Conductive paint is some nasty stuff.

[Jet-Jaguar]

So, after reading many forum posts on shielding, I thought "why not shield my guitar? It may not doing anything, but it couldn't hurt."  I was going to go with conductive tape, but decided on conductive paint instead because that's what they do at the high-end shop.  My thoughts after the experience:

* It smells bad.  Not as bad a solder, but bad. On the good side, it's water-soluble.

* The stuff I got was from Stew-mac.  I expected to just do it in a day, but according to the instructions on the can, you're supposed to do at least three coats, with 24 hours between coats.

* I'm not sure why, but it seems like it smears much more so than normal paint. At first, I just used a few strips of masking tape, but ended up covering the whole guitar to keep from getting it everywhere. Having lots of paper towels helps.

* Speaking of masking tape, I used the "medium" tacky masking tape (the blue kind that is actually meant for painting.)  I think I should have used the "light" kind instead, because it left a little bit of residue on the guitar.

* This is not in the instructions, but I found that once the final coat was dry, I had to wipe the insides with a dry paper towel, because otherwise touching it was like touching a pencil lead, and left dark smears on my hand.

* The dark smears on my hands led to dark smears on the body of the guitar.  Still need to clean this up.

* Another reason I went with conductive paint instead of conductive tape is that I had a rear-routed body, and I thought I needed to use paint to ground out the pickup cavities. You know, to go through the wire holes. I later watched the "How to Wire a Fender Guitar" DVD (also from Stew Mac) and in the Telecaster section, the instructor uses conductive tape, and he establishes ground through the wire holes by wrapping the pickup wires with the conductive tape.  Watching that was a "duh" moment for me. Should have watched it BEFORE shielding.

Anyway, that's my story. I haven't used conductive tape yet, but I might in the future, instead of the paint. Just seems easier.

 

[Death by Uberschall]

I've never tried any of it, but I think I would go with the copper tape if I do.  :icon_thumright:

 

[mayfly]

I've done the copper tape.  Works great.

 

[imminentG]

agreed, most successful shielding jobs I've seen have utilized copper tape

 

[SlingBass]

*I* have never used any other method BUT copper tape  :dontknow:

 

[-CB-]

Solder doesn't smell bad, it smells GREAT!~  I remember the days at the Solder Fume Funhouse... oh great times those....

I'm not convinced, even with single coil pickups, that shielding helps eliminate any hum or noise.

 

[exaN]

Never tried to paint too, I've tried both aluminum and copper tapes and they work both as good.

 

[jackthehack]

I can't find my post from way back when, might have done it on the original UW board before they updated it, but at work I have access to an RF shield room and due to an extended debate on the board ran some testing using the same guitar both without shielding and shielded using a copper tape type product used to isolate components/antennae inside cell phones which is several orders of magnitude better than the stuff available from luthier supply outlets.

Net effect of shielding the cavity? Nada... Zilch...

As CB pointed out above, some pickups, in particular most single coils just have inherently some amount/level of "noise". If you think about it logically, what good does shielding the cavity/wiring/pots really do when the pickups themselves aren't shielded? Any "noise" that you can isolate from those components is typically due to a bad pot or bad/weak ground.

To eliminate/minimize ambient noise you need to ensure you have a proper ground from the pickups all the way to the wall socket and rid the environment of anything throwing off RF radiation the best you can, typically worst culprits are fluorescent lighting, anything with a CPU in it and electric motors of any sort.

 

[mayfly]

I admit that shielding never did much for me, except in one case:  Under the pickguard on a telecaster.  without shielding, in this spot, I'd get a scratchy sound when I rubbed my finger on the pickguard - something I do a lot while playing.  Some copper shield under there did the trick - but this is not a shielding issue - it's a static build up issue.

 

[chrisg]

Solder doesn't smell bad, it smells GREAT!~  I remember the days at the Solder Fume Funhouse... oh great times those....

I'm not convinced, even with single coil pickups, that shielding helps eliminate any hum or noise.

From my experience: Played a gig recently with another band and their guitarist was using a Fender standard tele - lots of noise and hum from lights etc...  I setup in the same position on stage with my shielded tele & no noise.  I also have a Fender Tele and I used to hold the strings / bridge to stop it humming.  I shielded it with copper tape and voila, no more problem.  I'm convinced it makes a huge difference.

 

[Death by Uberschall]

Solder doesn't smell bad, it smells GREAT!~  I remember the days at the Solder Fume Funhouse... oh great times those....

I'm not convinced, even with single coil pickups, that shielding helps eliminate any hum or noise.

From my experience: Played a gig recently with another band and their guitarist was using a Fender standard tele - lots of noise and hum from lights etc...  I setup in the same position on stage with my shielded tele & no noise.  I also have a Fender Tele and I used to hold the strings / bridge to stop it humming.  I shielded it with copper tape and voila, no more problem.  I'm convinced it makes a huge difference.

