The Steel Guitar Forum

Can someone offer advice or tips on, perhaps, adding shielding to my CS pickup? -- To avoid buying a humbucker.

That is, what's involved in doing so.
I might add that touching the pickup or strings does not stop the hum.
Thnx all.

Ken
Lansing_MI

First off, make sure you dont have a bad cable. I only say that because my CS barely hums at all.

Shielding can be accomplished by a couple different means. The easiest is foil tape. Simply cover the Pickup cavity in said tape and ensure some sort of ground connection. The better option is conductive paint. With this, you actually paint the PU cavity, also ensuring a good ground connection. Also check to make sure the actual PU lead is shielded. If not, replace existing wire with shielded wire, making sure shield is connected to ground.

All of these supplies can be purchased at guitar repair supply dealer like www.stew-mac.com

One thing you may look into before you do anything is make sure there is continuity between ground and the strings. You can use a multimeter set to OHMS for this. If there is not, you may have a broken ground wire. Look underneath the guitar and make sure there is a wire leading from ground to some sort of screw or bolt on the changer.

Much appreciated.

For others benefit,I'll post any successes.

There can be many causes of hum and a lot of them are not the pickup. One cause in single coil pickup hum can be traced to AC power wiring and how close or at what angle the guitar is to the power. How close it is to the guitar amp can be another. Poor guitar cords another. Poor shielding in the volume pedal, etc, etc.