Sheilding an 08 American Std Strat

[mr_sooty]

Further to our conversation in 'Ground Loops?' (which I kind of hijacked), I received my new 08 American Std Strat yesterday. Very nice I must say. As far as sheilding goes, it seems to have a coat of sheilding paint in the cavity (Fender must be starting to get the idea!), with a lug attatched to ground it. However the paint doesn't overlap the edge, so it doesn't make contact with the sheilding on the pickguard.

So I have my trusty conductive tape. Would I just need to put it around the top edges of the cavity to make contact between the paint and the pickguard sheild? Or am I safer to just put the tape in the whole cavity.

The guitar is reasonably noisy still at this point.

[sumgai]

sooty,

Fender may be getting a clue, but it's damaged goods.

Shield the whole cavity properly, right over the paint, and be done with it. I didn't bother with putting the screw back, because the cavity foil contacts the pickguard foil, and that makes good contact with the volume pot, and from there the kneebone connects to the..........

The pot's bushing is in good contact with the shell, and with all the signal returns and other grounds going only to that one pot shell, I have only one wire going out to the output jack. No ground loops, not even the tone pot, and it's all pretty durned quiet, I'm here to tell ya! ;D

HTH





sumgai

[mr_sooty]

Thanks Sumgai. That's pretty much what I did. It wouldn't worked just doing the edges anyway because I noticed they have some kinda laquer over the sheilding paint, except for the point where the lug connects.

I screwed the lug back after I sheilded it all (it was before I read your post), but it seems to have done the trick pretty well. I'm pretty happy with the amount of noise I'm [not] getting.