Shielding

Will aluminum foil work for shielding cavities? I'm trying to fix a grounding problem and I think I just need to get a little Faraday cage going. I know I have aluminum foil and I believe I heard that it works...the main thing is that I don't want to have to buy copper tape and wait for it to get here, you know?

I always use aluminium foil, the stuff for cooking,

Spray on glue, or I paint on white wood glue, will hold it down.

Soldering to it is the problem, not impossible, but damn close.

You can screw in some lugs, pickguard screws work great, and solder to them, or you can buy special rings to clamp wires to, and screw them down. Or, in a worst case scenario, and the glue is well dried, you could tape them down with electrical tape, not reccomended unless its a last resort, but I've done it quite a few times, and its always worked.

Thanks, man! Wanted to get some of that crap sorted out today. I think I'm going to go with the solder to screw/spade terminal direction.

Copper does a better job but it's much more expensive, foil should work.

Sounds like a plan. For my Hamer, I'm definitely going to use copper. On my BTB, I think foil will do the trick. If not, then a little copper in there as well. Thanks, guys!

To add to what has already been said, and along the lines of Bill's suggestion, you can get a good ground connection by using a small wood screw with a washer holding down the foil. Then you can attach a lug to the ground wire, and fasten that between the screw and washer. This way, the washer prevents the screw from tearing up the foil.

Right on, man. Think I'll do that tonight on my BTB and see how it works.

I found out recently that Home Depot and Lowes carry copper tape in their gardening/pest control aisles. The self adhesive side is rubbish, but with a little spray-on adhesive it works like a charm for shielding. Just thought I'd mention it here in case you didn't already know. The best part is that, while it's still more than foil, it's not ungodly expensive.

Oh thank you, Yvarg! I didn't know about it...I'll have to try and get myself over there some time. Good tip, man!