Reguarding shielding..(edit) Ibanaut project

robrtnickerson · Post by **robrtnickerson** » Thu Mar 04, 2010 5:59 pm

Is shielding your pup route important or a waste? I am in the process of cobbling together a hacked up Ibanez POS that I have dubbed the Ibanaut and the swimming pool is not lined, so to speak. None of my current guitars have shielding but this is a bit of a different animal alltogether, given the huge route for pups and the fact that the pichguard is metal. I just don't want to be picking up any radio stations through the pickups, as the local stations tend to suck quite hard. If it helps the pups will likely be GFS or some other budget friendly type of thing. Thanks in advance. Oh, I will post some pics at some point and will likely seek more expert advice in the near future.

Mages · Post by **Mages** » Fri Mar 05, 2010 1:09 am

if there are unshielded wires going through the swimming pool route, then yes, it will benefit from shielding. alternatively you could use all shielded wires, like on gibsons.

Will · Post by **Will** » Fri Mar 05, 2010 5:49 am

I've shielded guitars and, though I think it's worth it, it doesn't cut all the noise and you have to be patient doing it to get full coverage.

If you're using humbuckers, I'd stick with shielded wire. It cuts a lot of noise and looks really clean.

robrtnickerson · Post by **robrtnickerson** » Fri Mar 05, 2010 3:27 pm

I guess a better question for me to have asked is what noises are made as the result of the lack of shielding. There is a swimming pool route, metal pickguard (don't know if this matters), and most likely single coil pups. I am not the least bit concerned with the aesthetics of the wiring and will most likely become impatient with the whole project anyways so I'm not particularly keen on undertaking a process that is tedious and boring. Unless the sounds I would get due to the omission of shielding would be exsessive humming or squealing. Piss on it. No shielding for me. Anyone have any experience with GFS replacement necks?

omari · Post by **omari** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 3:43 am

making sure everything is properly grounded is more important than shielding. the metal pickguard will help block a lot of the noise, plastic ones don't block anything which is why people add metal tape sometimes.

Mages · Post by **Mages** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 4:55 am

shielding gets rid of the 60 cycle hum that you hear commonly from single-coil guitars (most often when not playing).

robrtnickerson · Post by **robrtnickerson** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 2:59 pm

okay, so hum is the main thing eliminated with shielding. I do believe that I will be skipping that step, I can go back later and do it if it's a huge deal. Thanks for the info.