Fender strat shielding questions

[jkelter]

Hi all, Great site.

I just bought a new fender Mexican strat and guess what, the pickups are humming when I select a single pickup. The hum is only present in some places and not in others. i.e. I got it at home and in a friends house but not in the shop where I bought it or in the practice rooms. Why would this be?

I am looking at doing the shielding mod (quietening the beast) but I am a bit apprehensive about ripping the guts out of my new fender! I will prob have no comeback guarantee wise!

Is it possible to just put in the copper tape and connect that to ground or do I have to put in the capacitor and remove the ground loops? Would this make a difference or make things worse?

Looking forward to your replies guys

Thanks

John

[sumgai]

John,

Hi, and to the forums!

You can get away with just the shielding, the capacitor is for protection against a major shock hazard when using tube amplifiers. The ground loop problems might contribute to some of your humming, though, so you should attempt to go through the process of correcting the wiring as shown in the article, "Quieting the Beast". If you don't do that, you may still have some residual hum after the copper foil has been installed - it will all depend on the environment in which you are playing.

The theory is that if you're in there to do part of the job, why not take the few extra minutes to do the whole job, eh?

HTH


sumgai

[jkelter]

Thanks for the reply sumgai.

I dont use a tube amp. So I'm not to concerned about the shock hazard.

If i put in the copper foil and connected this to a ground point will this have any effect on the hum? I would rather take this approach if I could rather than messing with the wiring. As I said the guitar is only a week old. If it were older I would have no bother having a go!

[sumgai]

John,

Yes, you can try doing just the shielding foil first. Do both the backside of the pickguard and all the cavities (except the vibrato, if you have that option). Connect them together as described, then connected one point on that shield to the common ground, probably the back of the volume pot.

See if that's enough to kill the objectionable hum.


sumgai