De-shielding my Chambered Strat

This is a hardtail Strat I stuck together a few years ago with a chambered Warmoth Strat body, and a late '70s Strat neck that I've had since it was new. One of the revisions I did to it shortly after sticking it together, was adding a Hipshot bridge, shielding it to death, and rewiring it to a Jeff Baxter wiring scheme that I copied from a pickguard assy where I'd followed Jeff's instructions out of a GP magazine years ago. Can't find the magazine.

I've known for a long time that I went overboard on the shielding (my first shielding attempt), and I needed to change a pot value, and the tone cap. But I've been dragging my feet because you need to remove all the strings, and take off the pickguard, just to get at Strat wiring.

So I'm just finally getting around to working on it today.

Here's the guitar:
http://lasttelecaster.home.comcast.net/strat/ChamberedStratBefore.jpg

The shielding:
http://lasttelecaster.home.comcast.net/strat/ChamberedStratShielding.jpg

The shielding once it's removed. This stuff has a lot of potential for slicing you to bits. So if you're accident prone, it's gonna make you bleed.
http://lasttelecaster.home.comcast.net/strat/RemovedShielding.jpg

This is how it's wired now. The 1meg pot is too much. I'm changing that to a 500k pot. And I'm changing the tone cap. Haven't decided if I should go to .022uf or .047uf
http://lasttelecaster.home.comcast.net/strat/baxter_strat_wiring.jpg

Hopefully when I'm done, I'll have a much more useful Strat.

Pete

So what was wrong with the shielding?

Yeah I don't see anything wrong. When you shield are you always supposed to put a ground to the shielding? I've actually never tried it before but seems like a decent idea.

So what was wrong with the shielding?

While it was very quiet for a single coil guitar, it seemed kind of dead once it was shielded. Single coil pickups still make noise anyhow, even if you shield the guitar as completely as you can get it.

I think that if I switched to stacked type pickups, I'd have something approaching a HB guitar as far as noise reduction.

Pete

Yeah I don't see anything wrong. When you shield are you always supposed to put a ground to the shielding? I've actually never tried it before but seems like a decent idea.

I could see using a ground screw and wire. Probably not a bad idea. This worked though. The ground was established with the shielding on the pickguard screwed down to it.

Pete

Even with a humbucker pickup, you will get hum if the guitar isn't properly shielded....I learned that the hard way with a DIY guitar. Once I shielded the control cavity, the hum went away.
Steve

Even with a humbucker pickup, you will get hum if the guitar isn't properly shielded....I learned that the hard way with a DIY guitar. Once I shielded the control cavity, the hum went away.
Steve

Seems to be true.

I put together a humbucker guitar once, and shielded the control cavity with nothing more than aluminum foil. It was freakishly quiet.

I imagine that if I shielded the control cavities of a few of my humbucker guitars, they'd be a whole lot quieter. Especially the ones with pickup covers. I'd like to try that shielding paint sometime for something like that.

Pete

Never noticed a lot of difference when shielding a guitar, maybe the sligtest treble loss. I did notice a big difference (Treble loss) when shielding the covers - I'll never do that again.

I've never attempted to shield covers. I've been told that it's very effective though.

One of the reasons that I'm removing the shielding is because I noticed that the best Strats I've played (I've never owned any as good) were unshielded, bare bones, warts and all guitars. I doubt that either one of my parts Strats will ever be as good as the best ones I've played, but it's worth moving them in the right direction if I can.

Pete

I decided to scrap the Jeff Baxter wiring, and go with a blend pot because the wiring is less pesty.

I hate wiring guitars, but after looking at the wiring I did a few years ago, I had to start over from scratch because I can't stand looking at old wiring that I've done.

This's a diagram of how I wired it:
http://lasttelecaster.home.comcast.net/lastwhammy/lastwhammynewwiringMovedBlend.jpg
Ideas stolen from Chris Rice, and Fralin. And I put the blend pot in the middle because I'm expecting to use it more often than the tone control.

I looked at how Acme dressed their wires, and tried to copy that. Easier said than done!
http://lasttelecaster.home.comcast.net/strat/RewiredPickguard.jpg

I'll have a little practice when I rewire the blue Strat. Next time I think I'll use teflon insulated wire for the connections between the switch and the pots.

This is a GFS Vintage Alnico Stagger set this time. The last set were DiMarzio Blue Velvets.

Just ordinary CGE pots this time.

Pete

So when's it going back together Pete? I'd be interested to read your views on any change in tone between before and after (although I see you've changed other things, so your results may be affected by other factors).

So when's it going back together Pete? I'd be interested to read your views on any change in tone between before and after (although I see you've changed other things, so your results may be affected by other factors).

I have a bad habit of changing too many things at once to be able to clearly judge which change had what effect.

Other than not returning it to it's original Fender style hardtail bridge, and the fact that I'm using a blend pot this time, I'm mostly just trying to give it a more traditional Strat sound. Shooting for that
JJ Cale sound.

I hope I come up with something close, and that it has a good ring to it.
I'm crossing my fingers.

