L.P. Shielding

Robert Herndon said:
Some thoughts....

My biggest influence in shielding was to eliminate RFI signal interference. In some venues, being near the neoreceived and/or row of light dimmers also drove my unshielded guitars nuts. The copper shielding eliminated that. Also eliminated was the 'chirp-chirp-chirp' that a cell phone emits just before a message is recieved.

Of all my humbucker pickups, the genuine Gibson's are by far the noisiest. When they are plugged in, they have a low volume hum that never goes away and that hum will increase when your fingers get near the pickup and increase further when you touch the bobbins.

My Mom's 1979 Gibson Les Paul Custom does this, as do most all the other guitars with genuine Gibson pickups, so I consider it just a normal part of Gibson pickups. Even with all grounds having zero resistance and full continuity, the Gibson humbuckers display this characteristic.

In contrast, the Epiphone H8BN/H6BN pickups - despite being viewed as a pauper's version of the Gibson 498T/490R - make no noise whatsoever. The H8BN/H6BN also cannot be sonically identified in back to back recordings except for the persistent hum from the Gibson's.

My feeling is the Gibson's are probably unbalanced coils and the Epiphone's are balanced.

Notwithstanding, I'm in the process of replacing all the genuine Gibson pickups in my 2016 Gibson Les Paul 50's Tribute and my Von Herndon double neck with the Epiphone H8BN/H6BN combination.

My custom aluminum Stratocaster pickguard - fitted with Gibson 498T/496R - and played once at Mojave Wasteland Weekend 2018, has been pulled and is being sold.

For your Stratocaster...

Go to Guitar Fetish.com and pick up one of their thin, aluminum pickguard shields. Very good and quick method of shielding a Stratocaster.
Click to expand...
Thanks Robert.
I will look at Guitar Fetish right now.

Thanks for the post, as usual super informative, and thanks for generous time invested in this. I don't take your massive help for granted.

You the best bro.
 
steveb63 said:
No sir, only the Les Paul, Strat was taken down last night, will be sheilding today.
Click to expand...

Stratocaster tips from my workbench:

One thing I have done on several vintage Stratocaster "for hire" shielding jobs is to cover the + wires from pickups to switch with braided shield, close the ends with shrink wrap and solder the shield to ground.

Important Note: if covering cloth wire, you can solder to the shield over the cloth. But if you are covering plastic jacketed wire, solder your ground wires onto the braid first.

I was working on a 1950's era Stratocaster one day and had it open and plugged in and pickguard properly grounded for testing. I noticed that if I touched any of the + wiring insulation, I could create a change (increase) in the noise floor.

I also place a strip of copper along the back of the single coil pickups themselves and this is soldered to ground as well.

Another thing I discovered that made a significant difference in Stratocasters was taping certain 'hots' to eliminate proximity interference.

On the jack, I cut narrow strips of Scotch 33+ electrical tape and using tweezers and forceps, wind the hot solder joint with tape.

On the switch, I cut a section of tape that lays over all the solder points - like a U-shaped blanket. This eliminates hum that occurs when a 'hot' gets very near to the copper shielding.
 
steveb63 said:
Thanks Robert.
I will look at Guitar Fetish right now.

Thanks for the post, as usual super informative, and thanks for generous time invested in this. I don't take your massive help for granted.

You the best bro.
Click to expand...

If you haven't done this to your LP, I would suggest it as it's easy and fast and yields immediate benefits.

A complete shielding job will include shielding the jack cavity. I run small tabs out to the screw holes so that my metal jack plate is effectively grounded.

On the jack itself, cut a strip of electrical tape - about 1/2 the width of the tape - and wrap the jack, in a circular fashion, covering only the + & - solder tabs.

Even on Gibson's, I see variations in the size of the jack route and if the 'hot' solder point of the jack comes into close enough proximity with the shielding, a hum will be generated that cannot be eliminated.
 
Robert Herndon said:
If you haven't done this to your LP, I would suggest it as it's easy and fast and yields immediate benefits.

A complete shielding job will include shielding the jack cavity. I run small tabs out to the screw holes so that my metal jack plate is effectively grounded.

On the jack itself, cut a strip of electrical tape - about 1/2 the width of the tape - and wrap the jack, in a circular fashion, covering only the + & - solder tabs.

Even on Gibson's, I see variations in the size of the jack route and if the 'hot' solder point of the jack comes into close enough proximity with the shielding, a hum will be generated that cannot be eliminated.
Click to expand...
L P done bro

Strats being worked on now, between coffee and innerwebs.
 
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