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Fender^® Highway One^™ Stratocaster^® goes Noiseless

	The (almost) complete updating kit July 18 2006, ready, set, go... Here's the shopping list: • A Fender Highway One Stratocaster guitar, P.N. 011-1100-300 • A set of Fender Hot Noiseless pickups, P.N. 099-2105-000 • Original Fender aged white Vol & Tone knobs P.N. 099-1369-000 • Original Fender aged white switch knob • 3M™ EMI Copper Foil Shielding Tape, type 1181 • Graph Tech FerraGlide stainless steel saddles, P.N. PG-8000-F0 The Highway One Strat is of 2005-year model. Matching aged white knobs goes nice with the Hot Noiseless pickups. The copper tape has a conductive acrylic pressure-sensitive adhesive, no need for soldering. The 12 mm tape width proved to be perfect for the job. The Graph Tech saddles have not arrived jet when this picture was taken. But they where sent by mail the day before, so I started out without them, knowing they should come the next day.
	Dismounting the pickguard - The rats nest The inside of a virgin strat, so far untouched by human hand. At least untouched by a common hand... Just dig in 'n rip 'em out. The pickguard must off. To be able to lift off the pickguard I had to adjust the neck pickup to a high position because the overhanging fretboard was in the way. Later I had to take off neck to get the pickguard in place, so I just as well could have taken the neck off right here. Dismounted the jackplate and unsoldered the wires at the output jack. Then lifted the screw holding the ground wire at the body cavity and unsoldered the wire going to the tremolo block at the volume pot. I also left the strings in place in the saddle, just holding them together with a bit of tape. Don't really know why, I wasn't going to use them again. An old habit I guess...
	Shielding with copper foil The fun begins. Used as long tape stripes as possible, the less joints the better. A long stripe of tape is applied from the neck pickup cavity all the way down to bridge. Starting at the neck pickup cavity, working my way from the bottom up I cut a long stripe of tape that fits all the way round the neck pickup cavity. Attaching it in so it folds about 3-4 mm to the bottom and the rest at the cavity wall. A couple of tape strips are cut to fit the bottom. Another long strip aligned at the body surface, making a large overlap of the first tape. To make the folded contact point against the pickguard I attach a long tape strip all the way round sticking up over the cavity about 5-6 mm. Finishing of by cutting the tape in the curves and fold it over to the body surface. The copper tape used has a conductive adhesive, just attach and rub the tape to a smooth surface. I use my fingers, my nails and a special tool to rub the tape. Which lead us to the next picture.
	The toolkit This is the tools used for the Highway One upgrade. Some fairly common tools; soldering station, Fluke multimeter, Philips no 1, Philips no 2, some pliers, a socket wrench for the pots, a scalpel... A pair of scissors made of surgical steel, it makes nice clean cuts when cutting the tape. But how about that special tool to rub tape with? Okay, it's the yellow thing just above the scissors. It is a Tupperware orange peeler, really good for tape rubbing! The smooth plastic gives no marks, you can actually rub quite hard. I use the back end of it, not the hook, to rub and to press the tape in to the corners.
	Sheilding almost done July 19 2006. Here a photo when almost done with the shielding. Just a couple of bits missing in the main cavity, and the jackplate cavity to go. The Graph Tech saddles have just arrived by mail; it's the little blue packet beside the pickup box.
	Sheilding of body finished A picture of the finished body shielding. The resistance measured by the far ends of the cavity measured 0,1 ohms. It needed some minor adjustment for the copper tape not sticking out from under the pickguard. I had to trim a little of the tape at the left side of the neck pickup cavity, and some tiny little by the lower tone control. I also attached a bit of thick, good quality, isolation tape at the upper part (in playing position) of the jack cavity. Just to make sure the plug does not short circuit as it might touch the wall...
	Pickguard sheilding A sheet of self-adhesive copper foil was applied to the back of the pickguard and cut in to shape by a scalpel.
	Ooops... To anxious soldering and testing I forgot to take pictures. Here a brief explanation of what I did: I had in mind doing a star grounding, because it is one of the best methods avoiding ground loops. Looking at the stock wiring I noticed that the wiring is almost a star grounding already. Just a few quick "snips" with a pair of pliers, some unsoldering and adding two wires, and that's it! The volume pot is already "the star", so to perfect the star grounding scheme I just have to remove the two wires connecting the three pot's with each other and soldering two wires to connect the tone controls earth directly to the volume pot. I also moved the tremolo ground wire from the volume pot to the cavity ground point. Being heavily shielded with copper foil to form a perfect Faraday cage, there is no need for extreme wiring solutions to go noiseless.
	Testing and assembling The Hot Noiseless pickups are deeper then the original pickups, to be able to mount the pickguard I had to dismount the neck. The fretboard "hangs over" the pickguard a bit getting in the way when mounting the pickguard. The HN pickups comes with tubes for the pickup screws, and the original pickups where mounted with tubing. I tried to use the tubes, but they did not seem to work so good, hard to adjust the pickups. I took some springs out of a couple of non working ball point pens, cut them to proper length, and used them instead of the tubing. The springs worked fine, easy to adjust the pup height and no sticking screws. Using a small metal object I tested the pickups with my amp before making the final assembly.
	GraphTech saddles and new strings For the final touch, the FerraGlides and a set of new strings was mounted. The tuning, setting the string height and intonation is fairly straightforward. With properly mounted strings it can be done in 15 minutes, and it didn't take much longer with these saddles, they are easy adjustable. When I plugged the guitar into my amp and turned it on I thought for myself; "Is it really on??". It was so quiet, not a sound or hum or anything but the strings. I had to hold the guitar very near the amp transformer for it to make at least some hum. I can now for the first time stand with my Fender in front of my two computer screens and near the fluorescent lamp without interference. The Hot Noiseless pickups do most of the job cutting the noise to an absolute minimum.
	Under the willow tree The customized Highway One in my backyard on July 19 2006. Just had to take it out for a nice shot by the tree...