Thin Line Tele Shielding

[S.A.]

Hi all

I have already posted this in the electronics area to no avail.

I am building a thin line tele and am almost ready to glue the cap on. My question is do I need to shield the cavity that will house electronics. Being chambered do I have to shiled the whole thing ?

Thanks Guys

Travis

[doug]

I take it you may not have made a "walled" cavity for your electronics? I'n that case you should take care that your grounding is done well, all grounds to a single point and no cold solder. You might consider a small piece of thin copper to place in the area of the controls. Cut it out as small as possible, but big enough to cover the general area of where your controls are. Then use the same template you used to drill and cut your control holes to drill the piece of foil. You could coat one side of the foil with spray glue then stick it inside where the volume and tone etc. will be. Then put the controls through the foil.

-Doug

[S.A.]

Hi Doug thanks for that.

I will make a box and house all the goodies in there then.

Is copper the best for shielding?

Regards

Travis

[Scott Rosenberger]

You could also use the shielding paint from stewmac and do the whole inside of the guitar with a few coats then glue the cap on

[JimRayden]

I'm guessing that would dampen the sound or something. I bet it wouldn't be too good for tone. Yeah, doug covered pretty much the whole thing like it's usually done on hollowbodies.

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Jimbo

[doug]

Hi Doug thanks for that.

I will make a box and house all the goodies in there then.

Is copper the best for shielding?

Regards

Travis

←

If you're going to make a box then make it out of metal. It sorta doesn't matter what metal really so long as it is attached to your main ground. I might be inclined to make it from copper just because it's easier to solder the seams.

Honestly though, just use the info I added before. You should be okay unless you use some terrible pickups or volume and tone controls. A good many hollow guitars are wired out in the open anyway. Others have very limited shielding.

-Doug

[Devon Headen]

I'm guessing that would dampen the sound or something. I bet it wouldn't be too good for tone.

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Jimbo

←

Neither would a nasty hum

[JimRayden]

Yea but I would have an amazing sounding 50's Strat single coil rather than a cheapo with a humbucker any time. Never mind if it hums like hell. It sounds like heaven itself.

Yea, the metal box idea is pretty good. Just leave an opening, so you could have an access to the box and electronics. You don't wanna start de-glueing your top when you have a pot to change.

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Jimbo

[crafty]

I'd say follow Scott's advice or just use some shielding tape for the electronics cavity. A metal box is neither necessary nor a good thing to do. If anything, it'll rattle around inside there and be more trouble than it's worth.

Shielding paint will not noticably dampen the sound of a chambered Tele any more than the finish on the outside would.

[S.A.]

Thanks for the input guys.

The metal box is sounding like the the best solution at the moment. I know I can get hold of something workable.

I have to look hard to find some shielding paint out here, and ordering from Stu mac is an exspensive 'cos of the shipping. ( I am in South africa).

Thanks a lot

Travis

[lovekraft]

You can use copper sheet, or aluminum foil, and you don't need to shield anything but the actual control cavity. In a standard Tele Thinline, the chamber isn't anywhere near the control cavity, so it's a non-issue. For that matter, if you wire everything with shielded cable and only ground the shield at one end of each length (to avoid ground loops), you shouldn't have to use any body shielding at all - there are plenty of dead-quiet semihollow Gibsons with single coils (P-90s) out there that don't have any foil or shielding paint in 'em. Check GuitarNuts.com for more than you ever wanted to know about shielding Fender guitars.