Grounding the shielding on a Tele

[Lemec]

Hi all,

I have finished the process of shielding the body cavities and the neck pu space on the back of the pickguard with copper foil...I've let some over the edge on the control plate screws and under the bridge (as showed on the pics).

My doubt and question is;

Do i have to ground or solder every cavity of the copper shielding between eachothers? And if so what is the proper way to do it.

My pu's will sadly still be the original ones altho i will add a orange drop on the tone pot and a "Kinman" treble bleed on the volume pot.

Thank you in advance for your help and answers.

NOTE; i'm rather a newbie when it comes to tech talk and this is my first attempt to "mod" this guitar so please explain this to me as if i was a 5 years old ...lol

http://[url=https://postimg.org/image/cam0ijm8z/](image removed)
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[ebb soul]

As long as the foil folds over the 'face' of the guitar to contact a grounded control plate fully, I see no point in further wiring.

 

[tessting1two]

I think I see two separate questions here:

1. Q: do you have to connect each piece of foil together with solder?
   1. A: The way to know for certain is a simple resistance test with an ohmmeter. As you test across the pieces of foil you should have super low resistance (almost zero) indicating good conductivity between pieces. Most foil these days has conductive adhesive which is handy but not totally trustworthy. If your readings are high or inconsistent you should go the extra mile and solder each piece together.
2. Q: Do all the shielded cavities have to be connected to each other?
   1. A: Yes and no. They all need to be connected to ground. In most cases it's easiest to connect the cavities to each other and then connect the shielding in the control cavity to ground on the back of the volume or tone pot. If any section isn't tied to ground it actually becomes an antenna that attracts noise instead of a shield.

Last but not least: if you want to take your shielding to the extreme, use two conductor shielded cable for your pickup wire runs and for the wire going to the output jack. Tie the shield of the cable to ground on one end only* and you'll effectively shield the signal wires even in the places you can't have foil.

*When using shielded cable for the pickup wires, tie the cable shield to ground inside the control cavity but not at the pickup. For the output jack, tie the shield to ground at the output jack but not inside the control cavity. The idea in both cases is that you don't want to add series resistance to the signal (which would happen if you grounded the shield on both ends), you just want the shield tied to ground to reject noise.

 

[Ira7]

This is why I don't shield.

Until you screw that pickguard and control plate cover on and plug her in, all bets are off on what you're going to have to do next, or you get lucky and don't have to do anything.

 

[dsutton24]

The simple answer is yes, you need to bond all the shields together, and connect them to the guitar's ground system. Since you used copper you have the option of just soldering jumper wires from cavity to cavity, that's the most bullet-proof solution. You'll have to figure out a way to get the small piece of shielding on the pickguard in contact with a ground.

Shields that aren't grounded often become a new source of noise.

Silly as it seems, many people take great pains to shield their cavities, then either half-axe or ignore their bridge ground. The bridge ground is the most important part of a quiet guitar, don't forget it.

 

[tessting1two]

Thankfully on a tele tying the pickup cavities to ground is pretty easy. The trick is make the foil overlap onto the top of the guitar like so:

Then shield the entire back of the pickguard. Not only will it connect the neck pickup cavity foil with the control cavity foil but it takes care of static electricity buildup on the pickguard.

To connect the bridge pickup cavity shielding to ground, just make sure the foil overlaps onto the top of the guitar so it makes good contact with the bridge plate. If you heed the advice of dsutton and ensure your bridge is properly grounded then your shielding will be properly grounded.

I'm a strong advocate of shielded cable as well but I know that isn't vintage spec and changing the wire on your shiny new pickups won't appeal to many. However, Erick Coleman from Stewmac had the clever idea of wrapping the stock pickup wires in copper foil and using a few pieces of heat shrink tubing to hold it in place. (link removed)