Rockhorst

I decided to go a little bit apeshit on my MiM strat. Don't know why cuz it already was pretty amazing (it holds itself pretty well against my PRS in sound quality and definitely defeats it in the fearceness department!). I guess I just needed something to do. So I decided to try out the shielding as presented in the guitarnuts article...and failed. I didn't have enough copper tape to shield the whole cavity, but I did have copper paint. So I decided to go for a tape shielded pickguard, painted cavity with some copper strips running across it. I tested it at some point and it was pretty noiseless. I don't know what I did after that, but I can't get it to quiet down anymore. Thing buzzes like mad and is unplayable. I pulled out the tape and decided to start looking for more copper tape. While I wait for the tape, maybe someone here has some thoughts on shielding? Basic summary of what I did: -Shielding with a combination of paint and copper tape (conducting adhesive) -Disconnected the tone controls all together. -I decided not to put in the DC protection capacitor. No stock strat has it and I don't see players dropping dead by the millions. -Star grounding, which comes down to lifting the pickup ground wires from the volume pot casing and connecting it to the pot's ground terminal, since the tone pots where taken out. One thing that may be trivial: because I didn't want to solder/desolder everytime, I tested it with long wires running from volume pot to input jack and connected the wires to the jack using metal clamps. Granted, that might give some noise. Also, the volume pot took quite some heat from the soldering (but still gives good readings on the ohmmeter). One thing I don't fully understand about the guitarnuts article: one makes a Faraday cage of the cavity and grounds the cage to the bridge/trem. The audio circuit inside stays isolated from this, if I interpret the article corrrectly. Wouldn't that leave the audio circuit floating?

It's a Jackson Randy Rhoads we found in the trash. It's an RR4. I can't really find any info on the model online anymore, since it was mainly produced during the 90s. I'm guessing, from what I know from Jackson, that it would be Alder body and maple neck. Anybody got any additional info?

I'm working with a friend on a total guitar overhaul (stripping, refinishing and upgraded parts...topic coming soon). There are some shallow dings in the neck that I'm steaming and sanding out. After that it's gonna need a new layer of laquer...Now here's the stupid question: how far should I sand down the neck? In other words: do I have to strip the entire old coat (and how do I know that I'm through all the way).

Thanks for the thoughts westhemann. Rest assured: all is now beautifully silent unless equilibrium is intentionally disrupted. It was the ground indeed.

Reading over EMGs instructions I think I've found it. I didn't solder the braid on the silver wire to the volume pot. I had mistaken this as a quick and dirty 'third hand' technique used for quick assembly. Let's see what happens.

@westhemann: Sorry, maybe I should've been more specific, my bad. It's an Epi LP Zakk Wylde model. It came stock with EMGs. All I'm doing is replacing the pots. I have however found that little hole with a wire sticking out. So I should leave that unconnected, and it never was connected anyway. So I'm not changing any actual wiring or pickups, just inserting new pots.

How would you wire it to the bridge on an Les Paul?!? Besides, the bridge pickup is buzzing, but the neck one isn't. Yet, they share a common ground if I read my multimeter correctly. EDIT: maybe I shouldn't say buzz, HUM seems to be the correct word.

I replaced the pots of the bridge pickup on an Epi LP with active EMG. When I finished and plugged in I noticed that it makes a buzzing noise, much like you'd expect on a single coil Strat. Only the bridge one does this, not the neck one. It disappears when I touch the metal pickup selector, wich makes sense I guess. I checked for continuity: all pots are connected to each other, and to the pickup selector, so it's all part of the ground circuit. Yet, the buzz would indicate a problem with the ground of the bridge pickup. Any ideas? Additionally, the cap that's connected for the tone circuit runs from the middle pin of the vol to the middle pin of the tone pot, on both pickups and originally. If I check it with the schematic by EMG though, it should be connected to the 'hot' first pin which carries the guitar signal. Intuition is saying that it wouldn't make a lot of difference. Correct?

@djhollowman: if this will ever make it into a full guitar, I'll be going for a normal strat neck. Probably not from any of the big replacement suppliers but more likely a neck built by a local luthier. @IPA: exactly what you say, do the burst and if it sucks do it again. I'll post some pictures of the other body I purchased up here tomorrow, as a teaser . Funny how people favour the possibility of fiddling around with pickups over filling it up. I've never been big on pickups, weird maybe because they are of course an essential interface. But they are also darn expensive 'just to try out'.

To add something to the discussion on other materials than wood: Over a year ago I purchased a bass guitar. The competition was between a standard Fender Jazzbass and an Ibanez Ergodyne EDB600. I bought the last one (judged by comparing the sound of the too). It's quite heavy and I associated it with wood. I discovered a week later that it's made out of Luthite, whatever that may be it's synthetic. So there I was, the guy always saying "guitars should be made out of wood" buying a 'plastic' bass LOL. I use it for demo recording mostly and it suits me fine. (Although with basses, the Jazz and Precision are such icons in their world, I dare say even more than a strat or LP, so in that respect, maybe a J or P would've been better. I think I just ran into a mediocre one at that shop).

I catch your drift PSW. It's more to get some experience with doing a burst and filling up a trem, for when I'd like to do something like that 'for real'. If I would build a guitar from scratch there wouldn't even be trem. I rarely use 'em. The trem bars of my commercial axes are all in some desk drawer. For the burst it wouldn't be absolutely necessary to sand it down completely, so I'll take that under consideration!

Hmmm...Yes, maybe there used to be P90s in there or something similar. Still a pity that it's a deeper rout at the edges. I forgot to say: I'm taking my time with this thing. I've got another body which is mint (and untreated) and I hope to start on that one in about 6 to 12 months, depending on the results I get with this thing. But I'll post progress pics every time I work on the pink bugger. I've been pondering the following question for a bit already: say I want to do the trem to hardtail conversion, what would be the best way to do that on a strat rout (which is a bit different than an RG rout). I can think of about 3 or 4 different ways to do it (some requiring some extra routen), and I'm quite unsure what would be the most best way to do it. And the stripping of the pink: I don't know what's on there, but I was thinking of checking what sandpaper can do to it and if that fails (or goes really slow) try the heat gun...

I'm new here (long time reader of PG though), so first of all: hi to everyone! I'm a guitarbuilding newb (again, long time reader) and as a first project I decided to get a 2nd hand body that's been rather butchered internally and see if I can turn it into something half decent. I doubt if it's ever going to become a real guitar, even if I get a nice finish on it, just knowing what is underneath might stop me from that. Some pictures first: Why there's an extra deep slot around that center pickup rout is beyond me...Anyway, what I'm considering doing, for practice purposes: -strip the pink -fill the screw holes -put in some extra wood, like the trem to hardtail tutorial on PG. Maybe also install some extra wood in the pickupcavity, not sure if that's useful though (thoughts?). -refinish the body in a red or blue burst (the most essential skill I hope to acquire from this). again: this is a practice project to acquire some first woodworking and finishing skills. I do hope to get some comments on what is feasible and what's not...All suggestions welcome.