Copper shielding... er... how?

[Last Triumph]

Copper shielding is my next job on the plank, but, erm..... how do I put this..... erm..... how?

I bought a nice sheet of it from Warmoth, but now what?

Is it self adhesive?

Do I need glue?

Do I need to solder anything to it?

Any hints, or tips?

Do I allow the body of the pots and switches to touch it?

Dumb-ass from Dumbsville.

 

[Updown]

Don't bother with it  !!    :icon_thumright:

Waste of time and money on the copper.

:icon_scratch:  Your using Humbuckers ......

It's self adhesive
No glue needed

Again DON'T bother with it .......  :icon_biggrin:

BTW ... there's a place called ... Dumasville Cove, in south carolina. That where you are  :icon_jokercolor:

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Copper shielding is my next job on the plank, but, erm..... how do I put this..... erm..... how?

I bought a nice sheet of it from Warmoth, but now what?

Is it self adhesive?

Do I need glue?

Do I need to solder anything to it?

Any hints, or tips?

Do I allow the body of the pots and switches to touch it?

Dumb-ass from Dumbsville.

It's self adhesive.  The only time I've felt the need to solder to it was if I had multiple pieces that were cut.  The copper part is the conductive part, and if it overlaps, the adhesive isn't necessarily conductive.  For comparison, put a continuity tester on a solid piece, then compare with 2 pieces that are touching but overlapping.  You want to the tape to be electrically continuous with all of the pieces that should be grounded on a guitar.  Most will run a separate ground lead to the tape and screw to the body so it makes contact, but mounting grounded pots or switches through it usually does it good enough.  When you're done, all metal parts except for strap buttons and pickguard screws should be connected.  You can check by placing the leads of a continuity tester multiple places to check. Tuners to sleeve, pots to bridge, etc., etc.

 

[Strat Avenger]

It's a waste of time and money.

 

[Patrick from Davis]

I like to use the copper and aluminum foil tape to mark cords.  Makes it real easy to tell which one is your when you play live.  There are less than reputable sound guys/clubs that you can say, "mine have the shiny tape on them, like that one."  Really makes things go easier.  The copper stuff is easy, drop a glob of solder onto it and you can make it into a ground bus.  The one trick is, it is metal, and when you cut it, it can be very sharp.  It is copper, so the edge doesn't last, but you can get one helluva paper cut from it.  All of that being said, it doesn't really do that much on a passive guitar, if anything.  It is fun to play with though.
Patrick

 

[line6man]

:icon_scratch:  Your using Humbuckers ......

:icon_scratch:
Humbuckers work on magnetic field noise, shielding takes care of electrical field noise.

 

[Last Triumph]

So what we're saying is that I don't need to bother?

What do I attach the bridge ground wire to?

 

[line6man]

So what we're saying is that I don't need to bother?

What do I attach the bridge ground wire to?

Any point with a low impedance path to the ground potential.

 

[Last Triumph]

So what we're saying is that I don't need to bother?

What do I attach the bridge ground wire to?

Any point with a low impedance path to the ground potential.

Sorry dude, I know not of what you speak.... can you identify a component for me please?

 

[bagman67]

Take all of your ground lines, including those from your pots, pups, whatever, and as long as one of them goes to the output jack, you can bind them together with a wire nut. 

 

[line6man]

So what we're saying is that I don't need to bother?

What do I attach the bridge ground wire to?

Any point with a low impedance path to the ground potential.

Sorry dude, I know not of what you speak.... can you identify a component for me please?

Anywhere you want. Most people ground bridges to their cavity shielding or the back of a pot, but you can connect it anywhere.

People start to think of grounds like there are multiple points, but the idea is that any metal part that is not connected to the signal path is a ground. It's one continuous ground everywhere, whether it's at the bridge, or the back of a pot, or a control plate, or wherever. In the real world, there is going to be some amount of resistance between one ground point and another, but since you end up with one ground at the jack, and everything is but inches away from everything else, it's of no concern. (Assuming, of course, that you've wired properly.)

 

[Cagey]

So what we're saying is that I don't need to bother?

