American Performer Mustang pickguards shielded?

[Kutt]

Does anyone know if there is factory shielding of any sort on the back of the stock American Performer Mustang pickguards?

Thank you

[alexpigment]

No real surprise here with Fender's track record on pickguard shielding, but it's shielded just under the pickup selector switch:

[Kutt]

Thank you!

I got a new one this week and it's much more noisy than I expected. I've been playing for decades and have a sizeable guitar collection including many U.S. Fenders. I like my Squier CV 60's Mustang so much that I decided to get this American model. The CV is as quiet as a mouse, but not the American Performer. Going to spend some time this weekend shielding it throughout.

Thanks again!

[alexpigment]

Assuming the bridge is grounded, and that the noise is occurring while your hands are *on* the strings, then the noise has little to do with the shielding. It may just be that the pickups are wound hotter on the American Performer. From a cursory look on the internet, the CV is wound to around 6k and the Performer is wound to around 8-9K. Does the noise go away when you turn your guitar 90 degrees to the left or right (again, while your hands are on the strings)?

[Kutt]

Assuming the bridge is grounded, and that the noise is occurring while your hands are *on* the strings, then the noise has little to do with the shielding. It may just be that the pickups are wound hotter on the American Performer. From a cursory look on the internet, the CV is wound to around 6k and the Performer is wound to around 8-9K. Does the noise go away when you turn your guitar 90 degrees to the left or right (again, while your hands are on the strings)?

The noise goes away only then I touch either the metal portion of the 3 way toggle (the washer and toggle shaft) or the metal control plate.

It does not go away when I touch the pickup screws, pickguard, or anywhere else. It does not go away with turning away at any degree. It does not go away when I touch the strings.

I believe it's more than hot pickups. Something is up electronically. I'll be taking the pickguard off soon to inspect things, probably when I receive the new shielding tape so as to tackle everything in one sitting.

[alexpigment]

OK, so the big issue here is that your strings are not grounded. There should be a wire going under the tremolo plate that connects to the back of the volume pot. See pg 4 of the diagram here:

https://www.fmicassets.com/Damroot/Orig ... ustang.pdf

Obviously with more sufficient shielding things will quiet down when not touching the guitar, but the tremolo (and therefore strings) grounding issue should be addressed first.

[Kutt]

OK, so the big issue here is that your strings are not grounded. There should be a wire going under the tremolo plate that connects to the back of the volume pot. See pg 4 of the diagram here:

https://www.fmicassets.com/Damroot/Orig ... ustang.pdf

Obviously with more sufficient shielding things will quiet down when not touching the guitar, but the tremolo (and therefore strings) grounding issue should be addressed first.

Thanks very much. I will look everything over while troubleshooting.

[alexpigment]

Sure thing. By the way, I wouldn’t be too concerned with whether the tremolo ground wire is grounded on a different pot (the diagrams are often incorrect about the fine details), but it’s that longer stranded wire you see in the pickguard picture above that isn’t attached to anything. I would guess it just didn’t get held into place correctly when the tremolo was attached and so it’s probably just dangling within the cavity. That’s fairly common on offsets where the tremolo plate is the ground point.

[Kutt]

Shielding job complete. Thanks very much for everyone's help. Hit a couple snags along the way regarding grounding but this Mustang is quiet as a mouse now, except of course for the expected 60 cycle hum. I am very surprised they don't shield these at build time. It was hands down the most noisy guitar I've ever purchased, and I've purchased around 60 in my lifetime.

The main thing I ran into that took me extra time to figure out was that the hot/lead on the output jack was making contact with the new shielding and the signal was completely cutting out. I removed the shielding in the cavity immediately surrounding the jack and all is well now.

Also, although there is a a hole drilled at the factory for the ground wire that's intended to run underneath the trem, there was none there! In the end I ended up extending the shielding tape under it which seems to have worked like a charm.