Should I shield my S2 McCarty 594 will it's gutted?

[Jimmy4Thumbs]

I'm gutting a '21 S2 McCarty 594 and replacing everything from the toggle switch to the output jack with core-level components including some 58/15 LT TCI pickups I purchased. I'd like opinions concerning the prudence of shielding the cavities with either paint or copper tape while the guitar is empty.

Now would be the time to do it, but Is there any reason to do so? The guitar wasn't noisy, and the room I play in 99% of the time is also pretty quiet electrically speaking. Even my single coil guitars are pretty quiet.

I'm just wondering if I'll regret not shielding while guitar is "naked." Thoughts?

 

[bodia]

I'd shield it while you've got everything out of the cavity. No reason not to.

 

[ThePanda]

Were you getting any noise before from the guitar?

 

[frankencat]

Isn’t it already shielded? I am not a big fan of cavity shielding personally but if you are going to do it then that is the time.

 

[LunarRock]

For that guitar it's not necessary, google cavity photos of the core 594

 

[Greywolf]

No buzz on that one , so not a big need .. but I'm not opposed to shielding , Most of what I've seen on PRS and Knaggs is the paint on grey shielding which works well, my KL 33 does , and my Kenai

 

[JasonE]

I don't know if any of my PRS guitars have shielding in them. If they do, it wasn't something memorable to me. I think I have looked inside of everyone of them I own, maybe.

 

[ThePanda]

I don't know if any of my PRS guitars have shielding in them. If they do, it wasn't something memorable to me. I think I have looked inside of everyone of them I own, maybe.

I have only seen the Silver Skies having some some.
The Core has copper strips on the pickguard and the SE has shielding paint in the pickup cavities.

 

[Jimmy4Thumbs]

Isn’t it already shielded? I am not a big fan of cavity shielding personally but if you are going to do it then that is the time.

It has a very sketchy coat of black paint on some surfaces in the pot cavity. Looks like a single coat; so light that wood "fuzz" sticks through it in places.The cover plate is bare. I think I'm going to skip it. It wasn't noisy before, and both the copper tape and paint processes look like a pain.

I appreciate the comments though. Thanks!

 

[Bobd]

I would say skip it if you have zero noise issues... unless you have the time to kill, the paint and the shielding foil...

 

[Alnus Rubra]

I remember @Simon Says removing the shielding paint from his 24 Std. Hopefully he’ll chime in.

 

[d^rren]

Pots are already shielded (they're in metal cans) and most modern guitars use shielded wire in them. If you're having major noise issues, a little extra foil or paint inside the cavity may or may not make a difference.

 

[KentuckyBoiledChiccan]

Now would be the time to do it, but Is there any reason to do so?

No reason at all, unless it's a strat. Strat alike pickups always came with 2 core wire, no shielding. Yet all HBs in one way or the other comes with shielded wire. PRS comes one step forward and are shielding even the sides of the coils with an coper tape connected to the baseplate ground reference point. As long as the other parts of the cavity are shielded properly (signal lead from the switch to the vol pot, vol pot cable to the output jack), there is no reason to shield the rest of the guitar. I took the shielding paint off of my STD24 indeed, used the proper grounding scheme with no ground loops, and the guitar is noise free, even in HB split mode. Imo doing double down on grounding is a recipe for disaster

 

[KentuckyBoiledChiccan]

Further to above, if you look at the photo above, the way I did the grounding scheme is;

1. From the output jack the sleeve connects to the braided side of the signal wire which loops around the tone pot chassis first, and the volume potentiometer chassis next.
2. The same wire braided side is soldered to the other braided wire going from the volume pot to the toggle ground reference points (3 tags soldered together, it's a big switch).

To this point all the pots and signal is grounded

3. The switch serves as a kind of star grounding with all the other ground points are referred to this place, so two pickup braided wire (for coils side grounding and the baseplate) and the pickup internal ground wire; all connects there.

So this is entire guitar already grounded, all leads carrying audio are shielded. The only non-shielded part of the circuit is the tone capacitor leads, but they don't carry audio, they are shorting audio to the ground via the capacitor.

Now, adding shielding to the cavity would complicate things as both pots and the switch body would have additional point where the grounding connects the other elements of the guitar. That could cause ground loops.

So again, IMO, no point.

With strats, Silver Sky and all that 2-lead wire IMO the grounding makes sense, but prior to doing that, I would twist the pickup wire as much as possible and see if its helping before doing a full blown cavity shielding. Mainly, because it's my least favourite thing to do. No matter if it's a paint or copper tape. I hate it with passion

 

[Jimmy4Thumbs]

Further to above, if you look at the photo above, the way I did the grounding scheme is;

1. From the output jack the sleeve connects to the braided side of the signal wire which loops around the tone pot chassis first, and the volume potentiometer chassis next.
2. The same wire braided side is soldered to the other braided wire going from the volume pot to the toggle ground reference points (3 tags soldered together, it's a big switch).

To this point all the pots and signal is grounded

3. The switch serves as a kind of star grounding with all the other ground points are referred to this place, so two pickup braided wire (for coils side grounding and the baseplate) and the pickup internal ground wire; all connects there.

So this is entire guitar already grounded, all leads carrying audio are shielded. The only non-shielded part of the circuit is the tone capacitor leads, but they don't carry audio, they are shorting audio to the ground via the capacitor.

Now, adding shielding to the cavity would complicate things as both pots and the switch body would have additional point where the grounding connects the other elements of the guitar. That could cause ground loops.

So again, IMO, no point.

With strats, Silver Sky and all that 2-lead wire IMO the grounding makes sense, but prior to doing that, I would twist the pickup wire as much as possible and see if its helping before doing a full blown cavity shielding. Mainly, because it's my least favourite thing to do. No matter if it's a paint or copper tape. I hate it with passion

Thanks for the insight, Simon. I appreciate you taking the time to educate me.

 

[KentuckyBoiledChiccan]

Thanks for the insight, Simon. I appreciate you taking the time to educate me.

No stress, we here to help each other. Great place for real educational in Guitar Nutz forum. These guys know their stuff. Meanwhile, if you stuck with anything, let us know

 

[LunarRock]

When I put P90s in my strat I used cavity conductive paint connected to an aluminium scratch plate shield, and it is silent. Very happy. Same guitar, same rig with the original pickups & wiring was very noisy.

It wasn't all plain sailing, I tried to make my own conductive paint with graphite, big fail, the proper stuff is not expensive.

 

[Alessandro]

My s2 594 singlecut picks up tons of static through the non recessed covers. Super duper annoying. Gotta keep some dryer sheets in the gig bag always.