Can I shield a Guitar with Aluminum foil?

[TelZilla]

I'm extremly cheap, kind of a tinkerer, and I have a very buzzy Tele

[guitarzan13]

Originally Posted by TelZilla

I'm extremly cheap, kind of a tinkerer, and I have a very buzzy Tele

http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shi...pics/index.php

Tele spacific instructions
http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shielding/tele.php

[boneyguy]

Here's a quote from Bill Lawrence that's interesting and informative. I've posted this several times now in threads about sheilding.

Aluminum has some strange properties, and it’s the only commercially available metal I know of that can eliminate the buzz caused by light dimmers. An inch thick copper or brass shield cannot reduce the buzz caused by light dimmers but .003 thick aluminum foil can! This is known some thirty years and the reason why Belden introduced double shielded cable ( Copper braid plus aluminum foil). There is one problem for guitar cords -- the double shielding makes the cable too stiff . It helps quite a bit when you shield your guitar with copper and aluminum foil.

Try this one-- wire a single coil to a jack and plug it into your amp. Put the pickup on a table next to your amp. Take an aluminum pan from your kitchen and put it slowly on top of your single coil and watch the hum disappear.

Bill

[Tedecaster]

I found it's not worth it.

I tried both foil, then the aluminum tape for HVAC & they are a too much trouble to save 6 or 7 dollars. The shield doesn't have any effect if it's not grounded & trying to tie bits of foil together electrically is a losing effort.

The Stew Mac tape work great. It stays in place, the glue is conductive, so one piece is grounded to the next & you can solder jumpers (cavity to cavity or ground wires) right to it.

[winny pooh]

Originally Posted by Tedecaster

I found it's not worth it.

I tried both foil, then the aluminum tape for HVAC & they are a too much trouble to save 6 or 7 dollars. The shield doesn't have any effect if it's not grounded & trying to tie bits of foil together electrically is a losing effort.

The Stew Mac tape work great. It stays in place, the glue is conductive, so one piece is grounded to the next & you can solder jumpers (cavity to cavity or ground wires) right to it.

+1 Very easy and worth the price, just watch your fingers, it gets sharp!

Interesting thing that about the shielding with Aluminium, geuss that why some has used it in shielding paint...

[Pete Galati]

Originally Posted by boneyguy

Here's a quote from Bill Lawrence that's interesting and informative. I've posted this several times now in threads about sheilding.

Aluminum has some strange properties, and it’s the only commercially available metal I know of that can eliminate the buzz caused by light dimmers. An inch thick copper or brass shield cannot reduce the buzz caused by light dimmers but .003 thick aluminum foil can! This is known some thirty years and the reason why Belden introduced double shielded cable ( Copper braid plus aluminum foil). There is one problem for guitar cords -- the double shielding makes the cable too stiff . It helps quite a bit when you shield your guitar with copper and aluminum foil.

Try this one-- wire a single coil to a jack and plug it into your amp. Put the pickup on a table next to your amp. Take an aluminum pan from your kitchen and put it slowly on top of your single coil and watch the hum disappear.

Bill

That's interesting. The first time I shielded a guitar, I used alum foil.

The control cavity didn't look good, but it was the quietest guitar I ever ran into. Copper tape wasn't all that good.

Nothing I use these days is sheilded.

[chickenpicker]

I shield with aluminium foil straight from the kitchen, with good results.

With a bit of patience, A single piece can be formed that fits tight in a cavity. I hold them in with double sided tape or glue.

Electrical connections can be made by bringing the foil over onto the body (underneath the pickguard) and making sure it contacts the pickguard shield.

You can also make a connection by driving a small screw through the foil, into the side of the cavity; wrapping a wire round the screw and soldering its other end to a ground point.

[Guitar_Ninja]

I recently did my tele with aluminum tape. Got 100' x 2" from Wal-Mart for $5. Shielded the neck cavity and bridge cavity with it and used heavy duty aluminum foil for the rear of the pickguard. The control cavity was already paint shielded from the factory. Ran a piece of the tape from under the control plate to one of the screw holes for the pickguard. That serves to ground the pickguard, which then contacts the foil in the neck cavity, which grounds it. The bridge cavity foil grounds to the bridge plate. Checked with continuity tester and good to go.

I'd always heard that you needed to use electrical tape to ensure continuity between all of the aluminum foil/tape pieces used in the cavities but I checked the three or four pieces I used in each against one another with the continuity tester and found that they all had continuity with each other, so... I'm not sure why the conductive adhesive would be required, unless that's only necessary for copper tape?

[Geo]

Shield yes but "buzzing".....

Shielding may or not help you at all depending on the cause/source
of the buzzing.

[0le FUZZY]

...I haff never found it tew help and beleeb me I dunn it a buncha wayz. I uze-yew-lee ended up with a lifeless, non-Tele soundin TELECASTER.

...Like Pete said "Nothing I use these days is sheilded."


0le FUZZY

[scooteraz]

I am just curious, what is the physical property in Al that causes it to shield better than Cu? When making a Faraday Cage in microelectronics facilities, I have never seen Al specified...just a question.

Personally, I would think most any conductive metal would do, so long as it is properly bonded to the ground.

Al foil is good, however, for making hats so they can't read your mind. YOU know, the infamous nebulous THEY........

[teleman65]

I don't hear voices buzzing when I wear my foil hat