Fender Shielding | Tech Tips and Tricks

[@63sgjunior]

Quick tip it's a good idea to store paint or coating tins upside down if they're not going to be used for a while saves a bit of time. Stir with a gizzmo on an electric drill.

[@ObscuraDeCapra]

Yeah, brilliant idea. Because shit never gets knocked around it's totally cool to just keep paint cans upside down for no explainable reason whatsoever.

[@jeremy.thejeweler]

Im building my first partscaster and this is going to be a massive help. Thank you for sharing your craft and wisdom with us.

[@DisabilityExams]

Fender used to put brass plates at the bottoms of body cavities, connected by soldered wires. Also, if I was totally rewiring a Tele I'd add a four way switch, because the two pickups in series is my favorite Tele tone.

[@LockRocker]

I like the copper tape, it's not so bad. For my humbucker guitars I made a wooden dummy plug that runs just under the shape of a humbucker body rout. With that block I can pre- wrap one piece of tape to create the perimeter which will do the side walls of a humbucker and I insert bottom cavity pieces first and then peel and insert the one piece side walls. I like to run a flat tip iron on any overlaps to try and melt the adhesive to get better continuity between any two pieces of tape but I also generally make a solder connection to link two sections electrically. Solder likes to stick copper to copper without trouble. Usually I'll run a thin bare wire between all the various cavities. Your tele routs are a bit jenky shaped but for humbuckers an eared filler forming blocks works well.

[@s9plus20]

I use Chapstick as a screw lube. Its very easy to keep some close by.

[@vayabroder729]

The pickguard has the paint can mark underneath to try to duplicate early Fender blackguards. In the early days at Fender they would set the pickguards on top of cans to spray the clear lacquer on them and they would have that round overspray mark. With the new shielding that’s going to be gone but it will work better.

[@goodun2974]

A pipe cleaner would also work for painting the inside of the thru holes between the cavities.

[@victorbeebe8372]

Aloha Lyle looking forward to pickup comparison.

[@Jim_Cox]

I keep a tube or two of Burt's Bees beeswax lip balm in my guitar-tools toolbox for screws. VItamin E and peppermint for the win. 😂

[@wallpapermusique]

Also, great tip about avoiding the kinks.

[@TRtribal]

Thanks for basically answering my question from the other video! I completely agree that copper tape is a PITA - I may give the paint another try.

[@gringopig]

Oooh! Teles! Love a Telecaster.

[@PsionicAudio]

I’m listening to your new Tele shootout video now.

[@volesrock]

I chose MG Chemicals Nickel Shielding paint. It has a 2 hour re-coat time according to it's MSDS as opposed to 24, and I got 1 ohm between cavities. If I'm not mistaken it might be cheaper than SM, but it was a while ago. I've done 3 guitars with a can the same size as yours and might be able to get another Tele out of it.

[@PsionicAudio]

Yeah, I had that before and liked it much better.

[@Kanthon]

Q-tip from the Groove is in the Heart video made me laugh out loud. 😄

[@mikewithers299]

Love me some Tele wiring tips. Now that my Strat is done the Tele will be next ❤

[@goodun2974]

A paint-store type mixer ( handles up to gallon size cans) is $150 at Harbor Freight but I see others on line that are sized for small hobbyist-size acrylic paints and small cans, ranging from 30 to 60 bucks. One uses a powered or cordless drill to shake the can, another one straps the can or bottle to a miniature shaker-table, and another "vortex" mixer uses ball bearings that are spun inside the can by magnetic induction . Personally, I'd like to find something that could also stir and mix natural peanut butter where the oil has separated out and is sitting on top of the ground peanut sludge!

[@tomk1tl39]

Tks for the info on the gndng . . . I usually use foil, altho it is a PITA on a Tele.

[@haytguugle8656]

Since I have always hated pickguards of any kind, I always make sure that the body I use has a proper route for the neck pickup through neck pocket instead of what wanky route on the face of the body. Leo did that because it was a few seconds faster to pop the router to that place on the template than to take out another machine to drill a hole with a long bit. But that Forces the need for the pickguard. UGH!!! Nothing ruins the look of a beautiful, well finished guitar look than a $0.75 piece of cheap, sheet plastic covering over 30-60% of the body!! double UGH!! 🙂 But this shielding demo does share some good points.

[@jessenicholson1777]

I used to use that Stew Mac shielding paint but just couldn’t get a good result with it. I’ve tested resistance on factory guitars with black shielding paint and get perfect grounds. I assume they’re using some spray but have never been able to find anything like it.

[@flamencoprof]

I have for years had plenty of thin copper strip scavved from the shielding in large coaxial cable offcuts at work, with this use in mind. Looks like that paint would be easier to do than mucking about forming, securing, and linking a bunch of copper strips.

