Copper tape shielding?

[nickt]

My understanding is that you can reduce hum in strat types PU's by shielding the coils with copper tape *BUT* unfortunately this has the unwanted side effect of sucking out the tone.

My question is:

Does it make any tonal difference if you *DON'T* link one end of the copper to the other - in other words if there is not a complete turn made by the shielding tape?

Thanks

[black_labb]

i think the idea is to shield the cavity, not the coils themselves. shoule keep the tape a little bit further away from the coils. also make sure to shield control cavities as well, they pick up a fair bit of hum. also ground eveything metalic you can. truss rod may be an issue though, but everything else.

[David Schwab]

Does it make any tonal difference if you *DON'T* link one end of the copper to the other - in other words if there is not a complete turn made by the shielding tape?

That's the reason for the tone sucking. Copper tape wont change the tone by itself. It's the shorted loop that does it. The problem is a lot of people just warp copper tape around the coil a few times and ground it.

It's probably not a bad idea to apply it to the inside of the cover, including the top. And just leave a slit on the side where it wraps around the cover.

Shielding the cavity helps, but not as much as shielding the coils. The cavity doesn't pick up hum!