Grateful Dead Music Forum

I'm doing a mod on my Strat. I'm putting in 3 Super II's with and OBEL and Waldo's buffer. I've always heard that Strats had grounding problems and my brother and I actually did a shielding project on his old Strat. I don't know if it's necessary on this job...I'm of the mind that it couldn't hurt....Any thoughts?...what cavities should be shielded? I'm removing the springs in back and using that for the buffer cavity...should I shield that?

the shielding is more important when you are using single coil pickups.

shield everything if you're in the mindset for it... just make sure to use the pastic standoff for the buffer so the circuit board doesn't contact the shielding.

Waldo's buffer comes with a little pedestal attached so there won't be any contact...Thanks.

Here's a pic of how I shielded mine... works fine. I'm a believer in thoroughly shielding everything. I got the copper at Hobby Lobby, a craft store... contact cement and solder.

Just be sure all the shielding is electrically connected to ground or else it will be a bad thing.


Brad

A string ground is vital, as well.

You you have you solder ever piece of copper together??

Soldering the copper foil should be easy. And indeed the bridge should be grounded so that all the strings have electrical ground connection. Some strats ground the bridge thru the spring holder claw in back, so if it's a strat with no vibrato springs, be sure to make that connection happen somewhere.


Brad

If you use shield paint... leave a bare spot where the sticky backed standoff (correct name for the "pedestal") is going to go... the sticky tape does not like the shield paint and won't adhere to it.

The strings were grouded via the tremelo/spring assembly...we've removed that so and attached a copper wire to the bridge. We may snake that copper wire through the cavity and use that as a ground for everything else. Thanks for the picture of the shielding...mine looks pretty similar. You can get self adhesive copper shieling that has a conductive adhesive...thereby not needing to solder all the copper foil...I got a shielding kit through StuMac. Thank guys.

I do solder every corner/joint... it really takes very little time, and makes the job 100% contained... and there's no chance of anything vibrating or rattling.