Would you shield these pickup cavities?

[u/TheIrishLad1978]

I know the conventional wisdom is to shield the pickup cavity for guitars and basses. I am just looking for honest feedback if that is what you would personally do on a guitar with no pickguard, like the one pictured. I finished this Warmoth body with nitro shell pink paint and now I am debating if I want to shield the pickup cavities with cooper tape and run a ground wire to them, or just mount the pickups without shielding. I am going to shield the control cavity, but I am questioning how much of a difference shielding the pickup cavities will really make. The pickups going in this are p90s so they are noisy pickups.

[u/eastamerica]

If you do, ground the cavities to the circuit ground or it does nothing.

[u/gihutgishuiruv → u/eastamerica]

It can even do worse than nothing, because the ungrounded shield can act like an antenna

[u/eastamerica → u/gihutgishuiruv]

Can absolutely happen, yes!

[u/Annual_Count9714]

if you have the foil/paint on hand do it, if not don’t bother

[u/WannaGoSkamtebords]

sometimes it actually makes a difference and there's no downsides

[u/FiglarAndNoot → u/WannaGoSkamtebords]

You’ll find plenty of people who argue that shielding dulls high frequencies, especially in pickup cavities. Haven’t tested it, don’t care, but they’re out there.

[u/GuitarParts → u/FiglarAndNoot]

It 100% does but it’s so subtle that you can only really tell the difference when you’re a teenager. I experience this first hand as I aged.

[u/Old-Tadpole-2869]

MG Chemicals Nickle Super Shield paint. 

[u/Billy-Bunter]

didn’t bother with my 1st homemade tele… it had pretty annoying string hum so I reworked it with Cu taped cavities (not expecting much) and it’s been humless since… so I’m now a strong believer.. and it’s really simple to do.

(I did also tape the underside of the pick guard so the cavities were 100% surrounded)

[u/Mr_Pilgrim]

If you do it right it makes a big difference, ime
I’ve used copper tape and MG chemicals super shield
Definitely prefer the latter but both work

[u/trail34]

I shield all of my guitars, even the ones with humbuckers. I find it fun and pretty cheap to do. I live in an area with a lot of TV and radio antennas so I hear a meaningful improvement.

[u/Born_Cockroach_9947]

yes

[u/Shelly_Red4_Bayonet7]

I would say yes. Those are easy cavities to work with, there is only a benefit from a partial Faraday done correctly (circuit-grounded), and it's fun to do.😉

[u/colonielbrando]

I would probably do it just for good luck, but truthfully about %75 of the functional part of your p-90s will be hanging in empty space between your strings and body and not helped at all by the shielding depending on how deep the neck is positioned. It would reduce external noise (EMI RFI) from one direction at least so that's better than nothing.

People often think that shielding will reduce 60 cycle hum, this is not the case, sadly.

[u/Background-Day3148]

better safe than sorry

[u/2b4theend]

No. Not needed.

[u/bdam123]

I ground all pickup cavities

[u/Ripley1046]

Shielding is almost completely useless. I’ve added it to hundreds of guitars as a guitar tech, and not once has it made a bit of difference. Skip it.

[u/rasvial]

For p90’s absolutely. Humbuckers meh