I'm going to go just a little bit more traditional, and replace the RG-174U shielded cable on the jack with cloth covered wire. Then I can put it together. So if I don't get too distracted, I should have it back together soon. A day or two maybe.

Pete

The wiper on the CRL switch got caught on the wires going down to my blend pot, and rotated when I pushed the switch to turn. So I have a messed up pickguard assembly right now.

I'm pretty disgusted with the whole situation.

At this point, I'm thinking I'll replace the switch, and not use a blend pot. Just move the tone pot one hole closer.

I plugged the guitar in to test it before screwing everything down, and I was going.... wait, something's wrong here!!!

Pete

I've abbreviated the wiring, by taking the blend control out, and moving the tone control up. I'll get around to doing the blend pot on the blue Strat. I'll know what to be more careful with on the wire dressing next time. But it's all wired up now, and everything's working properly, and it's put together, waiting to be strung up.

http://lasttelecaster.home.comcast.net/strat/2ndRewirePickguard.jpg

These GFS pickups are in the cream DiMarzio covers which seem to be made out of much thinner plastic. I love the way the staggers stick out with these covers. The '70s neck has the 7-1/4"R. fingerboard, so the vintage stagger is probably appropriate for it.

http://lasttelecaster.home.comcast.net/strat/PickupStaggers.jpg

Pete

Even with a humbucker pickup, you will get hum if the guitar isn't properly shielded....I learned that the hard way with a DIY guitar. Once I shielded the control cavity, the hum went away.
Steve

My ES-135 and Les Paul are not shielded at all and do not hum.

Pete,

You got me to thinking about it, might have to try de-shielding myself.

Got an EJ - Have not messed with a thing except a fret polishing and intonation. It is easily the brightest (In a good way) Strat I have. Could be the pickups/wood, but there is something coming through that the others do not have.

I'm looking forward to hearing your results.

lreese, there's more than a few people who think that it's ridiculous to remove the shielding. But as far as single coil guitars go, I've joined the camp who thinks it's best to get rid of the shielding.

I won't win any arguments on technical merits of this approach, but I'm pretty happy with the results this time, even though I think it'll be a lot noisier. Like I said earlier in the thread though, I've changed too many things at once, but so far I love the results.

I just found my allen wrenches, so I'm going to straighten the neck bow a little, and play it through a tube amp today.

Hadn't played a Strat in a while. The one thing I miss about them is how they sound plugged into a clean amp.

Pete

It seems odd that someone would want to remove shielding, but not ridiculous.

Here's why I think you might be on to something. I have a Japanese Strat with Hot Gold Lace Sensors. I had these in my guitar about a year ago, then put in some Antiquities. Put the Laces back in because I wanted something quiet. When the Antiquities went in, I redid the entire pickguard wiring with the Guitarnuts method, including a copper shield on the pickguard.

The guitar sounds blah, not like the last time I had the Laces in with an aluminum shield on the pickguard. I might redo it this weekend with just a star ground and no shielding whatsoever. The shielding materials might matter themselves.

It sounds like you'd be making far less changes at once than I just did.

I'd be real interested in hearing what you think of the results.

Pete

I've always felt that the pickups interact with each other & shielding the entire pickup cavity prevents this. I use only a copper or aluminum sheating that covers the underside of the pickguard to help ward off the demons from neon signs & dont bother with the cavities, etc.

BTW, nice work on your strat Pete. Looking good!

Thanks Keifer. I suppose maybe I should have left the shielding on the pickguard. I'm surrounded by things that make single coils hum!

It's been strung up since Saturday night, and I've been playing it for a few days. It's hard to see any difference from before & after the changes, other than the magnets stick out more now.

http://lasttelecaster.home.comcast.net/strat/DeshieldedBackTogether.jpg
Looks like I never set the intonation, but that .038 to .010 set's like that.

I kind of like the new GFS pickups. They're vintage type power, so they're much clearer. Wish I'd used a muddier tone cap than .047uf.

I'm not allowed to put any weight on my one foot right now, so it's real hard for me to judge guitars at the moment. I really need to be standing to play electric guitar. Hopefully that'll change soon.

Just got off the phone with Warmoth, and they're making me a new parchnent pickguard for my blue Strat. They're doing middle & neck Strat pickup routes, and leaving the bridge PU blank. And I'm going to do a Tele bridge PU route myself, because they don't have the tooling. I'm hoping I can do a good job of cutting that manually, although I haven't figured out how yet.

Always wanted to try building a Lowell George style Strat. Not to make a copy of his, but to do the Tele PU thing. I forget what color his was. Where's my pic of Lowell's guitar.... Can't find it, but: http://www.dmci.com/~lowell/lowslider.html

It ain't blue. That might have been blonde like this one. Had a B&W pic of more of his guitar somewhere.

Pete

Actually, it's kind of a Butterscotch. This is from a youtube vid. I'm seeing if I can find a better close-up of the guitar. To me, it doesn't look like he put the Tele PU at the normal Tele PU angle. Looks like he might have just hogged out the Strat PU hole, and stuffed it in there.

Pete