To foil or not to foil

[DavyDave53]

I foiled at guitar body last week and I ran a grounding wire between the foil pools.  And I don't know why...

I had the stuff on hand and I thought, "Hey it can't hurt."

Is it worth doing or a waste of time?

Also, is wrapping the wires in foil as they go through the holes in the body worth it?

 

[mark1178]

I have never heard a difference in foiling a guitar. As long as you have the ground wire grounded, it's fine.

 

[mayfly]

IMHO it's a complete waste of time.  The little bit of shielding you get doing that is nothing compared to the several hundred feet of copper wire in the pickup that's completely exposed with no shielding whatsoever.  Well, except if you have metal covers on your humbuckers.  But not everyone does and it still does not make a bit difference.

 

[Cagey]

It's a waste of time. But, it doesn't hurt anything.

If you want to shield your internal wiring for noise reduction purposes, the way to do it is with shielded cable. But, even that's not always effective. Single coil pickups, for instance, are natural antennae and there's no effective way to shield them. Humbuckers are too, for that matter, but their wiring/construction work in such a way as to cancel out external noise sources.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

By far the biggest advantage of it in my opinion is it reduces the number of ground wires you have to run. For example, shielding the back of a Strat pickguard, if you ground the volume pot casing then the other two pots' casings are grounded through the foil with no more ground wires required. Similarly if you ensure that the foil inside the guitar will have a good mechanical connection with the foil on the pickguard, then you can just connect your bridge ground wire to the foil in the body and it'll be grounded when you screw the pickguard on.

 

[Patrick from Davis]

I hate to be Cap'n Obvious, but pickups pick up noise.  Some of it we actually want.  Shielded wire is the easiest way to not have to do the cavities, but it doesn't make much of a difference.  Search for Jack the Hack's post on it.  He ran tests in a controlled environment.  It does make it easier to ground things, but that can be a mixed blessing.  Sometimes you get shorts that cause no sound to come out of the instrument.  With active devices it can be useful.  Most active pre's are shielded, but if they are not, they amplify the noise that they pick up.  So it can be beneficial in that case.
Patrick

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I like to wrap my corn on the cob in it & throw it on the fire for a few minutes.

Works with freshly caught trout too!