OK. So I see that its been an insane amount of time since I last posted. Truth be told, the guitar is finished (it's pretty damn cool if I do say so myself - I got a ton of interest in it from the guys behind the counter at my local Guitar Center), but in the interest of full disclosure I will walk through all of the steps I did on this project and share some photo's.

Anyway, while I was waiting for the neck from Carvin to show up (they are custom made so it takes about 3 weeks from the time you place your order) I decided to start working on shielding the body and work on the electronics. You basically want to shield the entire pickup and control cavity of the guitar, especially if you are using vintage style or high output pickups. You can still get results if you are using stacked humbuckers such as Seymour Duncan's or Fender's noiseless pickups, however the results are less dramatic because the pickups already get rid of a lot of the noise. The basic idea is to create essentially a Faraday cage around the pickups and internal electronics. It is basically the same principal that makes you safe in a car in a lightning storm. Essentially the outer sheet metal layer of the car's skin disburses the electrical charge over it while the occupants that are grounded to the inner metal layer (the car's frame) are safe. In the guitar, all of the transient electromagnetic radiation will be disbursed over the surface of the copper, thus "shielding" the electrical components inside from the noise. If you don't trust me or just want to learn more here's the wikipedia link. BTW I learned all that as a kid at the museum of science in Boston they have a rocking electricity exhibit with a monster van de graaf generator (the worlds largest air insulated version)- anyway I digress!

I chose to use copper foil with a conductive adhesive backing. It was a bit more expensive than some of the other alternatives such as aluminium foil and spray adhesive, but in the grand scheme of things it wasn't too bad (i believe it was $16.00 or so for a roll of foil that will do a few guitars - I think it came out to 24.00 or so with shipping). Since the adhesive conducts electricity all you have to so is to overlap the foil a bit and the whole shielding job will act as if it is one continuous sheet of copper. Anyway you want to completely line the cavity with the foil. It is also a good idea to bring some strips of foil up onto the body of the guitar where the pick guard screw holes are. That will ensure a good connection between the cavity shielding and the shielding we will put on the back of the pick guard later. It's a good idea to check a bunch of different points on the shielding with a volt meter to make sure you have a good connection between all of the pieces.

If you are also doing the push pull pot modification, you want to mock up the pick guard with the new pots to make sure the cavity is routed deep enough for the new pots. That was a lesson I learned the hard way and had to rip out a portion of my shielding job so I could chisel wood out by hand to get the pots to clear. Wasting all of that copper sure sucked!

Needless to say, the strat is a bit lighter than it used to be!

Next time we will talk about installing the Wilkinson Bridge.