheers
I am not sure "most" of the interference comes from the pickups themselves. There is certainly some 60 Hz hum that comes from the pickups being exposed outside the cage, but that is typical with single coils. The shielding tape takes away a lot of the hum you hear and it is quite noticeable between a shielded and unshielded guitar. I agree that if you shield the windings themselves, you will reduce the noise even further.
It's not useless, it works great. Shielding gets rid of interference, not single coil hum.
I have basses shielded in the factory with paint in the cavities and nothing under the pickguard and they are completely quiet. I have another Precision bass that doesn;t hum but it buzzed because the jabronis at the Fender factory half-assed the shielding. I redid it with copper tape, only the cavities and the pickguard, and all the buzz is gone. Shielding the pickups is not necessary.
@@DanielBobke Shielding will not eliminate single coil hum, only interference. If shielding the pickups got rid of hum we wouldn;t have humbuckers.
@@AndreaAustoni Never said shielding eliminates the hum completely - but it certainly helps.
@@DanielBobkehi, your video shows exactly how to do a good shielding work on the guitar, everybody should do it that way because it's absolutely useful.
But why it is useful?
Because the guitar copper wires that connects pickups to the switch and pots needs to be shielded from external interference, the rubber cover itself does nothing. And we're talking about very SHORT wires, but they HAVE to be protected from electrical interferences.
Well, now consider that each pickup has got METRES of unshielded copper wire, that are completely exposed to interferences, under a thin plastic pickup cover, that COMES OUT of the pickguard.
So a very long unshielded copper wire, electrically connected to the SAME wiring we shielded with our good job on the cavity.. that is even exposed externally, out of the pickguard, under a fuckin thin pickup plastic cover.
So we take care of shielding che cavity, to shield and protect the very short wires inside the cavity from interferences..and do not care about the LONG unshielded wires around the magnet, that are even partially or completely exposed EXTERNALLY (out of the shielded cavity)?????
That's clear why I say MOST of the interference comes from the pickup windings....and WHY it is so important to complete the job shielding the pickup too.
SO, thanks Daniel. And to people who say "shielding the pickup is not necessary", I'm sorry but please just use your brain and logic.
It doesn't mean 'do it', do the job, if you're already happy with your instruments.
It means do not give wrong info to people reading
Excellent clean job, but it is better to avoid making the link between the pick-up compartment and the Jack compartment. the pickguard shielding will close the Faraday cage just as the jack plate will close that of the jack compartment which will be connected to the other through the circuit ground.
thanks for the feedback. Yes several people have mentioned the same, and I agree. However, I do have a habit of "reinforcing" ground connections. Thanks for watching, take care
Does it matter if your grounding wires have sheathed around them? I've stripped the sheath back obviously for soldering points but wasn't sure if it has to be bare copper wire or if it can be sheathed on the outside?
hey man i change the pick up on my squire and the gound noise did not remove what should i suppose to do maybe because of the wiring?
once had a horrible noise and I just install copper tape on my HSS yamaha pacifica. it's not noise free, but it is indeed much less noise than before. But I still need to touch the string/bridge to reduce that noise. I didn't solder the last wire from the copper to volume pot, but the copper tape seems working without having to solder that wire. wonder what difference it makes when I solder that wire. anyone can enlighten me?
Nice video man! I have a question though, can't you just dress the underside of the pickguard with copper instead of buying an aluminium plate?
When connecting the jack cavity to the pickup cavity, could one feed the cable through before the copper shielding tape goes down rather than soldering it in place?
So with the shielding in the guitar, could you just ground everything yo the shielding, or does it all need to kind of collect at the back of the volume pot, or whatever each might call theirs? Could free up quite a bit of space in mine if I could hust ground to the shielding...
This gentleman explain everything so well. I want to make this to my Strato cheap guitar, because the noise with my multieffect afect the sound sign. But the cooper is a little bit more expensive for me at this moment, however I wanted to buy it, but even if I buy it cooper tape, the adhesiva has to be conductor, and if is not conductor you can fix that with a blob solder, made of Tin (I suppose), just across the seam to ensure the continuity. Then, I can make this with aluminium, but just if I make the union with a blob of solder to garantee the electricity conduct, wherever it's needed. Then, it can be cheaper than I expect. Thanks man.
I did everything you teach but when I put it back there’s no sound at all so I have to disconnect the wire that goes from the plug in cavity to the mics cavity to have sound again can you tell me what I did wrong thanks 🙏
My pickguard is completely backed with copper foil. Won't that connect the cavities? Do I need that wire jumper?
I’m really curious, does this copper shielding affect the tone by any chance? thanks!
so if my tone pot is buzzing when its all the way up? does that mean its a grounding issue
Question, instead of soldering a wire through the input jack hole could I just put copper tape through the hole?
My loaded pickguard only came with 3 wires to solder: ground to claw in back, ground to output Jack and lead to output Jack. If I want to add copper shielding to my body cavity, how can I connect it to ground without a 4th wire?