[@jutukka]

In fact it is quite easy to use copper tape because you can solder to copper. And it is easier than paint to remove if necessary. I use copper in amp cabinets as well, if shielding is needed, I have used it for years, and I have never wanted to use conductive paint.

[@David.S.]

As my old co-worker used to say: "friends don't let friends use Flat Head screws"

[@michaelcorvin4330]

Groove is in the shielding. 😁

[@johnnyx9892]

I thought it was in the ❤ That's what Bootsie Collins told me.

[@wallpapermusique]

Nice NATO "James Bond" watch band!!!!

[@peterburi2727]

The newer Telecasters have the neck pickup mounted to the lifeguard, not the body. I'm not sure how much if any if that changes the tone.

[@PsionicAudio]

Depends. Hasselhoff or Pamela?

[@breathtimebreath4934]

Thank you 🙏

[@chipsterb4946]

Thanks for the intonation tip. I know that ground loops are “bad” inside an amp, but thought they don’t make a difference in wiring the guitar itself. Is that correct?

[@PsionicAudio]

In some situations you can create AM antennae by redundant grounds in a guitar but the loops that are issues in amps usually aren’t in guitars as there is so little current.

[@HalHawkins-j8i]

Yeah!!!!

[@microwavedsoda]

you had me at qtip. Subbed.

[@SuperBossman9]

I’ve always thought that twisting wires together adds resistance, am I wrong in that belief?

[@DukeStarbuckle]

Same Stew-Mac product and situation for me. I didn't have the patience to do all the stirring. Right in the garbage.

[@BobbyCulpepper.srv3fender]

i tried to make my own conductive paint using graphite powder and acrylic paint, i tried several different mixtures but couldnt get continuity lower than maybe 500k.

[@peterstephen1562]

Keeping co-axial drive on slotted screws is a skill worth learning. I would much rather face a slotted screw when a screw is old , painted over and rusty. Regards slot head preservation society.

[@markspurgin8225]

Good info

[@goodun2974]

"Quivers down my backbone/I got the shakes in my kneebones/tremors in my thigh bones/ Shakin' All Over....." 😉

[@robertlewis8024]

"There is a God, they used philips here", Amen, brother!

[@goodun2974]

Torx, or Robertson square drive, would be even better, but not every guitarist can be guaranteed to own those, especially in the smaller sizes....

[@martinreid1740]

My first real guitar was a 1965 tele and because I have relatively perfect pitch hearing, trying to intonate it proved really difficult with those sadles. With the equal temperant tuning scale it's virtually impossible to get a guitar to play in tune in all open positions. It's a compremise we just have to live with. Thanks for the video Lyle.

[@PsionicAudio]

These are the Rutters compensated straight brass saddles and they are very close to perfect.

[@martinreid1740]

No such thing as a perfect. Thanks for your reply Lyle.

[@PsionicAudio]

Well, guitars are temperamental things as you know. But at least the basic intonation can be set very accurately. Your thirds are between you and your god…

[@rabokarabekian409]

Ah, $tew Mac & Cheese, yur unnecessarily high supplier. My fav is their string lifting lever for dressing nut slots (in case you have nothing that can slide under and lift strings?). Once again, the difference between copper to aluminum resistance for these tiny dimensions is almost immeasurable. Don't want to bother with gluing nearly free aluminium foil? Buy HVAC aluminum tape - it comes with adhesive and is string. Tacks or tiny screws from section to section ensure continuity. Then also easy to add veen a single strand of wire work, Who's judging hidden appearances? Dya know how a Faraday cage works?

[@goodun2974]

I electrically connect overlapping layers of aluminum tape by pushing on the foil seams with a small Philips screwdriver, twisting it slightly to punch through the adhesive layer. Confirm conductivity with an ohmmeter. This is a quick, easy method, works great.

[@U_ever]

Soon is good.

[@ditchgator1]

😎👍👍

[@1man1guitarletsgo]

I prefer aluminium foil for shielding. It takes even longer than copper tape, but it doesn't affect the guitar's tone, whereas I feel that copper does.

[@63sgjunior]

Technically speaking copper shielding is more effective than aluminium at rf frequencies I can't say I've noticed any difference in sound but there might be less stray capacitance with copper. Aluminium foil being used in capacitors. Since it's sound we're interested in go with which sounds better for you.

[@goodun2974]

I dunno about tonal differences, but I've shielded a number of guitars with aluminum tape and it works very well, although a bit tricky to work with. The one semi-major problem is that you can't solder to it, but a short brass wood screw driven through the aluminum tape into the wood makes a convenient, solder-friendly ground connection. The tape adhesive, however, insulates overlapping tape layers from each other (purpose-made copper shielding tape supposedly has conductive adhesive), but pushing the point of a miniature Philips screwdriver through the overlapping tape layers With a twisting motion will form "cold rivets" that puncture the adhesive and electrically connect the layers of tape. Check with a multimeter to make sure they're all making contact with each other.