Could have been a difference in the pups.  :icon_thumright:

 

[jackthehack]

Solder doesn't smell bad, it smells GREAT!~  I remember the days at the Solder Fume Funhouse... oh great times those....

I'm not convinced, even with single coil pickups, that shielding helps eliminate any hum or noise.

From my experience: Played a gig recently with another band and their guitarist was using a Fender standard tele - lots of noise and hum from lights etc...  I setup in the same position on stage with my shielded tele & no noise.  I also have a Fender Tele and I used to hold the strings / bridge to stop it humming.  I shielded it with copper tape and voila, no more problem.  I'm convinced it makes a huge difference.

If you have to touch the bridge/strings to stop your axe from humming, most likely either your bridge isn't properly grounded, or there is a ground fault between it and the wall plug ground. If you grounded the shielding as usually recommended you probably just corrected the grounding fault.

 

[chrisg]

Solder doesn't smell bad, it smells GREAT!~  I remember the days at the Solder Fume Funhouse... oh great times those....

I'm not convinced, even with single coil pickups, that shielding helps eliminate any hum or noise.

From my experience: Played a gig recently with another band and their guitarist was using a Fender standard tele - lots of noise and hum from lights etc...  I setup in the same position on stage with my shielded tele & no noise.  I also have a Fender Tele and I used to hold the strings / bridge to stop it humming.  I shielded it with copper tape and voila, no more problem.  I'm convinced it makes a huge difference.

Could have been a difference in the pups.  :icon_thumright:

he was using Fender Texas Specials and mine are Brierley's - both Single Coils though

 

[koshersteel]

I know at alembic they use a paint with real silver in it. It's pricey, like everything alembic does, but you could try that next time if you don't like the stew mac paint. Also, though I've never used it, a friend tells me you can apply the next coat after about 6-8 hours and not wait the whole 24.

 

[stubhead]

I've used the copper tape and the Stew-Mac goo, and the Stew-Mac goo is evil and nasty and I'll never do that again. (Wanna half a jar? :icon_scratch If you had played in some of the evil and nastily-wired places I have, you HAVE to shield your guitar to use single coils... trying to explain to a bar owner that he has to turn off his malfunctioning frucked-up crapdoodly neon beer sign lights because they're giving your guitar mood swings has never gone over well, in the half-dozen or so times I've seen it ventured. I guess these guys think those flickering "Bud" lights force people to drink more, I always though it was our tuneful tunes.... :laughing7:

 

[mayfly]

This is a timely topic it turns out. 

The Jazz Bass that I'm building for a friend is not shielded - and it buzzes like a banshee!
I'm going to try shielding the cavity and under the pickups.

 

[Strat Avenger]

I used the StewMac shielding paint on my guitar and it was easy. I had no problems whatsoever.

I like it better than the tape, which to me just looks cheesy (even though no one will see it -- I know it's there). All of your factory-built guitars use the paint, if anything.

I have read though, that guitar electronics cavity shielding (whether tape or paint) does absolutely NO good.  The new EVH Wolfgang guitars (which cost $3000)  have NO shielding material in the control cavities.

 

[JaySwear]

I have read though, that guitar electronics cavity shielding (whether tape or paint) does absolutely NO good.  The new EVH Wolfgang guitars (which cost $3000)  have NO shielding material in the control cavities.

the one guitar i owned that i knew had shielding paint hummed like a mother. i never opened up my wolfgang, but i would assume it was shielded too. never had any problems with it, but the guitar i know was shielded was awful. i've never shielded a warmoth, and none of mine hum. of course they all use humbuckers, so that may be most of the reason why

 

[Cagey]

Proper wiring and hum-cancelling pickups will do 99% of the shielding you need, resulting in a nearly silent guitar. Without that, no amount of cavity shielding will do any good. With that, no cavity shielding is necessary. People install it either out of ignorance, or for peace of mind, or both.

For proper wiring, only shielded wire should be used. That cotton-covered stuff is garbage. They used it in vintage guitars many years ago because it was cheap and there was a war on, so rubber was in short supply and good plastics hadn't been invented yet. Today, there's no reason for it other than misguided emotional attachment. Stewart-MacDonald sells short lengths of single and four conductor shielded wire...

Or, you can get it from electronics supply houses at a much more reasonable price, although you generally have to buy much larger quantities so unless you do a helluva lotta guitar wiring, it may not pay to go that route.

Hum-cancelling pickups are a thread unto themselves.

Most noise is picked up by the pickups, which cavity shielding does nothing for. What's left is picked up by the wires, which are pretty broadly exposed even with a shielded cavity. Try running a untwisted, unshielded pair to your output jack once. I don't care how well-shielded the cavities are, you're going to pick up a ton of noise doing that. So, use shielded wire. Also, make sure to use metal-encased and grounded pots.