i have a .1mFD wax tone cap in my strat that was pulled from a tube testing kit dated 1945! sounds great but got to thinking, should i put the black stripe on the incoming signal side or outgoing side? or does it matter?

Danger! Unexploded bomb!

Well, that's what it looks like...

Hi regnad: you can find info about the orientation of your type of cap on this page:

http://www.wjoe.com/capacitorinfo.htm

Nice work on the shielding, by the way. Did it help?

Cheers - C

good link, but it doesnt mention which way to install the cap! the guitar is very quiet. theres more detail in my shielding here:

http://www.fender.com/community/forums/ ... 974#191974

Er, well it does, though you have to use your deductive powers. Under the section "capacitors without polarity" it says:



In other words, in conjunction with what it says earlier on the page it seems that in your circuit it very likely doesn't matter which way around it goes. But if you want to be cautious act as if the end with the stripe is negative.

I stand to be corrected, but if your guitar is, as you say, very quiet then if after all it matters you likely have it installed the right way around...

Cheers - C

Shouldn't matter. It's a capacitor.

_________________
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It's just holding signal. While it has a .db value, it doens't apply to polarity. I usually went black out just to be consistent, but that was mainly just for me. Nice old cap btw. It's still tight, and not bleeding any signal?

Can I be very blunt about shielding? As it applies to the routed cavities, you may as well just paint or coat the inside with a shellack. DuPont makes one, and Sherwin Williams makes the best one I've tried. Stratocasters traditionally have not required any shielding, and when it's been done, it's almost always a psychosymatic effect on the user. The real bad boy is the Telecaster, especially some of the early to mid 50's ones, and in those cases, you dip the PU's, and re-intall them. I've certainly done several of those. Some of them and ones later as well were inherrently microphonic. My goodness, they sounded good though!

I've got a box full of those old paper caps! One of my other hobbies is rebuilding old tube radios. That being said, those old wax caps are known to dry out. Have you tested it on a capacitance meter to make sure the value is correct and more importantly, not shorted? When they dry out, they tend to "leak" voltage sometimes. Those types of caps were mainly used for filtering voltage.

When I'm restoring an old radio, I keep the old caps and dig out the guts and stuff an orange drop cap in the hull, then refill the paper hull with wax. That way it still looks original, but has a good cap in it.

You would probably be better off using a modern mylar cap than that paper one..... but it does look cool.

Here is a very good link on these type of caps: http://www.justradios.com/captips.html notice they advise to replace those paper caps right away. Of course they are saying that because typically these caps are carrying 400VDC through them in a radio circuit... your guitar wont be....

Keith

Phew, some people who actually know what they're talking about on this!

While we're about it: gentlemen, any views on the worth of bumble bee capacitors in guitars? Those things cost even more where I live than probably where you do. Could there be any real reason to fit those caps - do my old ears stand a chance of noticing the difference?

Cheers - C

PS I'm obviously not asking for your opinions on my ears...

Caps tend to drift value and dry out with age. I put a new high quality, American made cap in there. Old is not always better with electronic components.

Bumble Bee capacitors are nice sounding. You should notice a difference between them and stock ceramic, Mylar, or polypropylene based caps.
However, any PIO (Paper In Oil) cap sounds nicer in a guitar and very different from modern style caps.
The difference between different PIO caps is much more subtle, so any inexpensive PIO cap will get you the best bang for the buck.
I have a .033 Vitamin Q in my Strat and it sounds very nice.
One of the biggest advantages using a PIO cap is that it won’t get so muddy sounding when turned down.

-Eddie

Excellent, thank you Eddie. I have Vitamin Q caps in a couple of harnesses - though given the other variables I don't really know whether I'm getting benefit from them or not. They were installed from the start, not modded in.

Where I live Bumble Bees cost the same in UK pounds as the dollar prices I see on US websites. Which themselves are costly enough! It's a lot to spend on a tiny component - but I'd love to give it a try some day, of only for the sake of being completist...

Cheers - C