[@goodun2974]

PS, another advantage to using some kind of foil tape is that you can overlap tabs of the foil outside of the cavity onto the guitar top where the screwholes are so that the shielding on the back side of the pickguard automatically makes contact with the shielding inside the cavities. This is especially helpful in a guitar like a Telecaster where there are no electronics mounted to the pickguard. A Strat, on the other hand, with pickups mounted directly to the pickguard, is probably making a ground connection to the shielding foil on the back side of the pickguard via the pickups' ground wire and the metal mounting tabs of the pckups.

[@1man1guitarletsgo]

@@goodun2974 Thank you. Good points, but I don't use aluminium _tape._ I use aluminium _foil_ straight out of the kitchen. Each cavity gets its own single-piece shield, moulded to shape and stuck down with Pritt Stick. I agree with overlapping the foil onto the body, so it makes firm contact with the pickguard shield. Anywhere a component might touch the shield I put a layer of insulation tape. For grounding, I use a woodscrew, with the ground wire wrapped around it, and maybe a washer or two to maximise the contact area. No soldering required, and the entire project is as cheap as chips!

[@goodun2974]

@@1man1guitarletsgo , here in the US, our standard aluminum foil used in the kitchen might be a little too thin and prone to tearing; perhaps in other countries (I noticed your spelling of "aluminium") the aluminum foil is thicker? The thickest akuminum foil variety sold here is used for barbecuing on charcoal or gas grills...... Anyway I can anticipate guitar projects where your aluminum foil might be easier to work with and fit better than aluminum tape due to the thinness and increased flexibility. I've never heard of Pritt Stick adhesive.....

[@flamencoprof]

Excuse my ignorance. I am not from the USA. What exactly do you mean by "flat head screw"? I Googled the term by image, and virtually every one was what I call a "countersink" screw. That is a flat surface with a semi-conical shape to the underside of the head. Slots were of all varieties, from a simple straight slot to the Philips cross-shaped slots, and even square slots. I can't imagine using one of those to secure a metal plate to wood. It sounded to me as though it was the straight slot you disliked. not the flatness.

[@goodun2974]

Many/most of us were raised to refer to slotted screws as "flathead screws". It's a common American colloquailism. Anyway, the main problem with "flathead" screws is that there's a lot of variance in the width and depth of the shallow slot, and the screwdrivers themselves vary a lot ---- most are ground to a V shape, not completely flat-sided where they sit in the screw slot. You might have to try a bunch of screwdrivers to find one that fits a particular screw, or use a file or bench grinder to modify a screwdriver for a perfect fit ( especially if the screw was chewed up by someone else). The first time somebody tries to remove a slotted screw with an ill-fitting screwdriver, it'll chew the heck out of the screw slot, making subsequent removal/reinstallation difficult for the next guy. By contrast, there's usually less variation in the interface between most Philips screwdrivers and the screw (unless it's a Pozidrive screw, or a Japanese Indistrial Standard screw, being manipulated with an ordinary Phillips screwdriver); and Philips are designed specifically to cam out with minimal damage to screw or driver if overtorqued, or if insufficient downward pressure, or an off-angle approach, is used. The square drive screwheads are Robertson screws, a Canadian invention ---- they're an excellent fastener design ( Henry Ford wanted to use them for automobile production but he didn't like being limited to a patented product from just one Canadian manufacturer), but they're probably not used much for guitars....

[@flamencoprof]

@@goodun2974 Thanks for the first two sentences. I knew all the rest 🙂 I agree with the channel that slotted screws, power drivers and anything nice is not a good combination, and I often wince watching repair/restoration videos of guitars, amps and anything audio-electronic.

[@Satchmoeddie]

All that lamp black carbon and graphite is stuck on the bottom of the can, so put some 5/16" ball bearings and some .177 BBs in the can and then shake the can. You also need to keep stirring that crap with a paint stick. It's even worse than my black inside the cab stain I make with tung oil and or linseed oil with a smidge of paint thinner to act as a surfactant. Being it's a stain a surfactant is not really that necessary.

[@Satchmoeddie]

I never tried adding paint thinner to shielding paint. I will try it and see if it helps any.

[@gregorypinkowski7809]

None of those are flat head screws.

[@PsionicAudio]

I obviously meant to say slotted. In the US we often call a slotted screwdriver a flathead screwdriver and it gets thrown about when it comes to the screws too.

[@Tyson-u3m]

Don't buy shielding paint. Make it!

[@jonmurphy776]

You wanna shield yourself from awful Fender tones, then you’ll steer clear of me !