What do I attach the bridge ground wire to?

Shielding the cavities is pointless. It won't hurt anything, but it won't do any good, either.

However, it is important that you use shielded cable to connect things up. Your humbuckers will already have shielded cables on them, but you'll need to supply the one that goes to the output jack, and ideally between the switch/volume pot.

Shields/commons/grounds all ultimately connect to the sleeve connection on the output jack.

Close enough...*​

You can run one wire from there to wherever is convenient internally, and just pick targets of opportunity for all the other ground connections.

* Careful readers will see they've mis-labeled the solder tabs on the jack picture. The sleeve connection and tab is correct, but while the tip and ring contacts are correctly labeled, the solder tabs are backwards.

 

[AutoBat]

Close enough...*​

You can run one wire from there to wherever is convenient internally, and just pick targets of opportunity for all the other ground connections.

* Careful readers will see they've mis-labeled the solder tabs on the jack picture. The sleeve connection and tab is correct, but while the tip and ring contacts are correctly labeled, the solder tabs are backwards.

They must've taken their wiring from the EMG X series manual. it was wrong in two places (one being that exact jack issue), which is fairly frustrating. Fortunately aside from the pup selector it was a solderless install, so it was just a game of 'move wires around until it's correct'

 

[Cagey]

I don't know the origin of the graphic - I shamelessly grabbed it off a Google image search result because it answered a buncha questions at once.

 

[Ace Flibble]

As much as some people will swear it does nothing, all I know is the guitars I have that are fully shielded have very little noise and the ones that aren't do, humbuckers or otherwise. Hell,, I had a problem with active humbuckers picking up hum. Shielded the bugger and guess what, no hum now. Given that shielding was the only thing I changed, one can only deduce that shielding does help, at least in some (if not all) circumstances.

Anyway, even then I'd say don't bother with the tape. I just use shielding paint and that works fine. Easy to apply. I use small strips of copper tape on flat surfaces to solder to and connect everythign to gound, but paint for the majority of the cavities.

 

[Patrick from Davis]

To apply the copper tape shielding, it is quite easy.  Cut it to size and apply it like wall paper.  For it to work, it must be connected to ground.  It is really easy, just drop a drop of solder from an soldering iron onto the copper foil.  Reheat it to liquid once, and you can solder a wire to it.  That wire should go to the ground on the output jack.  As said before, there will be a lot of these ground wires, you can consolidate them with a wire nut, and take one to the output jack.  Wall paper the cavities that you want to shield with the copper foil and send a wire to the star ground (The wire nut in my example) and you are good to go.

One thing to take care of, you can easily short your live leads to ground if they touch anything copper.  If you get no sound, start looking for anything touching where it shouldn't.
Patrick

 

[SalsaNChips]

I used copper shield to completely shield the pickup and control cavities in my Strat. Also back of the pickguard. I used solder to electrically bond the strips together and even used epoxy to bond it to the wood inside the cavities. I wish I had a picture, it looks awesome.

As for the benefit, all I can say is that is one VERY quiet guitar as far as picking up interference. Also my grounds are really strong everywhere I test it on the guitar. And it looks cool

On my Tele build I just finished, I used it as well, but didn't get any where near as extreme. Just a strip under the ToneShaper pots and electronics cavity cover. Used the self-adhesive type which WILL fail to adhere after a few years -- eventually I will either remove it or bond it in with epoxy like I did my Strat.

 

[AutoBat]

I shielded my strat when I changed pups (to vintage noiseless).  There isn't any interference to speak of but I changed more than one variable at a time.  Most likely it's primarily the pups than any ancillary copper taping (it's not grounded, just there but it looks pretty).

 

[Patrick from Davis]

I haven't found the need to solder the individual pieces together, they seem to conduct quite well as is.  I shielded the cavity around the preamp in my bass, I was worried it would pickup and amplify something.  Not sure if I need to or not, but it was a bit of fun.  Now I cut thin strips of the copper tape and mark my cables.  I have not seen anyone else do it, so it is easy to spot my instrument cords.
Patrick