Wrapping pickup leads through channel with copper?

[Lou Tencodpees]

Maybe my search terms weren't good enough but I could not find any references. I just got done shielding the pickup and control cavities of my current Tele build with copper foil (mine doesn't have the angled channel between neck pickup and control cavity).

Would there be any benefit or harm to twisting the neck pickup leads and wrapping them with copper tape? I'm talking for just the stretch between cavities. I have a custom leather pickguard on order which will certainly be thicker than a standard one, not sure I want to add anymore thickness to it since I'm using a 22 fret neck.

 

[Wallaby]

To my knowledge, there wouldn't be any harm in doing this, as long as the tape could be removed later if needed.

I've seen mention of folks just twisting the leads and forgoing the shielding, too.

Would there be any benefit or harm to twisting the neck pickup leads and wrapping them with copper tape?

 

[ChicknPickn]

Whatever you do, you need to bleed off the energy to ground, just as you do with the cavities.

 

[24 track]

gibson pull back wire does exactly that for shielding , an exposed shield to tie to ground points in the cavity

 

[Wallaby]

Great idea @24 track


Shielding braid link

 

[Lou Tencodpees]

I've decided to start simple and go from there. I stripped the copper shielding in the neck pickup and control cavities and left it in the bridge pickup cavity only to function as bridge ground. This body didn't have the hole drilled for the bridge ground so I did the copper strip under bridge>bridge pickup cavity>soldered wire to control cavity>pot.

My reason is that I've now shielded (properly) a number of my guitars and found little improvement in my home studio, which is where I almost exclusively play. I started to ponder ground loops and redundancies and just figured, new build, start with the KISS rule. If noise becomes an issue I can always unKISS.

 

[Beebe]

Some Tele bridge pickups will make the bridge plate connection to ground for you... Just fyi.

 

[gkterry]

also, a ground wire with a round terminal connector can be put on a bridge pickup mounting screw to create a ground to the bridge.